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O'Malley's Best Freedom Costs Today is the Feast of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, so for us the feast pre-empts the Sunday readings. And the reading from Luke's gospel about the price of discipleship ("unless you love me more than your father and mother, your wife and children, your brothers and sisters, and yourself as well") captures pretty handily all Ignatius wanted before he'd take a second look at an applicant to the Society. But I don't think that applies to too many of you. That posed a puzzle for awhile, but then I got a sudden flash that made me feel pretty feisty. I'm pretty sure I got an insight into this gospel I've never had before. Undoubtedly, others have grasped it, but I know I never did. My intuition is that Jesus did not mean he required such rejection of loved ones in its full frightening literalness. Nor did he mean that the only true Christians were those who fled worldliness entirely, and that all others are merely "supporting players," interested adherents, subsidizers of the good works of the truly elite. On the other hand, I do think he meant it for all of us, and I think he meant it to be very, very scary. There's a basis for my anti-literal belief. I'm certain that, in Jesus' shocking comparison of a rich person getting into heaven to a camel contorting through the eye of a needle, he was clearly resorting to hyperbole-purposeful exaggeration. He wasn't saying the justification of the rich was impossible, but that it would be a LOT more difficult than for ordinary folks. That's justified, I think, by the fact that Jesus had well-to-do friends: Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea. I'm also pretty certain that Jesus and Peter never literally walked on water. I accept that God can allow any activity whatever that doesn't involve a contradiction, but I'm also sure Jesus used not only figures of speech like hyperbole to flash the truth in our faces, but I know he also used stories and parables-just as Aesop did. I don't have to deny my common sense reading Aesop's fables and accept that turtles and bunnies once made bets on who could outrun the other. Even if the story never happened, it tells the truth: Slow and steady wins the race. What the walking-on-water story says is that, if you forget your shortcomings and focus solely on Jesus, you can do what you believed was inconceivable. Maybe not literally walk on water, but be crucified upside down rather than deny the resurrection. Because Jesus so frequently went round-the-corner with figures of speech and parables to jerk people into confronting difficult truths, I have a heavy hunch he's doing it here, too. He makes belonging to his Kingdom about as formidable-in fact, repellent--a challenge as possible: Love Jesus and his cause more than you love your own family. Just as with walking on water, don't get locked into the particulars. What Jesus is saying, I think, is that living the truth will almost never involve hating your family, BUT it could quite well look just as painful. That conflict between Jesus and one's family could literally occur. For instance, if your brother were dealing drugs, would you protect him or his victims? But it needn't be literal. When your children marry, can you set them free to make their own mistakes? Can the love of the prodigal father superimpose itself on the protectiveness of the lion and lioness for their cubs? Or, in a hypothetical, if the choice were either to follow an immoral directive from a new boss or lose the job-and the family's secure and comfortable life? Would your kids truly prefer parents of integrity to a vacation home at the beach and jobless summers till they finish college? Quite a few years ago, I was giving a retreat to a group of very wealthy men. One man came to talk, wretched. He loathed the job he'd been promoted to. His unhappy irritability was threatening his marriage, alienating his kids. I asked if he'd ever been happy at work, and he perked up immediately. "Of course. At the job I was promoted from. I couldn't wait to get to work on Monday." So I asked what he was making at the moment. "Ninety thousand." And at the previous job? "Seventy-five thousand." Could he go to his boss, thank him for the promotion, and ask for the old job back? He looked at me quizzically. "Wait a minute," he said. "Are you asking me to give up fifteen grand?" Is it making you happy? Is it worth your marriage? We talked for an hour that day, and an hour the next, but he couldn't give it up. The odd thing was that he claimed he couldn't give it up because of his family. And I couldn't convince him he was deceiving himself. That story's pure Ignatius. And it's pure gospel, I think. Isolating what's absolutely essential-and then having the freedom to adapt all other priorities accordingly. |
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Copyright © 2008, McQuaid Jesuit |
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