Transform Your Life
Into True Discipleship Of Jesus

Homily 06 30 2013
13th Sunday OT - C

View the Readings for this day

The Scriptures today remind me of the musical, The Sound of Music. The von Trapp family hurriedly make their way leaving Austria behind to escape with only the clothes on their backs, they leave behind wealth and their beloved Salzburg and their estate.

In our 1st reading, today, the prophet Elijah throws his cloak over Elisha calling him out to be his attendant and successor as spokesman for the Lord. Elijah calls Elisha to be his follower by the simple act of placing his cloak over him.

Not only does Elisha sacrifice his expensive animals, but he burns his equipment to symbolize his total acceptance of Elijah's Call and we remember too, the disciples of Jesus left all to follow Jesus in the Gospel and we as a praying assembly hear these readings proclaimed and each of us is invited to spend some time considering how clean is the break we make in order to give ourselves over to Christ.

Transform Your Life Day By Day

If one does not concentrate on the future that awaits them, and does not despise all entanglements of the past and present, they will not reach the great future destined and prepared for them.

Each of us has only a certain amount of years to live on this earth, and we are called to transform our lives, day by day.

Like James and John and all those would-be disciples, Elisha in the first reading does not understand the costs of discipleship at first. He is not ready until Elijah explains to him.

For me the first reading is a reminder that the ministry to which I was called to in the Archdiocese and it can remind all of us why we are members of this parish.

The experience of Elijah reminds me that each of us is necessary to ministry but none of us is irreplaceable.

If we can speak of the CLOAK as a symbol, we as a parish collectively today empower one another in our relationship and we are called to work together as we pray over these scriptures together.

The Toronto News published a listing of actual accident reports filed by those involved in accidents:

1. "Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have."
2. "A pedestrian hit me and went under my car."
3. "The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
4. "In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."
5. "I told the police I was not injured, but on removing my hat I found that I had a fractured skull."
6. "The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him."
7. "The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth"

(Billy Sunday: Great Stories, April/June, 1994).

Today's gospel describes how Jesus' call to follow him met with such excuses.

In Luke's gospel we are called to love enemies, to pray for those who mistreat us. Our hearts and minds are to be given over to loving, doing good, blessing and prayer.

Discipleship demands that the comforts and security be exchanged for inconvenience and insecurity, and we are called forth to go out of our way to meet the needy, not to wait for them, to serve them with dignity.

Resoluteness Perseverance Required For True Discipleship

Our values and priorities are challenged today if our discipleship is to be authentic. Christ and the reign he came to proclaim are to be placed first, but not to the exclusion of family, friends, and the responsibilities that these relationships necessarily generate.

The image that concludes the gospel today stands as a final stark reminder of the resoluteness and perseverance, required of true disciples.

Chastened by the challenge of today's sacred word and grateful for the grace that makes all things possible, we are invited to resolve to make a break with our discipleship today, tomorrow and the next day, until our conversion to Christ is complete.

The disciples wanted to stop and rain down punishment on the Samaritans for not accepting Jesus. They journey on and several people make half-hearted pledges to follow Jesus. He deals with them just as abruptly, and they cannot accept those terms. Jesus throws out his cloak, but few want to touch it.

Jesus and the prophet in the first reading today pass on the cloak to us. It is a symbol of the vocation of discipleship, a call to follow, and a moment of recognition, recognizing why we are here, and what God wants of each of us.

The cloak of our vocation as followers of Jesus hangs from our shoulders. Its weight is comforting and heavy with responsibility. In the fraction of a second, our vocation is revealed to us? Sometimes it comes to us in repeated form, sometimes, we hear it only once and we respond.

The Lord has made each of us worthy of the Kingdom.

We renew our response as Jesus' disciples today as we respond to the Scriptures.

jjl

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