For the times we have failed to renounce material things, places, and people for the sake of your mission, Lord, have mercy...
Having renounced, for the times we have grumbled while doing your mission, Christ, have mercy...
For the times we have failed to realize the difference between possessing things and giving them up for your mission, Christ, have mercy...
Losing in Him We Find Ourselves...
There was a story of a disciple who wanted to renounce the world so much but found it difficult to do so because his family loved him too much to let him go.
So, upon confessing this to his spiritual master, his spiritual guru comes up with what is known as a yogic secret.
That is, he teaches his disciple to stimulate ‘the state of death’. And when one is in the state of death as in the case of coma, he or she appears dead outwardly…
So, the disciple does as he was trained and the entire household turns into a funeral with cries and wailing in the family.
The guru then showed up and tells the weeping family that he had the power to bring the man back to life if someone could be found to die in his place.
And there, to the astonishment of the one who is apparently dead, every member of the family from the eldest to the youngest starts giving reasons to say why it was necessary to save his or her life.
And finally, it is his wife who sums up the sentiments of all saying, “Master, there’s really no need for anyone to take his place. We’ll manage without him”.
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The gospel text of today is taken from chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew which is also known as the Mission Discourse.
In these 42 verses of chapter 10 of Saint Matthew, we find that Jesus chooses his disciples, names them one by one, and then he sends them on a mission.
While this mission that Jesus gives them is both spiritual and practical (contemplative and apostolic), the instruction that Jesus gives them when missioning them gives us an idea of the means through which Jesus wants the disciples to fulfill his mission. And it could be said in a word as ‘renunciation’.
And accordingly, the disciples are called to be detached in three ways: Firstly, it is the detachment from material things, as Jesus says do not take any bag, or money, or a staff, or extra pair of sandals. Secondly, it is the detachment from places as Jesus’ instructions enable them not to choose where to go and where not to do. The disciples are supposed to go to places they liked as well as they did not like; where they were accepted as well as where they were rejected. Finally, it is the detachment from persons, and Jesus says, as we find it in the Gospel text of today, whoever loves his father or mother or son or daughter (spouse or anybody else) more than Jesus himself does not fit to be his disciple.
This means that discipleship is a difficult one because one has to choose between family and mission, or between one’s liking and mission, or between one’s loyalty to self or anyone or anything and loyalty to Jesus.
In other words, while it is true that we need to be fed, we need to be clothed, and we need to rest and relax, what Jesus wants us is to acknowledge that it is not primary. Instead, what is primary for a disciple is fidelity and legion to the Lord and to live in the province of God.
It is in this renunciation that a disciple receives his/her authority. This authority that a disciple, that the one who is sent receives is the same authority of the sender himself, the authority of Jesus himself who send them. And that is why Jesus says that anyone who welcomes you welcomes me and anyone who rejects you rejects the one who sent me; that is why Jesus says, whatever you bind on earth is considered bound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth is considered loosed in heaven.
As Christians, as followers of Christ, as disciples of Jesus, we must keep in mind that the only Christ that people can see and touch today is the Christ that we make known to the world through our own words and actions as disciples and followers of Christ.
In other words, by the way I live, by the way I work, by the way I work, walk, talk, and carry my being, people should be able to ask “Who are you that you say and do these things, and that you do them in this way?”
While this is not an easy task, being a part of Jesus’ mission as Christians and followers of Christ provides us with an enormous privilege and tremendous responsibility.
As Elisha whom we find in the first reading today, such responsibility and such privilege demands that we be generous and magnanimous in our response to Christ, in our total giving as well as giving up for Christ, by withholding nothing and expecting absolutely nothing in return.
What is your degree of discipleship today? What is that thing, place, or person that withholds you from responding totally to the mission of Christ?
What do you do about it today? How renounced can you be to receive the authority of Christ himself?
How carefully and responsibly do you practice your authority in life, work, your relationship with one another (your source, children, parents, in-laws, with neighbors), and with nature today, so that whatever you bind on earth is considered bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is considered loosed in heaven?
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