13th Sunday of the Year
This Sunday’s Gospel reading reminds us of two important lessons to be learned if we are to be sincere followers of Christ.
First, if people do not welcome our presence and respect us for who we are, we are not to respond by not respecting them or, even worse, by wishing something evil to happen to them. The disciples were willing to ask God to send fire down on the Samaritan Village that would not accept them. But Jesus rebuked them, “and they went off to another village”. It is very hard to be rejected by an individual or a group when we are offering a gift that would enrich them. This is an experience that many Christians in the Middle East and some Asian countries have daily. They are physically attacked; their homes and villages are burned. They could be easily tempted to get angry and wish “to fight fire with fire”. But if we were in that situation and were to even think of such a response, Jesus would rebuke us. As followers of Jesus we are simply to “move on” and never stop loving them.
Whenever I read this passage I think of one of our first SVD missionaries to China, St. Joseph Freinademetz. He and his catechist were in their home when a group of non-Christian (even anti-Christian) Chinese villagers broke in, dragged them out, and beat them. They pulled out their hair and then dragged them down the road to the next village, constantly kicking and beating them. They were dragged through mud and their clothes got torn and dirty. They were convinced that they were going to be killed. But when they arrived at the next village the group just left them there in the village centre and went away. St. Joseph wrote: when we got up and looked at one another and saw how ridiculous we looked in our torn and dirty clothes, we laughed. They were indeed followers of Jesus.
Secondly, when we are called by Jesus to follow him, as we all are by reason of our baptism, it may mean at times making sacrifices that we are not quite willing to make just then. Interestingly Jesus does not condemn any of the three mentioned for not following him immediately. To the one he simply says: are you sure you want to follow me? There is nothing promised – food, clothing, a place to sleep. To another who would like to wait until he knows his parents would be well looked after he simply says: let others look after them; you are to go and preach the kingdom. To the third who wanted to go home first to say a proper farewell to his family, he simply says: if you are committed and have started ploughing, don’t stop. But in each case he leaves the decision up to them. The Gospel writer does not tell us how they responded or if they eventually did become His followers. The point of these stories seems to be: if God has invited us to do something, we are to respond immediately, even if it means making sacrifices we don’t understand at the moment.
In 1979 Jesus (through the Superiors) asked me to go to the Philippines to teach Church History. The Seminary had lost its professor and it needed someone who could teach Church History in English for one semester. I was delighted with the invitation and immediately said “yes”. Six weeks before I was scheduled to leave I discovered that one of my sisters had cancer in the brain and had only a limited amount of time to live. I went back and forth about whether to cancel my trip. On the one hand I wanted to be with my sister in her dying weeks. On the other hand I knew the Seminary would not be able to find a replacement for me in such a short time. I phoned a very dear friend of mine in Baltimore (a mother of nine) who had in many ways become my spiritual director. She had only two questions: did your Superiors ask you to go? Do you trust God? Maybe that was the main point that Jesus was making to the three men – do you trust God? Anyway I went and was able to return to the States in time to spend four wonderful days with my sister before she died. On the day before she died we gathered the family (our siblings and her children) and had a Home Mass in which she could take part. I discovered again that God could be trusted.
Larry Nemer, SVD