COMMITMENT

23rd Sunday C September 9, 7:30 Luke 14: 25-33 STORY: A frog found himself trapped on a large lily pad surrounded by hungry alligators. His only hope for escape was to hop over the alligators to the next lily pad. An owl sitting on a branch overhead said with cool detachment, “Why don’t you just take off and fly to the next lily pad?” The frog got a running start and flapped his legs as fast and as hard as he could, took off and landed right in front of the massive jaws of an alligator. “You stupid owl,” the frog screamed, “frogs can’t fly.” “Please,” said the owl disdainfully, “You’re talking about a practical matter. I only deal in theories.” What this story is telling you is that you can be an abstract theorist about following Jesus or a concrete practitioner. What’s the difference? Let a little parable tell you. Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, “So and so tells me that he was one of year students.” The scholar answered devastatingly, “He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.” In other words, it is one of the supreme handicaps of the church that in it there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples. There are so many who build their houses on the shifting sands of superficial piety instead of on the rock of steadfast commitment to living the gospel values counterculturally. For example, when our culture’s value demands a star-spangled salute to the need to make war, our gospel value proclaims, “Blessed are the peacemakers …” The contrast between these two values pours out into your political lives, your political convictions, your political loyalties and that makes living the gospel value of peace making all the more difficult but not impossible. As St Paul says, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” Jesus is not asking you literally to hate your father and mother, wife and children. Rather he is asking you to set up your priorities in such a way that no human love will ever topple your love for Jesus from first place. What Jesus wants from you is a total, absolute, unconditional commitment to him. Randolf Miller in his book, This We Can Believe, says, “Religious faith depends on more than beliefs; it demands an active sense of God’s presence and an unreserved commitment to the God who lives within us.” What our two stories are saying is that there are those who prefer to sit on the fence. To say, I am committed to Jesus but in your actions you prove that your commitment to Jesus is half-hearted, lukewarm, perfunctory. A matter of fudging, of cutting corners, of giving Jesus 60 minutes on a Sunday but keeping the other 10020 minutes a week for yourself. In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, the soldiers who were sent to find Private Ryan ran into innumerable, life threatening obstacles. Yet they persevered in their commitment to fulfill the duty that was assigned to them. Finally they found him. This is the kind of commitment Jesus wants from you. No matter what the difficulties are or how many obstacles there are, you will, for example, forgive 70 times 7 times – even the same person! Forgive over and over realizing how God-like this makes you since God not only forgives again and again but is Forgiveness itself. And you are the one who benefits most from God’s forgiveness. Donald Gelpi in his book, Experiencing God, a monumental study of the charismatic movement, says that “the response to God’s call demands a love commitment to the person of Jesus , his teachings and the community that flows from him.” Are you capable of this kind of commitment? I sincerely believe you are. You have the infinite all-powerful God dwelling within you. All you have to do is tap into the power he is always offering you through your persevering prayer. HUMOR A man was chosen for jury duty who very much wanted to be dismissed from the commitment of serving. He tried every excuse he could think of but none of them worked. On the day of the trial he decided to give it one more shot. As the trial was about to begin he asked if he could approach the bench. “Your Honor,” he said, “ I must be excused from this trial because I am prejudiced against the defendant. I took one look at the man in the blue suit with those beady eyes and that dishonest face and I said, “He’s a crook! He’s guilty, guilty, guilty.” So your Honor, I could not possibly stay on this jury!” With a tired annoyance the judge replied, “Get back in the jury box. That man is his lawyer.” THOUGHT: Always remember that commitment has no expiration date.