Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
“… anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions, cannot be my disciple.” Lk 14:33
A 1997 movie directed by Clint Eastwood had a very beguiling title:
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
The plot centers on a New York City writer who tries to understand a group of rather eccentric Savannah, Georgia residents. One thing in particular baffled the New Yorker:
The Savannah native penchant for understatement.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is set in the 1980’s. And yet, a woman nevertheless refers to the Civil War – a horrific conflict that cost the lives of 650,000 soldiers – as “that recent unpleasantness.”
When an intruder interrupts a fancy dinner party firing a pistol at the ceiling and brandishing the jagged edge of a broken whiskey bottle, he is simply judged by the dinner guests as merely being a “colorful character.”
A man sentenced to a lengthy stay in a federal prison for embezzlement is said to have been entrapped by a “little accounting issue.”
For the visiting New Yorker, and for you and me watching the movie, all of this is puzzling until we realize there is a cultural assumption behind every conversation, and these people of Savannah are practiced in the art of understatement.
Now, if we could visit first-century Palestine, and walk alongside Jesus, we might have a similar experience. However, we would discover that, unlike the citizens of Savannah who were masters of understatement, the rabbis of Jesus’ day excelled in overstatement, in hyperbole – bold exaggeration used for dramatic effect.
But if you are an outsider unfamiliar with these linguistic rules – and most of us are – it can be quite disturbing, even offensive.
Listen to Jesus’ words in the light of this understanding.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
“Hate my father and mother?” “Hate life itself?” “Renounce all my possessions?”
Fortunately, these words of Jesus are not meant to be taken literally.
Rather, these “hard sayings” are designed to have shock value. They’re meant to wake us up and get us to listen. They are the kind of hyperbole common in that era, particularly by Jewish Rabbis.
We all know, for example, that a loving family is a precious gift. We know that affection for a parent and child, sister and brother is a virtue. We know that life itself is the ultimate treasure.
So, what’s the point? What did Jesus intend to convey by using these words?
That our ultimate loyalty must always be to God.
God comes before our professions and before our popularity. Our faithfulness to God overrides even our family’s importance, and most certainly our possessions.
The bottom line is this:
Jesus is trying to show the radical nature of following Him. The point is not how we relate to members of our family – as important as that is – but how we respond to the call of God in our daily lives.
All this reminds me of when I was a child learning to swim. I remember doing fine in the shallow end of the pool, but as soon as I crossed into the deeper end, I would start to panic by lifting my head and flailing may arms.
The instructor encouraged me by saying:
“Don’t be afraid. I’m right here with you. Swimming in the deep end is no different than swimming in the shallow end. Except that it’s a whole lot better. Trust me.”
In other words, despite how extreme Jesus’ words may seem, Jesus is not trying to dissuade his contemporaries, and us, from following him. Instead, he wants us to seek and find the real adventure in the “deep waters” of life rather than spend our lives splashing about in the shallow end of the pool.
And Jesus’ hyperbole in today’s Gospel is really saying:
“Trust me. Follow me into the deep. I promise I will be with you.”
In other words, hold nothing back. Be everything God has called you to be. Don’t approach the end of your life and be filled with regret. Don’t get to a place where you wish that you had used your life better, filled it more fully.
Jesus is exaggerating in today’s Gospel.
But he is exaggerating with one purpose in mind:
To shock his hearers. To wake us up to the realization that there is a richer possibility to life than we ever imagined.
He’s beckoning each of us, to go all the way, to not hold back, to fill our lives to the brim, to experience life in new ways, to follow him into the deep end of the pool of life.
Admittedly, following Jesus’ way will cost us. It will mean stepping out of our comfort zones. It will mean dying to a part of ourselves we want to hold on to with everything that is in us. It will mean, unlike those residents of Savannah, Georgia, that we will have to resign ourselves to not living in the world of understatement, of “let’s pretend,” but instead fully embracing the reality of what discipleship calls us to:
Not staying in the shallow end of the pool of life and being content with the easy way. But, instead, accepting the challenge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ:
Go all the way. Plunge into the deep end of the pool of life. Give up understating the importance of what we’re called to be. Embrace the full measure of the life Jesus is calling us to.
Why?? Because it will stretch us and pull us into a richer, fuller way of living. It will give us the opportunity of experiencing the riches that come with getting to swim in the deep end of the pool of life.
In the end, it will lead us to a life of riches we never dreamed possible: the fullness of mercy and love and joy – forever!
