Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Sunday July 1, 2007

Hour of Decision

Toward the end of his weekly televised service, ‘Hour of Decision,’ Billy Graham always challenged the members of his large ‘stadium congregation’ to make a “decision to accept Christ as their personal savior.” To demonstrate that commitment they were invited to process from their seats on to the field in front of a large platform from which Billy reviewed the crowd with a very joyful countenance as the choir sang “Just as I am…”

Billy’s sermons were always exuberant, moving many a “sinner,” including me, to personal conversion.

Despite the power of Billy’s words and the strength of his message, there was still something missing. In his call to conversion and personal discipleship there was little or no mention of the communal dimension, that is, the essential connection between Christian discipleship and Christian service.

The Scriptures this weekend call us to a personal decision to ‘leave’ everything to follow Christ. However they also make an important link between Christian discipleship and love of neighbor.

When Elijah placed his cloak over Elisha as a sign of investiture and the designation of a successor, he expected a decision. Elisha’s willingness to accept the responsibility of being God’s prophet required a clean break with his past. This is illustrated by kissing his mother and father farewell. Then slaughtering his oxen, he threw a big party, left everything and followed Elijah as his servant. In essence he gave himself totally to God as a ‘son’ and servant of God’s word.

In his gospel narrative, Luke dramatizes the invitation of Jesus to his disciples to “leave everything” and follow him ‘to Jerusalem’ — unconditionally. Luke is exaggerating the mandate of Jesus to make the point that God’s dominion must enjoy a priority in the lives of his followers. In other words, don’t wait until you have fulfilled all your family obligations. Do it as you fulfill all your family obligations. They are part of your commitment to Christian discipleship.

Notice, too, that Jesus scolds his disciples for cursing the Samaritans. True disciples are not combative; they don’t throw stones at their ‘enemies,’ they and don’t call them names.

Paul urges the Galatians to abandon worldly pursuits and take the road less traveled on which, ironically, they will find true freedom and inner peace. To live in the Spirit is to live in the freedom of the children of God. In the final analysis, there is no law higher than God’s law. You shall love the Lord with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Even church law does not take precedence over God’s law!

Discipleship is about abandonment and as one commentator put it, taking the risk to purchase a ‘one way ticket’. In a real sense we do indeed need to burn our bridges behind us and move forward without any baggage.

Protestant author of Habits of the Heart, Robert Bullah, insists that worship is not only about the praise of God and personal salvation but also about our connectedness to all of humanity. If we are to take the word of God seriously, then we must become “stewards” or servants of God’s Word. If we are to become stewards of the Word, then we must obey the commission issued at the conclusion of every celebration of the Eucharist, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” and your neighbor.

The Mass is never ended. It is an invitation to go out and put into practice all that we have celebrated at these two tables—the table of God’s Word and the table of Eucharist. The call to discipleship is not a call to withdraw from the public square. This doesn’t mean we tell other people how to live or how to vote but it does mean we live our values “using words as necessary.”

We are living in times when confidence in church leadership and trust in government is at an all-time low. We need to retrieve our Catholic identity not by edict but by moving beyond private piety and triumphant medieval symbols of honor and status to the centrality of the living Word through the celebration of this Eucharist. It is at the core of who we are as the Body of Christ.

We need to become a Church without boundaries and without walls but we need to keep our tables connected, this table, your table and the table of humanity. We are bonded in Eucharist; we are bonded in Christ.

Our decision for Christ means reaching to those who feel alienated from God and those who are estranged from the Church. As often as I have heard criticism of the Church in recent years—much of it valid—I have heard many more say they want to get back into the Church; not the Church that binds its members with rigid rules and regulations but into the Church that breaks open the bread of God’s word authentically and joyfully. A church that feeds its people with living food and frees its members—all of its members, women and men, to be all of what God has destined them to be.

Now more than ever the Church needs strong Christian women and men who know the tradition and who live it with integrity and moral rectitude; humble men and women who are not deterred by their own frailty and mortality; courageous women and men who will hold our leaders unabashedly accountable for their mission and ministry to the Church and to the world.

The language of the Mass—English, Latin, Greek or whatever—is not important as long as these ancient rites enable us to hear and understand the Word of God more clearly and give glory to God through faithful service to neighbor. It is true, we have lost a sense of appreciation for the ‘sacred’ but words about reverence for God and respect for the sacred are empty unless all of us including those in high places humbly acknowledge our frailty and mortality, submit humbly to our ‘higher’ power and acknowledge the power of the Spirit living within the assembly of the faithful.

In the words of the great Catherine of Siena, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire!”

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could… then took the other… I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” [From You Come Too, Favorite Poems by Robert Frost, Scholastic, Inc., New Yorki, NY, 1975 as quoted by Pat Sanchez, Preaching Resources, NCR Publications, Kansas City, Mo., 2007.

Sisters and brothers, let’s take the high road with Jesus to Jerusalem and stay the course until we have reached the Promised Land.

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