The 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, September 4, 2022

Luke 14, 25–33

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “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. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, etc.”  The Lord Jesus speaks hard words here.  He makes demands that only God could make and be taken seriously.  What he demands runs completely contrary to human nature.  Because of this, we must read them in conjunction with other words of his: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14, 6).  And also, “No man can come to me, except the Father, who has sent me, draw him” (John 6, 44).  Here we have the motive for following Jesus: to go to the Father; and the means: the Father draws the one who would follow him.  And this is what the disciple find when he comes to Jesus: “Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: And you shall find rest to your souls” (Matthew 11, 29).  Even so, we must wonder anxiously about “hating” our parents, spouses, and children.  But the Lord uses a figure of speech here.  For instance, a few centuries before the Israelites left Egypt, the Pharaoh sent a number of letters to his vassal kings in the land of Canaan.  Archaeologists call these “the Amarna Letters”. In them, the Pharaoh accused these kings of “hating” and not “loving” him: he is speaking not of affection but of obedience.  Thus, the Lord is saying that all of our relationships must be subordinated to our relationship with him.  God must come first, always.  And when we subordinate all things to God, we can love our parents, spouses, and children better.

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  This is the “yoke” of which the Lord speaks, and while a thing of terror to the heathen, it is the great sign of the Lord’s love for us who believe in him.  We take it on not independently of him but with him, and by his grace.  It is the sufferings we incur through our following of the Lord, and sufferings we incur in life which threaten to impede our following of him.  The first kind of suffering can be external, as in wounds inflicted by persecutors; the second kind can be internal, such as illnesses.  Whatever their nature, we bear them as a small share in his sufferings as he carried his Cross to Golgotha.

“Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?”  The Lord speaks ingeniously here of our need to give ourselves completely over to our efforts to imitate his life and to carry out the will of the Father.  If we hold anything back — if we try to serve another master as well — we will fail miserably.  We must reject evil habits, wicked tendencies, bad companions, and whatever else would distract us.  “Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?”  Along with rejecting impediments, we must develop our virtues and grow in our faith.  We do this through performing good works and through prayer, which we can assist through study of the Scriptures and the lives of the saints.  

“In the same way, anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”  The word here translated as “renounce” means to “take leave of” or “to send away”.   We must not forget that we are the slaves  of God just as the .son made himself our slave in order to save us from our sins.  Slaves see all the things in the master’s house as the master’s property.  We may use them but only as he directs, and never for our own purposes.  Whatever God in his mercy has given to us, we use for him, for his glory.  We may enjoy its use, but only as we use it for him.  

The Lord makes great demands upon those who would follow him through the narrow way that leads to life.  He is directing our formation into saints.  This formation is more severe than any boot camp that made civilians into soldiers or than any seminary that made men into priests.  But the rewards are far beyond our ability to imagine them: to experience the infinite torrent of God’s love for us forever.