If you found today’s
readings a bit unsettling, it means you were paying attention!
The readings were unsettling because they were all about leaving
home and that can be unsettling. I’m not talking about
literally leaving home -- going off to college or moving out of the
family home to be on your own, or across the country to take a new
job. That kind of leaving home can be exciting. No, it’s the
metaphorical leaving home that’s difficult and unsettling: the
leaving home that happens whenever we take a step beyond our comfort
zone and risk something new. In that sense, we leave home when we
choose to put an end to an unhealthy relationship, or to heal an old
rift, or when we resolve to get serious about our faith, or decide
to marry, or to start a family, or -- you fill in the blanks. If the
truth be told, our lives are full of stories about leaving home.
So are the
scriptures. Think of Abraham and Sarah leaving all and
journeying far; of Moses accepting a call he didn’t want and felt
ill-suited for; of Jeremiah, convinced he was too young to speak for
God; of the young Mary giving her unhesitating “yes” to the angel;
of the apostles leaving behind nets, boats, families, and
livelihood.
Each of those left
home to do something daunting and difficult. So did the young
Elisha in today’s reading from the Book of Kings -- yet one more
story about leaving home. The great prophet Elijah had found –
in Elisha, a young farmer and near-namesake - a worthy successor,
someone to take on his prophetic mantle. As a little aside, it’s
worth noting that Elisha had a lot to lose by following Elijah. He
was comfortable and well-to-do – that’s quite clear from the fact
that he plowed his fields behind a yoke of twelve oxen. Most farmers
were lucky to have one or two!
As the story
unfolds, Elijah, the prophet, came upon the young Elisha and threw
his cloak over him – the classic sign of God’s call. Elisha was
generous in responding, but human, too. “I will follow you,”
he told Elijah, “but first let me kiss my father and mother
goodbye.” Elijah agreed, but it wasn’t long before the young
Elisha was slaughtering all twelve oxen and cooking their flesh on a
fire kindled from the wood of his plow. Talk about leaving
home! Elisha left himself nothing to fall back on in case this
‘prophecy business’ didn’t work out for him. He literally
‘burned his bridges’ by destroying his former way of making a
living.
The call of Elisha
nicely sets the scene for the gospel. Notice how it opened
with the words, “Jesus resolutely determined to journey to
Jerusalem.” That’s not just a casual geographical
reference: the journey to Jerusalem is a major piece of the
‘geography’ of Luke’s gospel. The journey to Jerusalem is
about Jesus’ own personal willingness to leave home definitively in
order to embrace the destiny that awaited him in Jerusalem
It was during this
journey to Jerusalem, his own leaving home, that Jesus talked to
three people about their leaving home. One ran up to Jesus and
rather recklessly claimed, “I will follow you wherever you go!”
Jesus’ reply was sobering: “Foxes have their dens and birds have
their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest his head.”
In other words, following me means not only leaving home, it may
mean having no home at all!
The second encounter
wasn’t much different although Jesus initiated this one. To a
would-be disciple he said those two simple, but oh, so demanding
words, that once prompted fishermen to leave their boats and their
nets on the shore. “Follow me,” he said. But this person
wasn’t ready to follow. “Let me go first and bury my father.”
Jesus’ response seems harsh and unfeeling: “Let the dead bury their
dead,” he said. Are those words meant to be taken literally?
No, but they are meant to be taken seriously.
The third encounter
was like Elijah’s encounter with Elisha. “I will follow you
but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” And
Jesus, giving a nod to the Elisha story, speaks of putting the hand
to the plow and not looking back.
Three encounters,
none of which leave any room for wiggling or waffling. Leave
home, Jesus says. You cannot follow me unless you leave home.
And where is home,
we ask? What does home mean -- for me? That’s a question each
of us must answer, my friends. And there are many possible
answers. Is home my comfortable, but maybe somewhat selfish
lifestyle? Is home my security or my things, my prized
possessions, my drive to acquire more and more? Is home a
stagnant or manipulative relationship that is going nowhere and
likely to go nowhere, or is it, perhaps, a bunch of old grudges and
resentments that rule my life? Or could home be some religious
practices that look like faith but are really closer to
superstitions? And then, looking beyond the purely personal to
the Church, home, for the Church, could be the way the Church has
‘always done things,’ an insular, closed mentality that refuses to
read the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel. You get the
idea. There are many homes we may need to leave behind so we can
truly follow Jesus.
My friends, the
bottom line this Sunday is that if we would follow Jesus we must
make the big decision to leave home. And, yes, I know – summer
seems like a good time for putting the big decisions on hold, a good
time for ‘kicking back’ and ‘chilling out.” And that’s
fine, but some decisions cannot wait. When Jesus says, “Follow me”
he means it. He wants an answer, not an alibi. And it’s the
Eucharist we now celebrate and receive that makes it possible for us
to answer. Generously!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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