September 6, 2007
Cross
Pentecost 15/18C (Lk 14.25-33)
The historian Barbara Tuchman once defined war as the unfolding of miscalculations. It seems to me a definition that’s not lost much if any of its purchase.
It is likely that she had in mind the kind of war that had nations at each other’s throats hoping that the winner will be better off. Or maybe, at least, that the other fellow will be worse off, or maybe then settling for the satisfaction that he’s certainly not any better off, and finally, surrendering to the great surprise that whaddya know? Everybody’s worse off.
We’re in a war that’s not just wandering down that path, but charging. We were told at the outset not to worry, just to go shopping, that evil’s not going to be all that hard to whip. Then we were told just to go relax, it was over. And you know the rest. Ms Tuchman was right. We’ve kept on keeping on, one miscalculation after another.
Jesus warned us about something like this when he talked about discipleship and taking up one’s cross. He had some hard words for this supposed vocation. At the least it meant that whatever has been of great value to you — family, nation, health, job, life — forget it, even despise it in the doing. In other words, reach inside yourself and turn it all wrong side out. Then, you’ve taken the first step. Next, there’s that cross. Choose one. It will show the way.
The language of cross-bearing is corrupt to the core. Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness or trying family relations. Rather is it what we do as a consequence of commitment to Jesus. Not to a creed or a catechism, but to a person and to his way, his truth, and his life. It’s not even the popular and faddish, “What would Jesus do.” It is rather the totally commanding commitment to “What would Jesus be.”
The church nowadays talks a lot about discipleship, about “planting” churches to “make disciples” as if we’re taking on some sort of celestial gardening project. The church doesn’t talk much about taking up a cross, unless it’s one of those designer models in the parish book store. For if it does, if it makes that sacrifice and priority altogether clear, its Rotary Clubish prudential ethic days are over. Rather more often is the church steady into one miscalculation after another.
These hard verses in this gospel do not say that one cannot become a disciple, but that one cannot be a disciple apart from complete commitment to following Jesus. It’s not a part-time job. The call to be a disciple is all-consuming. It’s no wonder to me there are so few of us around.
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