Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
At the time, this was pretty much the scariest moment of my life. I am not talking about some near death experience or the first time that I had to preach or celebrate Mass. No I am talking about something much scarier. I’m talking about that first time that I tried to ride a bicycle without the training wheels on. Laugh if you like, but I’m telling you I’m quite sure I saw my life, as short as it was at that time, flash before my very eyes.
All joking aside, I don’t actually remember many details of when I was learning to ride without the training wheels, so it really couldn’t have been all that traumatic. However, I do remember that I was nervous about trying this for the first time. That was because I had gotten very used to those training wheels and was comfortable with them. The thought of having to do something new and different, namely balancing without the help of those simple contraptions, was very scary to me. I didn’t like the idea of having to let go of what was so familiar and comfortable to me. Eventually, however, I had to let go, or I never would have learned to ride on my own.
We all, I believe, have times in our lives when we are being asked to grow in some way or being asked to change something in our lives, but it's difficult to do because we are comfortable with what we are doing or where we are in our lives. We may even recognize that making that change may be in our best interest, but we are simply too afraid to do it. There are several examples that we can use to help illustrate this point. Maybe it is the beginning, or perhaps the ending, of a relationship with someone we care about. It could be a change at work: the offering of a new position; the taking on of more responsibilities; a change in who does what at the office; a change in leadership or management. I have met a lot of people lately who have moved recently or are in the process of it. The packing, sorting, getting rid of unwanted things, finding a new place to live, finding someone to take the old place, and getting to know the new neighborhood or town can be very difficult for people. Life as a student can be relevant to this as well: starting a new school year; switching to a new school; taking on a leadership role with a school organization. For some people these things might not be that hard, for others these can be the hardest things to have to accept.
It is also important that we take into consideration our relationship with God. How might God be asking us to dive deeper into our relationship with Him? It is easy to convince ourselves that we are already in a good relationship with God and that we don't need to do anything different. I go to Mass on Sundays; I say grace at meals and say my prayers before I go to bed at night. I do everything a good Catholic should do. What more could I possibly be doing? The truth is, even though God may be very happy and pleased with how far we have already grown, He is always calling us to a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him. It wouldn't be all that hard to grow in our relationship except that we get comfortable where we are already at, much the same as when we get comfortable with other aspects of our lives, and we are unwilling to enter into that unfamiliar realm.
Our first reading and our Gospel today speak to us about how we are called to grow deeper in our relationship with God. In order to do that, however, we must let go of our old way of life here on Earth. We will have to step out of our comfort zone and into a life that may seem strange and unusual to us. But we need to remember that God is with us.
Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom asks, who can know or understand God? The author explains to us, however, that it is impossible for a human to fully understand God. We humans can barely understand how things work on Earth, we are told. Even today in the 21st century, scientists are still trying to figure out why gravity works and why it is that electrons and neutrons do what they do. If it so hard to understand that, the author wonders, how can the human soul hope to understand what is in Heaven? In other words God is mysterious. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, the reading continues, we can hope to gain some wisdom and insight. We are told that through the Holy Spirit, “thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.” The grace of the Holy Spirit makes it possible.
So God is able to help us, but we still need to do a little something ourselves. If we are stuck in doing the things we are comfortable doing; if our focus is on being the best and the brightest or of having the best gadgets and the most stuff and being comfortable; if we make no effort at changing and simply resign ourselves to staying just the way we are, then no amount of grace is going to break us free of that.
Jesus seems to be directing us along those lines in the Gospel today as he tells us to hate father and mother, wife and children, and our own life. You don't need me here to tell you that Jesus is not actually telling us to literally hate our family. He told us to love our neighbor, so He certainly meant for us to love family as well. Jesus is telling us to let go of those earthly things that make it difficult to focus on God. Sometimes our concern for pleasing our family or those around us can make it very difficult to pay attention to what God is calling us to. Maybe we're afraid of changing our life, whether it means taking on harder things or taking on something completely unfamiliar to us. Maybe we're afraid to get closer to God because we are afraid of what He might ask us to do. As frightening as it sounds, I think we need to be prepared for hardships in this matter. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Life as a disciple is hard. Letting go of things in our life that we are comfortable with is hard. Having to choose God over the various pleasures of life on Earth is hard, but remember that we are not alone. God is with us, and He will make it possible. It is well worth it.
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