“…whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:9B-10
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. Luke 14:26-27
Piety
Mary, woman of courage, be with us as we try to follow this challenge presented by your son – a God-man who loved you until eternity and never hated anything with a hair on his head.
Study
Jesus was not a very good marketeer! In this age of appealing to our social and economic instincts, Jesus is not promising a rose garden. He is offering just the thorn. Then again, there is an expression, “The oak nut falls not far from the Quercus coccinea (The acorn doesn’t fall far from the oak tree).” God the Father was not much in the way of award-winning marketing messages, either. Remember these lines from the Old Testament?
“Noah, I want you to build an ark!”
“Abraham, kill your only son and sacrifice him to me.”
“Sarah, I want you to deliver a baby at age ninety.”
You get the picture. Yes. These are way-out-in-left-field commandments to follow when we are asked to give ourselves over to the way of God. That picture does not get any easier when we move out of the Hebrew Bible and into the New Testament. There, we confront the choice of a teenage bride in Nazareth. “Mary, have My Son.”
God’s Annunciation to us is right there in today’s Gospel: "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.”
Yikes. How about just turning back to the page about building the boat? That ark is starting to sound more appealing than ever!
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| The Annunciation: A Model of Courage |
Take heart. There is a model of this humble and obedient behavior for us. As Sr. Joan Chittister writes in a meditation about the rosary, we can turn to Mary of the Annunciation:
“Turn to the young woman who knew that if she listened to the unconventional call of God to accept an unexpected, unexplainable child, she stood to lose it all – her honor in the community, her future security, her marriage. The neighbors would talk about her. No man would marry her. She would be a barnacle on the human community, ostracized, unwanted, unkept, a woman without an honorable future.
“But because, brought up on the psalms, she had meditated on the law of God all her life, Mary took the step for others. She trusted that God’s will was more to be followed than her own. Whatever the cost. Mary of the Annunciation is a model for the kind of courage it takes to follow the call of God in life.”[i]
Action
The crowds in ancient Palestine were probably even LESS enamored of this command than we are. They were already dirt poor. What else could they give up? We, on the other hand, have many blessings. We are two weeks from Thanksgiving and a series of religious and civil high holy days that bring together our functional (or dysfunctional) families for dinner, gift exchanges, football or parade watching and more. Instead of these happy times, pick up your electric chair or lethal injection gurney and follow Jesus.
Just remember, when you carry your own cross, you’ll likely encounter Veronica or Simon of Cyrene along the way to help you.
Remember today’s response from Psalm 112: Blessed the one who is gracious and lends to those in need. Maybe your action can be to start picking up that cross by planning some charitable actions – giving, volunteering and offering to help others.
[i] “In Pursuit of Peace: Praying the Rosary Through the Psalms” by Joan D. Chittister, OSB. Erie, Pennsylvania. 1992. Pax Christi USA.
Image credit: From the above pamphlet, by Mary Southard, CSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph of LaGrange, Illinois. Mary's work can be seen at http://www.marysouthardart.org/
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