Faith

Discipleship ( part 2) Retreat to SVD seminarians, Pune

So then what does the portrait of a disciple look like? Jesus has described it clearly when he says it is COSTLY, it entails SUFFERING and is calls for COMMITMENT.  It is not a matter of faith in Jesus but faith with Jesus. If you can’t count the cost it is better that you not journey down this road for this road is a hard one. It is a road that the devil will strew  with power, money and lust making our journey as seminarians and priests a very hard one.

So the question I raised earlier, I ask again. Are we fans, followers or disciples? In Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus says you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.   What makes us distinctively Christian? What makes us distinctively disciples? The question that Jesus poses to us is  this, if we lose our Christian distinctiveness, if we lose our discipleship, how can we be made Christian disciples again?

The text is taken from the Sermon on the Mount and clearly in 5:1, the opening verse we are told that Jesus is talking to His disciples. At the end of the sermon He will address all but the Sermon on the Mount is specifically for His disciples and for us.  He will also in this text make a distinction between the world and the disciple. He is not saying that one is better than the other but rather that one is different from the other.

Jesus begins with two statements of fact. He does not say you should be the salt of the world or the light of the world he said YOU ARE. So he gives us identity before behaviour. We know who we are therefore we know what we should do. Being salt and light is identity; it is what is true of a disciple. So Jesus is saying the world is not the salt or the light but the disciple is.

Perhaps Jesus is also saying that the disciple then, as a consequence, salts the world. The world is decaying and is being corrupted and salt which was used as a preservative to stop things from decaying is now used of the disciple; he/she is to be the agent that stops corruption and decay in the world. Also Jesus says, “you are the light of the world”, so He is also imputing that the world is dark and by implication the disciple is the light that pervades the darkness.

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Faith

Checkmate- Saturday, 8th week in ordinary time – Mk 11:27-33

The prime movers of the plot to trap Jesus consist of the chief priests, scribes and the elders. It is these three sets of Jewish leaders who will appear again at the passion narrative as the accusers of Jesus at his trial.  This is the third time Jesus has entered the temple since his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He has cleansed the temple causing much anxiety among the Jewish rulers who fear Jesus because he has challenged their authority in the presence of the people but were helpless as the “whole crowd was spellbound by His teaching.” (11:18)

So the Jewish authorities decided to trap Him. The trap is set around His claim to authority; did it come from God or does He claim it of himself? If he admitted publically to such authority then the charge of blasphemy could be made against Jesus.  Jesus sees the trap and chooses not to walk into it. He simply asks a counter question which threw the ball right back into the court of the Jewish leaders. “Did the Baptism of John the Baptist come from heaven or from human origin?”

There were many followers of John at that time, that held that John the Baptist was a prophet from God. For the Jewish authorities to deny that such a holy man came from God would be suicidal for the people would turn against them. If they admitted that it did come from heaven then Jesus would simply ask them what their problem with his authority coming from God was and why they did not welcome Jesus?

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Discipleship in the shadow of the cross

We want to look at the portrait of a disciple. Is he a fan or a follower, is he faithful or fascinated?

Please read Luke 14: 25-33. Let us locate this text a bit. Jesus is in the home of a Pharisee who is a leader in the community (14:1). He is heading to Jerusalem; the cross is before him. The crowds think that Jesus is heading to an Empire. That is why discipleship must and can only be seen in the light of the cross.

It is the Sabbath and they wanted to trap Jesus and He heals a man with dropsy. The Lord is predictable in his compassion for others and the Pharisees knew that he would heal the man.

In 14:25 we are told that large crowds are following him and so his address on discipleship is to thousands and by extension to us.  They were impressed with His miracle for others He sounded like a revolutionary leader. Some liked Him for His story telling abilities or the way He tackled His opponents. Others like Him for the fact that He fed them or for his style of preaching. So in His life Jesus attracted many fans; the question is did they become followers and even more disciples?

In our culture we want to see multitudes in our Church programmes. Jesus Christ does not use gimmicks for people to come He challenged people. He did not use the methodology of the world to draw people to Himself. In this context what He does next is mindboggling. Most of us would be delighted to have large crowds following us. Jesus thins the crowd. He is not giddy with popularity for he knows that not everyone who is with Him is there for the right reason. So he places the challenge of discipleship before them because not everyone who follows Jesus is a disciple. Jesus wants people who are faithful to him and not fascinated by him. As a professor once said, “Not everyone who attends my lectures is my student”.

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High drama in the temple- Friday, 8th Week in ordinary time – Mk 11:11-26

Sandwiched between the triumphant entry into Jerusalem (chapter 11) and the last supper, (chapter 14) the passages of chapter 12 and 13 contain the last of Jesus’ interactions before His passion and death. The stage is the temple of Jerusalem, the protagonist is Jesus and the villains are played by the Jewish authorities. Up to the second week of June we will continue with reading from this section and then switch to the Gospel of Matthew.

After Jesus enters Jerusalem and the temple (11:11) He makes his way to the village of Bethany; where Martha and Mary lived. We are told that the next day (Monday of Holy Week) he heads back to the temple. The text of today encompasses the narratives spanning two days; Monday and Tuesday of Holy week. On Monday he curses the fig tree and cleanses the temple after which He departs from the city. On Tuesday he passes the fig tree on his way back to the temple of Jerusalem.

It is the third day of Passion Week which will feature sayings controversies, parables and an eschatological discourse of Jesus. The game plan of the Jewish leaders, seen in the readings of this week and next, is the same. Get Jesus by hook or by crook even if one has to play ‘good cop and bad cop’. That is exactly what they did. First they sent in the big guns (11:27) the chief priests, scribes and the elders. When that failed, they sent to Him the legal eagles in the guise of the Pharisees and Herodians (12:13), who ironically could never get along for they hated each other.

Then came the Sadducees, keepers of the law (12:18) who were sent scurrying to their legal holes with the words of Jesus, “is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures not the power of God?” Finally a scribe, (12:28) who saw goodness in Jesus’ answers, but in praising him Jesus also attacks his fraternity.

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What’s happening in your heart is what’s happening in your prayer- Prayer ( Part 3) Retreat talk to SVD brothers in Pune

So what do I do when I cannot pray?

To help us pray Jesus gave us another advocate. In John 14:15 he says “I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate. The word for another used in this context for ‘another’ is allos not heteros. Allos means another of the same kind unlike heteros which means another of a different kind. The Holy Spirit is of the ‘same kind’ as Jesus.

Jesus is the advocate and now at Pentecost he gives us ‘another’ advocate. The very word advocate – parakletos means one who is called to be besides us. The Holy Spirit is our helper and our advocate given to us by Jesus. On the day of Ascension, Jesus took his seat at the right hand of the father. He is no longer visible to us. But because Jesus is no longer visible to us it does not mean he is not present to us. Just because we don’t see Jesus physically it does not mean he is not present spiritually. He has given us the Holy Spirit (another advocate) to be with us.  Prayer is the gap that removes that distance. Romans 8:26-27 tells us that the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we know not how to pray.

Finally prayer is not opposed to good work (Luke 10:38-42)

The two must go hand in hand. We need to have a Mary’s heart in a Martha’s world . The question really is one of ordering priorities. Whose feet are you willing to sit at? Most of the time when you ask people for their time they say they are sooooo busy. This is a universal response. The question is what are you so busy with? Sometimes it’s just that we are bad with organizing our lives.

If you look at the Gospel pericope (meaning a slice of) , Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. The parable before this is that of the Good Samaritan. We are told that Martha and Mary welcomed Jesus into their home. The disciples of Jesus are there too and perhaps there were more than just twelve.  Mary sits with Jesus and Martha is in the kitchen for there are many mouths to feed and no fast food outlet to order from.  

The question that crosses most of our minds is which one is a priority? Sit with Jesus or serve Jesus? Each one of us has different priorities. Should we experience the presence of Jesus or should I perform for Jesus. Mary chose to experience Jesus and Martha chose to perform for him but make no mistake both loved him.

So let’s look at Martha in Luke 10:38; we are told that she welcomes Jesus into her home. She knows Jesus; he is not new to her. Then she goes to the kitchen to cook for she must have been a star at hospitality. So we can see that Martha is a doer and not a sitter. In a while Martha begins to realise that no one is helping her and Mary is sitting out with Jesus. This is when the problem begins.

Martha begins to get ‘distracted’ (verse 40). She is frustrated with all the work that she is doing. She is working for Jesus but getting angry because no (Christians, my modern day interpretation) one is helping her. So she lashes out at Jesus (like we do) and says. “do you not care?” Really Martha, did you seriously ask Jesus that question?

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