Anyone who does not hate his family and renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple,” Jesus tells us. Wow. Those are hard words. Yet we know that Jesus loved his family and friends, healed and was present to those in need, loving us to his death on the cross. So what was he saying with these hard words? He I think was challenging us to recognize that half hearted discipleship will not sustain us. We are called to love Him with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. This requires having perspective on things of this passing world and a moral compass to guide us. This requires openness to God’s way and humility.
It has always been tempting to allow things of this world to be come god-like. One of special urgency in our day is the pursuit and use of knowledge. God has given us the gift of reason and we are to use that gift for good. However developments in science, technology, communication have led some to believe that if we have enough computer time we can explain and control all things by ourselves; that we can bend creation for our purposes and pleasures, that God is irrelevant. When we think we know more than God, though, we get into trouble and the salvation of our souls is at risk.
In Washington, D.C. there is the Holocaust Museum, a haunting record of godless science. There in document, voice and picture are those in Nazi Germany who used advanced knowledge of genetics to try to create a super race at the expense of the dignity and eventually the lives of millions of people. Sadly that same logic and language is alive in our own country. For instance the wonderful technological development of ultrasounds can be used to save the lives of unborn babies or as a screening device for abortions based on gender. God’s gift of reason and the knowledge the flows from it need to be filtered through moral principles especially respect for all life, love for others as Christ has loved us.
Whoever does not carry his own cross cannot be my disciples, Jesus said. More hard words. Suffering in one form or another is a cross we all must bear. He showed us how to do so well. The Fathers of Vatican Council II wrote: Christ by suffering for us not only gave us an example so that we might follow in his footsteps, but he also opened up a way. If we follow that way, life and death become holy and acquire a new meaning.
A young man had bone cancer. To save his life his leg was amputated. He felt bitterness, anger, resentment. His life and dreams were shattered, or so he thought. In therapy he was asked to draw a picture of how he saw his body. He drew a picture of a vase and running through the vase was a deep black crack. This was how he saw himself, a vase cracked, never to be able to function as a vase again. He was fitted with an artificial leg. Over time with the support of family and the grace of God, he came to terms with the reality of his changed life and was healed in soul. He decided to reach out to others facing similar life changing losses. He visited a young woman about his age who suffered from breast cancer and was very down. He showed up in running shorts so that his artificial leg was apparent, he was a survivor. She ignored him. The radio was playing music in the background. Desperate to get her attention he began dancing around the room. She looked at him with bemusement, and then burst out laughing. She said if you can dance, then I can sing. A healing moment.
Sometime later he was shown the picture he drew when he was so down and angry, the cracked vase. Oh, he said, it isn’t finished. He took a yellow crayon, see here where it is broken; this is where the light comes through. He drew a bright light streaming through the crack in the picture of his body. It was the healing light of Christ, the light of hope. Half hearted discipleship will not sustain us. The light of Christ, even in the dark days of suffering or wonderment, who died and rose for us will. When we know how much we need his love and mercy, we will be able to be his whole hearted disciples.