Do You Hear Him Calling?

 

Deacon Dave · Do You Hear Him Calling?

Homily for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2022. Gospel of St. Luke 9:51-62. Theme: Do You Hear Him Calling? 

In the Gospel we just heard Jesus asking 3 people if they want the opportunity to be his disciples and follow his way. He invites them into a deeper relationship with him but they each set down a condition or make an excuse as to why they must hesitate or even say no to his call. 

The first would-be disciple cried out to Jesus with exuberance saying, “I will follow you wherever you go!” He was basing his potential discipleship upon superficial emotions and reacting to how excited Jesus made him feel. Perhaps he got caught up in the spirit of the crowd and was swept away by the enthusiasm that often surrounded Christ. But in any case, once he realized what Jesus was asking of him and that a deeper relationship with Christ would require sacrifice on his part, his enthusiasm waned and he fell silent. 

This dynamic is really pretty similar to any significant meaningful relationship in our lives, isn’t it? At first we are “head over heels” crazy about the other person and enjoy the way we feel when we are with them. But our love-commitment really proves itself in how we handle the ordinary ups and downs of life together. And as they say, trials can either make or break a relationship. Some draw closer to one another when difficulty arises, while others simply get up and walk away. No relationship based primarily on emotions, on how the other person makes me feel, is able to survive, thrive and grow. 

And the same is true with our following of Jesus. Our relationship with him will have joys as well as sorrows, times of consolation along with struggles of desolation. The Gospel message itself will fill us with hope and encouragement on some occasions, but it will also convict us of sin and call us to repentance at other times. Like Jesus we are going to experience joy and of glory, but also rejection and the cross. Will these things make or break our discipleship commitment? Will we draw close to Jesus when what he asks requires sacrifice or will we simply get up and walk away? 

In the life of every disciple there comes a critical moment when the Lord speaks to each one of us personally and individually. It’s a call tailored to who we are and what we are capable of doing. No one can tell you what this call will sound like or look like, except the Lord who will let you know in the deepest recesses of your heart. But when we do indeed hear that call, we have to be careful to not respond like the three would-be disciples in today’s Gospel. 

The first one asked to follow Jesus, but fell silent when he was told that as a traveling disciple he would have no place to lay his head. He did not want to give up the comfort and security he had in his life to venture out into something different. We can learn from him to not let fear of the unknown hold us back from responding to the call of Jesus. 

The second wanted to bury his father first. That was actually an ancient Middle-Eastern way of saying that he first wanted to inherit the family property and then he would be financially set to follow Jesus. His excuse teaches us to focus instead on the treasure that we store up for ourselves in Heaven by living as faithful disciples of Jesus. 

The third would-be disciple wanted to say goodbye to his family and loved ones first. This doesn’t sound unreasonable and Elijah even allowed Elisha to do this in our first reading. But Jesus is greater than Elijah and the call to follow him is of much more eternal importance. Jesus is reminding us that we must love him more than our family or friends. And that sometimes a Christian is indeed required to make that kind of a judgment call. 

Today’s liturgy is asking us how passionately, how seriously are we willing to follow Christ? It’s inviting us to examine and evaluate our own discipleship and discern if we truly want to follow the pathway of Jesus, to draw closer to Jesus, to become more like Jesus. It’s asking us to consider what we are willing to do or to give up so that our response to the Lord will be more honest and thorough? We just need to keep in mind that if we do not respond when he calls, we run the risk of never responding at all and of missing out on the greatest relationship, the greatest experience in life that we could have. And most of all, of missing out on living and reigning with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven.