Following Jesus-Not So Easy! Homily and Reflection of RC Women Priests – 13th Sunday in OT-6/26/16
Here we have an inspiring homily by Rev. Dr. Beverly Bingle,RCWP of Toledo, Ohio with Reflections by Rev. Dr. Judy Lee,RCWP of Fort Myers, Florida.
The Readings are: I Kings 19: 16b,19-21 where the prophet Elijah passes on his mantel to Elisha who has to go back and provide for his parents first, before accepting the call to walk with then succeed Elijah. Yet, Elisha did this quickly and followed Elijah.
Psalm 16:1-2,5,7-8,9-11
You are my inheritance, O God!” God will show the faithful the path to life and there will be fullness of joy in God’s presence.
Galatians 5: 1,13-18-The whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Serve one another through love…
Gospel: Luke 9:51-52-Jesus is resolutely traveling to Jerusalem where he will face the Cross. He lets those who want to follow him know that the way will be hard and take all they have to give. He asks for whole hearted devotion-for their love and their very lives .
The road to following Jesus is as hard as loving is. Real loving demands all we have. We can’t love one day and decide to go for ourselves,putting our wants and needs and desires first above all others on another day. We have to learn to love in the way Jesus loved. Paul tells the Galatian followers not to “bite and devour one another”. Indeed the church has been biting and devouring since its inception as well as expressing love in the most beautiful ways. Jesus’ way of inclusion is expressed in his acceptance and love for “hated strangers” like the Samaritans who were a religiously and ethnically mixed group of people who wanted to serve God;and mixing with ” sinners and hated tax collectors” and women, of all people!
I have no doubt that Jesus wept not only for Jerusalem but that he weeps now for Orlando even as people professing his name, feeling they were being good Baptists, stood outside of funerals and carried hate signs for the members of the LGBTQ community whose funerals were taking place. Talk about biting and devouring and the farthest thing from the love of Christ. Yet I know their problem. I remember a wonderful woman who was a Deaconess in the Methodist church, the wife of a beloved Pastor and a friend since my youth. She visited my partner , Pastor Judy Beaumont, and I in our home in Florida. One day, on a second visit, with tears she confided that she was opening herself to the acceptance of both women and gay men and lesbians in the Methodist Ministry because she witnessed the quality of our lives. This was hard because of the explicit teachings of the church about our sinfulness. But she could only experience our love and she could no longer support such church teaching. Also, she shared that she could now accept the gayness of one of her own children and see the love in that child more than the difference. How wonderful it was for her to share this with us and to give us this gift. How hard it was for her to change and transform herself into this last bit of loving like Jesus, for she , indeed, resembled Christ in every other way and was a role model for us. She has now gone home to our loving God, but what a lesson she left behind. Our Roman Catholic Church and many other churches need this lesson. They have considered all members of the LGBTQ community “disordered” yet advise pastoral caring. Yet all are excluded from the sacraments of the church including Holy Communion. How can there be pastoral caring without a full welcome for all people at the Table of Jesus? We have a young man in our church who is gay and he experienced scorn from his family and his African American community that was deeply alienating and painful for him. He literally hung onto our acceptance as a life boat, demonstrating to his family that he was loved fully for himself, and most surely good enough to be baptized and confirmed and accepted as an equal in the church. His family grew to love him without judgement. This was transforming for him and for the family, some of whom still work on this level of Christ like acceptance. Jesus characterized no one as disordered, except, perhaps, the hypocrites within the religious establishment for whom he often had a few chosen words. And so often these words were about the intolerance and rigidity of the religious establishment. We would be wise as we, with all of our human frailty, seek to follow Christ to realize that the Way of Love is not easy but with God’s grace, we can be transformed to do it. And this transformation is possible for all of us, Thanks be to God! Amen.
Rev. Dr. Judy Lee, RCWP, Co-Pastor The Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community in Fort Myers, http://www.goodshepmin.org
And Now for Rev. Dr. Beverly Bingle’s Homily:
This begins the most important section of Luke’s Gospel,
referred to by scripture scholars as the “journey narrative.”
Fr. Raymond Brown calls Luke’s story
of the long journey to Jerusalem
“an artificial framework.”
It’s a literary device created by Luke
so he can tell about Jesus in an organized way.
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Jesus actually did travel from Galilee to Jerusalem.
For later followers, his journey takes on symbolic meaning:
it’s the way by which Jesus went from death to new life,
and the way that we, as his disciples,
are called to do the same.
________________________________________
Luke’s story of the beginning of Jesus’ long journey
begins with a lesson that we still need today.
At the very beginning of the trip,
Jesus’ disciples are not welcome in a Samaritan village,
but Jesus will not let them call down fire from heaven
to destroy the villagers.
________________________________________
In the 18th century, Jonathan Swift, Irish Anglican priest,
criticized Christians for having
just enough religion to hate
but not enough to love.
History continues to give us examples of people who,
like the first disciples,
want to do violence to people who don’t agree with them.
We don’t have to look any farther
than the front pages of our newspapers to see it.
People killing other people when they disagree.
People killing other people because they are different.
And people doing murder in the name of God.
It happened in the Crusades.
In Nazi Germany.
In the Middle East.
In Orlando.
It’s still happening.
________________________________________
What motivates people to hate so viciously in the name of God?
Maybe their religion is just a veneer on the surface of their lives.
Maybe they just can’t grasp the message of love
that’s at the heart of all real religions.
Maybe they never really learned what their own religion is about.
Or maybe it’s the failure of religious leaders
to keep their own hatred out of their beliefs.
Whatever it is, Fr. Joseph Pollard rightly calls it blasphemy.
________________________________________
But for us Christians, we should know the way.
Jesus’ response to his disciples call for vengeance
is to go on to another village.
He teaches us that our way to new life
is not through violence and retribution
but through peaceful avoidance of conflict.
________________________________________
So Jesus and his disciples continue on the journey,
and Luke has Jesus give us more advice.
Three people come up to him, one by one,
and each one hears radical requirements for discipleship.
The first person, wanting to follow Jesus wherever he goes,
hears that there will be no place to rest
for the one who joins Jesus on the Way.
We have to ask ourselves if we are ready to follow,
even if we have to walk away
from the comfort and security of our homes and friends.
Are we ready to speak up for what is right and just,
even if we know our family members and best friends
will disagree with us?
________________________________________
The second person, invited by Jesus to join the group,
wants to go bury his father,
and Jesus responds with “let the dead bury their dead.”
If the man goes home to wait for his father’s death
so he can fulfill the law of honoring his parents,
he himself will become dead
to the new life that comes with the journey to Jerusalem.
We have to ask ourselves what we’re waiting for
that keeps us from following Jesus along the Way.
Maybe it’s job security—
I won’t object to my boss’ racist remarks
until I have another job lined up.
________________________________________
And the third person
wants to say goodbye to family before he follows,
but Jesus warns that anyone
who expects to live in the reign of God
can’t live in the past.
As followers along the way, we look ahead.
We don’t regret the past and we’re not obsessed with it,
either by focusing on its mistakes
or by imagining it as a golden age.
________________________________________
We know from other scriptures
that Jesus does not mean these sayings to be absolutes.
What Jesus is doing is making clear
the mindsets that undermine living in the reign of God.
He is reminding us of the greater goal,
and that everything else falls by the wayside
in our choice to follow him.
________________________________________
Rarely are we called to burn all our bridges,
like Elisha in the first reading.
These sayings remind us that, at rare, particular moments,
we are called to be heroic.
But most of the time
we are called to reflect, adapt, and take action.
As Paul puts it in that second reading,
we have to live by the Spirit, not by the law.
We are required to serve one another through love.
________________________________________
I recall times in my own life
when I lacked the courage to follow Jesus’ way,
and a few times when I had the courage to burn bridges,
to walk away from security for the sake of a vision.
Out of Africa author Karen Blixen once said that
“There is probably always one moment in life
when there is still the possibility of two courses,
and another when only one is possible.
At the latter point I have burnt my boats,
and afterwards there can be no retreat.”
Elisha reached that point.
Paul reached that point.
Jesus reached that point.
________________________________________
We reach that point, too,
faced with the question of what it means
for us
to follow Christ today.
It means to act with love where we are,
in our chosen career,
on our chosen life path,
true to the commitments we have made.
It’s not only what we do that’s important.
It’s how we do it.
There’s more than one way to follow Jesus,
but each path has this in common:
we are called to follow with our whole heart,
and our heart must be full of love,
no matter what.
Amen!
—
Holy Spirit Catholic Community
Saturdays at 4:30 p.m./Sundays at 5:30 p.m.
at 3925 West Central Avenue (Washington Church)
Rev. Dr. Bev Bingle, Pastor
Mailing address: 3156 Doyle Street, Toledo, OH 43608-2006
419-727-1774
judyablfollowingSheWhoIs 
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