Commitment to the Team
At the first gathering of the high school football team the coach gathered the squad around and said, “Now if you are not willing to live, eat, sleep and breathe football for the next season day and night, you may as well go home. I’m not interested in having you on the team.” One would not want to take the coach literally would one? After all we cannot actually eat football. We cannot breathe football, even though some have tried. This is hyperbole; it is a well-known rhetorical device or a use of language to state something on a very extreme way to make a point. [1]
In today’s gospel we hear Semitic hyperbole from Jesus which was very common in that time among Rabbis Jesus does not literally want us to hate our mother, brother, sisters; or to leave everything to follow him, nor does he want us to denounce everything to be his disciples. We want to be careful not to actually take that text literally, because it would be countered to Jesus primary commandment that is to love everyone as he loved us. We cannot love and hate at the same time. We need to understand what Jesus is really trying to say. Even though he is using hyperbole to get his point across he is really saying if we want to be a disciple then we need to be really, really, really serious about it; then we must know that it is going to take commitment. Just like the coach trying to inspire the young football, we got to have full commitment for the team. Jesus is saying the same to his disciples and any would-be disciples in the crowd and the same to us who are his claimed disciples. As Christians we must be very serious about the commitment to discipleship and we must know that there is a cost to discipleship. We know if we are committed as disciples then there are going to be tough choices to make.
The struggle we have in today’s two stories that Jesus gives as examples of this commitment sounds more like a contract where one can calculate the entire cost ahead of time. Again the context of this scriptural passage leads us to understand that Jesus was trying to get the people to commit to discipleship. Discipleship is more like a love story and the commitment is to that loving enterprise. Our commitment is to love at all times and there is definitely a cost attached to that project of life. Sometimes it requires incredible sacrifice and at other times it is a natural flowing from our hearts to whoever it is that is in need.
Let me give you an example: there are many of you here who have been married for years. Over those years you have had plenty of opportunity to love one another. Some of those days have been wonderful and easy and the love flows from your heart just like water from a tap. But there are other days where it has been really, really hard work; where you have had to sacrifice of your very self for the good of the other. When they were sick and desperately needed your love and attention. When they lost that job and lost all confidence in themselves and you were the only one who chose to still believe in them. You continued to love them when they desperately needed it. Or your child when they come home from a tough day at school, broken by bullying or something that a teacher misspoke that hurt deeply to the core; you gave yourself to that child and dropped everything. Or you reached out somebody who was desperately in need in the community or at the office.
Each one of these are just mere examples of this love story, we cannot know all of the commitment that is going to be involved in this love story. There are going to be times when it requires incredible strength to love and there are other times when it is going to be easy. But the difference is the commitment to love at all times. No matter what comes, Christ asks us to have that steadfast commitment to love. That is discipleship; it is a commitment that we make at our Baptism, and we renew every single time we come to the table. We come back to need the strength from one another as well as from Christ himself in the bread and wine. We renew ourselves and thank God for the gift he has given us; to work this out in our own life. But then we must do it when we leave here. We must work that out and love that person we find the hardest person to love. This week may we choose to love, to pray for, to forgive, to humbly serve. That is our commitment, not only as individuals, but also as a community. Our commitment is to love one another and that is being a disciple of Christ.
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[1] Jim Auer, “Celebration: An Ecumenical Worship Resource,” (Kansas City, Missouri: National Catholic Reporter Company, Inc., September 5, 2010).
