Pushing the Plough in a different direction

Commentary on today's readings at Mass

 

Sunday, 30 June 2013
 Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

 1 Kings 19:16-21. 

Then you shall anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, as king of Israel, and Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, as prophet to succeed you.

If anyone escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill him. If he escapes the sword if Jehu, Elisha will kill him.
Yet I will leave seven thousand men in Israel--all those who have not knelt to Baal or kissed him."
Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.
Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Please, let me kiss my father and mother good-bye, and I will follow you." "Go back!" Elijah answered. "Have I done anything to you?"
Elisha left him and, taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them; he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh, and gave it to his people to eat. Then he left and followed Elijah as his attendant.

Ps 16(15):1-2.5.7-8.9-10.11. 

Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;

I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.”

I bless the LORD who counsels me;

even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
With him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.

Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,

my body, too, abides in confidence
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.

You will show me the path to life,

Fullness of joys in your presence,
The delights at your right hand forever.
 

Gal. 5:1.13-18. 
Brothers and sisters: For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
But if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.
I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.
For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.

But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Lk 9:51-62. 

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.

When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?"

Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

And to another he said, "Follow me." But he replied, "(Lord,) let me go first and bury my father."

But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

And another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home." To him Jesus said, "No one who sets a hand to the plough and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

Commentary of the day :

I used to use the last line of Jesus’s message today as the motivation for me to keep going with priesthood even though I was finding it exceedingly difficult and the tasks unrewarding. I also feared giving up the role knowing many people would use this text against me in condemnation - which some eventually did.

“You took your hand off the plough and looked back... you are not fit for the Kingdom!” was a typical criticism. I expected it and as the comment was made mostly by total strangers, it didn’t hurt as much as it would have if it was said by someone I cared about.

However I have tried to justify myself by claiming not to have given up my role. I have not stopped caring for the people entrusted to me by our Lord and I have continued to push the plough in a different direction.

Jesus made this statement I feel to encourage people to keep at the task of preaching the Gospel once they decided to follow Him and not look back at the lack of finances they suffer as a result of giving up their employment.

A Vietnamese friend, Frank Vuong Nguyen taught me how to drive a tractor on his farm in Riverstone and as I was doing the ploughing this day I kept looking behind me when I was driving to see if I was making straight furrows, but to my surprise they were really wavy lines. He said, "Didn't you hear Jesus words, 'Don't look behind you'? Just keep your eyes in the direction you want to go and the tractor (plough) will just make a straight course. He said, "You have got to keep your eyes on where you want to be". In a spiritual analogy, you have to keep your eyes on Jesus the Christ.
Just like Peter sank when he was walking on the water, because he looked at the waves and took his eyes off Jesus who had called him to come, we must keep our eyes on Jesus who calls us to follow Him and not take notice of the nay-sayers around us or the waves of difficulty and we will sail in a straight line to Jesus our destination.

St Paul writing to the Galatians reminds them that our spiritual nature and our physical nature are opposed to each other. This explains what I was saying to Val in an earlier post. The desire within us to make a difference in the world and leave some lasting proof of our connection to Jesus Christ is not as strong as our desire to have immediate personal fulfilment and happiness. Our humanity is stronger therefore than our spirituality. But ultimately it is our spirit that outlives our body so it makes sense to expend energy in assuring our eternal happiness with God by doing spiritually valuable things.

OK that’s me. What about you?

How do you read this passage? What does it have to say to you?
Have you made excuses for following Jesus? Do you have a valid reason for not doing the mission God made you for?

Comments from Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), pope

 Journal of a soul, June 1957 [before his election as Pope] (trans.©Geoffrey Chapman, 1965)

"I will follow you wherever you go"

“Give me more light as evening falls.” O Lord, we are now in the evening of our life. I am in my seventy-sixth year. Life is a great gift from our heavenly Father. Three-quarters of my contemporaries have passed over to the far shore. So I too must always be ready for the great moment. The thought of death does not alarm me... My health is excellent and still robust, but I cannot count on it. I want to hold myself ready to reply “adsum” at any, even the most unexpected moment. Old age, likewise a great gift of the Lord's, must be for me a source of tranquil inner joy, and a reason for trusting day by day in the Lord himself, to whom I am now turned as a child turns to his father's open arms. My poor life, now such a long one, has unwound itself as easily as a ball of string, under the sign of simplicity and purity. It costs me nothing to acknowledge and repeat that I am nothing and worth precisely nothing. The Lord caused me to be born of poor folk, and he has seen to all my needs. I have left it to him... Truly, “the will of God is my peace” (Dante Alighieri). And my hope is all in Jesus' mercy... I think the Lord Jesus has in store for me, before I die, for my complete mortification and purification and in order to admit me to his everlasting joy, some great suffering and affliction of body and spirit. Well, I accept everything and with all my heart, if it is for his glory and the good of my soul and for the souls of my dear spiritual children. I fear my weakness in bearing pain; I implore him to help me, for I have little faith in myself, but complete faith in the Lord Jesus. There are two gates to paradise: innocence and penance. Which of us, poor frail creatures, can expect to find the first of these wide open? But we may be sure of the other: Jesus passed through it, bearing his Cross in atonement for our sins, and he invites us to follow him.