Were it not for a fall down some stairs this past Monday, this is the final homily I would have given at St Wenceslaus Church in New Prague. Fittingly, the readings are all about being called to be disciples of Jesus. My full-time job as an ordained deacon may be ending officially on June 30th, however, following Jesus as his disciple will never end, but will carry on to the end of my life. Here is the homily I will never give.
God calls each and one of us to discipleship. Are we ready to hear the call? Are we ready to commit ourselves in being disciples of Jesus? The readings for this weekend are blunt as to what is expected of us as disciples. We need to say goodbye to who we once were and open ourselves to change, evolving into someone we never have been.
In the first reading, God tells Elijah to anoint Elisha to succeed him as prophet. Elijah finds Elisha, the farmer, plowing his fields. Elisha accepts but wants to go home first and tell his family. He is sharply rebuked by Elisha. In a dramatic gesture, Elisha effectively erases all evidence of the life he once led. He slaughters the oxen pulling the plow. He breaks up the plow into firewood upon which he cooks the dead oxen, and then feeds the cooked meat to his people. Then follows Elijah as his attendant. (1 Kings 19: 16b, 19-21)
In the second reading, Paul makes similar demands of the Galatians. He tells them to abandon their former lives, and to accept the freedom that Christ has given them. They must first embrace and commit themselves to the commandment of Jesus to “love one another as yourself.” Paul uses an interesting metaphor to warn them as to what will happen if they do not commit themselves to Christ’s commandment to love. “If you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.” (Galatians 5:1, 13-18)
In the Gospel, Jesus is resolute about traveling to Jerusalem. A Samaritan town on the way would not put Jesus and the disciples up for the night. When asked by the apostles as to whether Jesus would call down fire and brimstone on the village, Jesus rebukes them. People come up to Jesus requesting to be his followers. However, they place conditions upon their discipleship, security for one, burying a dead parent, the other, another, to say goodbye to family. Jesus answers these requests saying, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” To be a disciple of Jesus, we must, like Elisha, erase the life we once led and fully commit ourselves to following Jesus.
If we are truly in relationship with Jesus, the effect of this relationship will alter our lives utterly. If we continue to look to our past; if we are reluctant to leave behind who we once were; if we are unwilling to evolve and change, then we cannot be disciples of Jesus. Our discipleship must be the highest value we hold in our lives, otherwise, we are not ready to be a disciple of Jesus.
To be a follower of Jesus is more than just a one time commitment. It is not enough to say, “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” once. We must make this commitment every day upon awakening. It is what the early Church called metanoia, a daily conversion, turning our lives over to Christ every day. We must be willing to change our values, how we are in relationship with others, how we are in relationship with our Church to be true disciples of Jesus.
It is no longer enough to just rotely say our prayers and follow Church rules. To be a disciple of Jesus requires to expand our understanding of discipleship. Jesus taught that he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. We must allow ourselves to grow prayerfully, and spiritually beyond the mere requirements and roles that the Church places upon us . We must always prayerfully discern as to what next level of discipleship we are called to by God. Our faith life cannot be frozen to just one stage of our lives.
What is true for us is also true for our institutional Church. There is movement within our own Catholic Church to forget Vatican II ever happened and return the Church to the past. There are those who believe if only we go back to “hearing Mass” in Latin, with the priest’s back turned to us, and have priests run around in old liturgical vestments, that somehow the Church will be “saved”. Jesus clearly stated that there is no putting new wine into old wine skins, for the new wine will split the old wine skins. Going back to the past will not fill our churches. On the contrary, our churches will empty out at even a faster pace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church is always in a state of evolution and change. There is no going back to what once was. As Jesus teaches today in the Gospel, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” As a Church, we cannot go back to what we once were. If we do then we are not fit for the kingdom of God and will fail.
As I look over my 42 years of ministry in the Church, I find that I am no longer the same person I was when I began ministry on August 31, 1977. I discovered that discipleship is not synonymous with complacency or comfort. Rather, discipleship often makes life uncertain, complicated, uncomfortable and requires sacrifice. When I was ordained a deacon by the Archbishop, not only did my life change, but the lives of Ruth and our kids. Every time I was reassigned to another church community my life was changed by the community I was serving. I was required to grow, required to sacrifice security, salary (over $20,000 in salary from 2004 to the present … thank God, Ruth is an RN), and change the values I once held as important. The one consistent in all that change was that of being surprised by God. God is a God of surprises. Sr Joan Chittester once defined God as “changing changelessness.” While God is may never change, my understanding of God is always changes. I am always in the state of being surprised. God may never change, but the disciple of God is always in the process of change.
Come July 1st, I will be entering a new stage in my life. My greatest discernment will be in what way will I continue to change and evolve as a deacon, a husband, a father, a grandfather. My life is not being arrested at this point of retirement. I am not done growing as a disciple of Jesus. I will continue to grow as a disciple, knowing full well that I will be saying goodbye to some of the roles and ministry I had while I was actively employed and continue to grow some roles and ministry way beyond that which I once did.
As I take my leave as your deacon, I would like to bestow upon you a blessing. I would like to do this in a song of blessing I composed back in 1979, when I was the music director of St Wenceslaus.
What a beautiful blessing. thank you for your generous service over all these years.