Word to the Wise
Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - 31st Wednesday in Ordinary Time
[Philippians 2:12-18 and Luke 14:25-33]If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
It seems like common sense but a very harsh common sense to speak as Jesus does about "the cost of discipleship." The "hating" is a Semitic way of describing, as one scholar puts it, total detachment. To a community that was possibly under persecution when the Gospel of Luke was put into writing, the cost may have seemed too high. On the other hand, for those idealistic enough to try, the gospel warns them to prepare carefully, otherwise they'll fall by the wayside and lose the honor that might have come from accomplishing a great task. Loss of face is a serious blow in Middle-Eastern and Oriental social life. The difficulty for our own Western ways of looking at it is not so much fear of failure as it is fear of commitment! Jesus is not into "designer" or "multi-option" discipleship! Some of this can be seen in the inability of many to sustain a commitment like marriage or religious life in our day. The idea of a long term effort at one thing is hard to contemplate. Jesus' advice is not to make the commitment if we're not willing to prepare and to accept the sacrfices required. AMEN
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