Immovable Commitments
What are your immovable commitments? (Luke 14:25-35)
Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
On a dark, foggy night, a ship came upon the light of another vessel. The captain radioed his counterpart: “Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.”
Through the crackly radio came the reply:
“Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision"
The captain stood his ground. He radioed: “This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.”
And again, came the reply: “No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.”
Outraged, the captain spoke loudly into the radio: “THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH.”
And came the reply: “This is a lighthouse. Your call.” (From Stephen Covey)
The lesson I wish to draw from this modern-day parable is to ask: What are the lighthouse principles in our lives? In other words what are the things that cannot be moved?
‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
Jesus’ challenge to the crowds is harsh and his questions may not be watered down. For Jesus, the kingdom of God, consenting to God’s presence within, is the unmoveable lighthouse principle in our lives. Either discipleship in the kingdom of God comes first or not at all. The word hate is deliberate: radical discipleship requires that nothing distracts us from the central goal of God: not ego, not pride, not family and not possessions.
To suggest that Jesus is asking for a literal hatred of one’s family is to blindly miss the point and mishear his use of speech. Hatred for one’s family is exaggerated speech; its purpose is to shock us out of domesticating the journey of discipleship. Domestication confines religion to the home and family, how ironic it is that fundamentalist Christianity often associates Christianity with family values. In contrast, the journey with Jesus often requires giving up so called family values. The shock that Jesus delivers reminds followers that families can often restrict our full growth to become who we are in Christ. For some, families can bring death rather than life. Some families are like oppressive demons that suck the life out of its members. Mark’s Gospel shows how Jesus’ own family thought he was insane and wanted to rescue him by force. (3:20-21, 31-35). Ultimately the call to let go of one’s loyalty to family is how our journey with Jesus frees us from cultural conditioning insofar as it hinders us from responding to the gospel and the invitation into perfect freedom. Perhaps the best example for us is that we have inherited a culture that institutionalises racism and patriarchy; a culture that we reject because in Christ all are equal, all are created in the image of God and all our temples of the holy spirit.
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Jesus regularly associates family power with possession power because both belonged together. It is as much about letting go of possessions as letting go of being possessed by them. One of the reasons for family power was protection of possessions. Letting go of being possessed does often mean letting go of possessing others. The best example of this is St Francis. In order to say yes to Jesus and surrender to radical discipleship, St Francis had to let go of his family power and their wealth. St Francis’ family were wealthy cloth merchants and Francis was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead, Francis opted for radical discipleship stripped himself of all his family’s wealth.
We soften the call to follow Jesus because we do not like where Jesus is going. Radical discipleship is a path of subversive politics, of revolution, of denouncing the economic powers through non participation, of embracing the poor, not because Jesus himself was poor, but because he embraced the poor. Few people have followed this call to radical discipleship. Yet at some point we must feel bored of deadly mediocrity and conformity. And there is no greater response to the corruption of our age than radical discipleship. There is no greater response to the materialism of this age than radical discipleship.
Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
"Hating" family and "denying" self by “carrying the cross” are closely related. The kingdom of God is about living in Oneness with God. Loving God with heart, mind, body and soul requires giving up the self even to death. Anything held back is self and anything given is God’s. God increases in us as our ego decreases.
Let’s be utterly pragmatic about how we answer the call to radical discipleship, how we give ourselves to God: if spiritual teachers are to be believed we are to be in silence for 20 minutes twice a day. Why silence? As soon as we give ourselves to silence, a crack occurs in our consciousness. The purpose of silence is to allow the longing for God to break through the layers of our false selves, our defence mechanisms, and our false pursuits for happiness. From the perspective of silence negotiating the spiritual journey is easy; all we do is accept the kingdom of God as already given to us, it is already put into our hands, it is already poured into our hearts – it already is.
Consent
Nature or Purpose
Age
1. LIFE
To accept and affirm the basic goodness of our being and that of life.
1 – 11 yrs
2. CREATIVITY/
RELATIONSHIPS
To allow the full development of our being
11 – 22 yrs
3. NON-BEING
To let go and release our humanhood, viz:
physical aging, illnesses, death.
Middle Age
4. TRANSFORMATION
To welcome and allow the demise of the false self system.
50 onward
Summary of “The Four Consents”
The four consents (based on the work of theologian John S. Dunne) correspond to the passage of human life. "In childhood, God asks us to consent to the basic goodness of our nature with all its parts." This basic goodness is not what we do but what we are, as God made us. The difficulties we experience in childhood may prevent us from fully consenting emotionally to the goodness of life.
The second consent, corresponding to adolescence, is to "accept the full development of our being by activating our talents and creative energies,"
The third consent (early adulthood) calls on us "to let go, to surrender ourselves. Dying is the ultimate letting go of everything to which we are attached in this world. Making this consent is more difficult if we have not made the previous ones.
The fourth consent is to be transformed. "The transforming union requires consent to the death of the false self, and the false self is the only self we know. Whatever its inconveniences, it is at least familiar. Some of us are more afraid of the death of the false self than of physical death."