Saint Luke 14:25-33
Agnus was born on 26th day of August 1910 in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. Her father, depending on the source, was either a grocer, a general merchant, or a construction contractor, who died when she was eight.
“Although by no means wealthy, [her mother] Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. ‘My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter.’”1
At the age of twelve the congregation to which she belonged made its annual “pilgrimage to the Church of the Black Madonna in Letnice, and it was on one such trip . . . that she first felt a calling to a religious life. Six years later, in 1928, an 18-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin.”
In 1937 she took her final vows and six weeks later she would sail to India to become a teacher in Calcutta. Nine years later, in 1946 Agnus, “experienced her “call within a call,” which she considered divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. She then moved into the slums she had observed while teaching.
“In 1952 [she] established Nirmal Hriday (“Place for the Pure of Heart”), a hospice where the terminally ill could die with dignity. Her order also opened numerous centers serving the blind, the aged, and the disabled. Under [the nun formerly known as Agnus’] guidance, the Missionaries of Charity built a leper colony.”2 And New York City’s first clinic for people with HIV/AIDS.
By now you probably have figured out “the rest of the story” and that Agnus is Mother Teresa. Now St. Teresa of Calcutta whose feast day was last Thursday.
I don’t know what you feel like when you hear about someone like a Mother Teresa, or a Ghandi, or a Nelson Mandela, or any of the martyrs for the faith but I will tell you what I feel like. I feel like a schulb.
At twelve I was probably playing Jarts in the back yard with my uncles. At 18 I was probably having a difficult time deciding on where I would go for summer vacation much less deciding on a vocation for my life’s work. I look at the lives of the famous religious figures or the saints of the church and say to myself. “Wow! I could never have done that.”
They really did, as the old hymn says, turn “from home and toil and kindred. Leaving all for his dear sake.”
Then, to make matters worse, along comes Jesus in today’s gospel and says I’m supposed to follow in their footsteps. I’m supposed to give up everything to follow him. At the end of the day I am supposed to be standing like the guy who went bankrupt in Monopoly with pockets empty and no worldly good to show for my efforts.
What is Jesus doing to us here? We’re no Mother Teresa!
Jesus doesn’t even care that for many churches in America this is “Get Connected Sunday.” A day for those, as one website describes, who are “looking to meet new people. Build a community? Grow in faith? Engage in learning and conversation? Share your gifts with others? We have a host of opportunities” the website went on to say “ with which we’re eager to connect you!”3
Jesus doesn’t seem to be interested in any of those opportunities. If you put him in charge of “Get Connected Sunday” the website would ask: “Are you looking to ‘hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself’ by carrying your cross?” rather than “we have a host of opportunities with which we are eager to connect you.”
I’m not sure that there would be that many left who would be eager to be connected.
Jesus doesn’t seem to understand that every church in America is trying to attract new members rather than push them away with this “cross carrying” stuff. We don’t want to talk about “hate.” As a matter of fact, we’re against it.
Its not our job to bring about divisions within a family. Mostly families are pretty good at doing that all on their own. They don’t need us to remind them that they can’t stand their Uncle Donald because he is always acting up.
No Jesus, we are about happy families and attracting big crowds. We need Mother Teresa not the mother of all battles.!
What makes this even more puzzling is that at this point in Luke’s Gospel Jesus seems to have what we want. He has big crowds. Huge crowds. Large crowds are trooping behind Jesus.
This has to be a validation of his ministry. By all standards he is a success but instead of celebrating the growing number of followers Jesus confronts them with some tough talk about the cost of discipleship.
In what has to be the understatement in all biblical commentaries Dr. Lynn Japinga of Hope College wrote: “The text does not report whether this sermon thinned the ranks of followers, but it must have diminished some of their superficial enthusiasm.” 4
You think!
As Dr. William H. Willimon wrote of this moment.
Jesus is on a roll and, despite the attempts of his publicists to put a good spin on this PR disaster, nobody can stop him. “Another thing, if you won’t carry a cross,” then you can’t walk with me. Anybody who begins to build a tower without counting the cost, runs the risk of looking stupid when he runs out of brick and can’t finish the tower. Any king who goes to war without first considering whether or not he has the troops to win ... may look dumb when he begs for peace. Count the cost. 5
For many the cost was just too high.
They wanted a savior who could heal their divisions not cause them. They wanted a savior who could unify their communities not divide them. They wanted a savior of ample supply not shortages. They wanted a savior who was, most of all, a winner. They wanted a savior who comes without a cross.
That’s what many wanted then and still want now. This may be what emptied our churches.
It may not have been the differences of the ‘60's between waging war or making peace. It may not have been having to make the choice between being successful and ethical. It may not have been any of those things. It may have been Jesus!
It may have been his message that emptied the place out but at least you couldn’t say he was guilty of false advertizing.
With the Jesus we have instead of the Jesus we want it’s a wonder that anybody shows up on a Sunday morning.
At this point you may be tempted to give up and go home too.
Lest you think that Jesus’s demands are excessive, lest you dismiss his teaching by saying, “Jesus has now raised the bar too high. Nobody can love Jesus more than family. Nobody would willingly sign up for crucifixion,” allow me to point [that]: Down through the ages, there have been a few, not many, certainly not a “great crowd” who have taken Jesus at his word and have done just what he demands. They have let go of all their possessions, risked all, counted the cost and, even with a cross looming before them, have said, 'Here am I, send me.'"6
That’s one way to do it and it is the way of those who have been called Saints. While “Jesus did not want his followers to think that discipleship was easy ... neither was it open only to spiritual overachievers.” 7
That leaves room for the rest of us.
Those who didn’t give it all away at once but daily in some small way did something because they were a follower of Jesus.
Those who didn’t listen to today’s gospel and say, “Whew! That’s too demanding. I can’t be a follower with those kind of conditions attached” but who kept following, kept listening to Jesus, kept pondering the cost of discipleship and then still bought in.
It worth remembering one last thing about people like Mother Teresa, followers of Jesus who are now called Saints. They too had their struggles and even their doubts.
The website for the Missionaries of Charity admits this about her:
But there was another ... side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life.8
Even the greatest followers have their doubts and “painful nights of the soul.”
But they kept following and so do we. We keep following until the end when we just might discover that we really did do what Jesus asked and little by little, bit by bit, we too had given our lives for to him and for him. Much to our surprise we “gave it all.”
May that surprise some day in the distant future be true for everyone of us. That we really did “give it all.”
Thanks for listening.
___________
1. 2019. “Mother Teresa.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television. August 26, 2019. https://www.biography.com/religious-figure/mother-teresa.
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mother-Teresa
3. Website of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago.
4. Lynn Japinga, “Luke 14:25-33. Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World.” In Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, 3:301–2. Louisville, KY : Westminster/John Knox, 2019.
5. William H. Willimon, “Spin City Jesus.” Pulpit Resource 32, no. 3 (2004): 41–44.
6. William H. Willimon, “What's in It for Me?” Pulpit Resource 47, no. 3 (2019): 31–33.
7. Japinga, loc. cit.
8. Biography. Accessed September 7, 2019. https://www.motherteresa.org/biography.html.
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