Message: By being a disciple of Jesus you will realize your amazing potential. Happy Father’s Day! We are praying for our dads – living and deceased. Also for spiritual fathers – I ask you to include me and other priests. We have the example of St. Joseph protecting and caring for the Holy Family. After Mass we have a display of St. Joseph statues as we discern an appropriate one for our church. Like Mary St Joseph at some point becomes a disciple of Jesus. In a dream he recognizes Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, and as Savior. Joseph shows not only spiritual fatherhood but also discipleship – accepting Jesus as Son of God and Savior. In the context of our parish vision we are reflecting on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
As we have seen it begins with the work of God. Humanly speaking a person can appear lost, even dead, but Jesus does not see it that way. He approaches a dead man, the only son of a widow, and says, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” Last week we saw there is no excuse for not following Jesus. Paul had persecuted the church; he wanted to destroy her but Jesus calls him. We see a sinful woman, an outcast, washing Jesus’ feet with her tears. And then King David. God had given him more than any man Israel. But is David grateful? No, he wants what does not belong to him: another man’s wife. And he arranges the murder of her husband. You would expect God to cut his losses, pick someone else. Instead he sends Nathan the prophet. After trying to bluff, David finally admits his sin and repents with deep sorrow. Some of the most powerful Psalms express David’s repentance. If David can come back to God and give himself completely, what excuse do you or I have? We saw last week that the worst thing about sin is that people use it like a shield to keep God at a distance. The Bible tells us over and over that we have no excuse – no good reason not to take the step of discipleship. Jesus invites you and me today, “Whoever wishes to come after me, he must deny himself…” It’s not about you; it’s about Jesus. I want to now address a paradox – a seeming contradiction: when we deny ourselves and follow Jesus, we at last find our true self. The world knows this principle but in a confused way.
The world knows we have in us an extraordinary potential, but it misses the mark on how to realize that potential. I told you last week that I would lead into this theme in a surprising way – by saying something about the transgender movement. The movement is presented as simply one more step in what we always tell our children: In a free society you can become whatever you want. In addition we’ve learned to tolerate, to accept others, to not judge. All well and good as far as it goes. About 20 years ago one of my classmates from college announced that he really is a woman. This surprised his wife and their children. But he thought it was great. Now he could start a whole new relationship with his daughter. As you can imagine his daughter was not eager to relate to her dad in that way. To me all this was sad. Yet we have to recognize this: The devil can’t tempt us by offering something totally bad. He can’t get us to eat rotten meat. However, if he disguises it with the right sauce he can get us to take a bite, maybe even make it part of our diet. Behind the transgender movement we can see a sound impulse. St. Paul tells today that in Jesus there is neither male nor female. He doesn’t mean masculinity and femininity are unimportant, rather that Jesus being God contains the fullness of reality. All creation comes together in Jesus.
Paul also mentions Jew and Greek. Greeks represent reason, philosophy and science. Jews faith, depth, vision. Jesus is a Jew and he will be for eternity, but he contains all that is great in the Greeks. So what should tell our children? My son, my daughter, you can become all that is good and beautiful – in Jesus. You might feel limited now, but in Jesus you can have perfect freedom. You have enormous potential- beyond calculation. You can realize your potential in a surprising – paradoxical – way. Jesus makes this challenge: Deny yourself. Deny your false self. Take up your cross. Yes, discipleship is costly.* By being a disciple of Jesus you will realize your amazing potential. Jesus says it directly: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Amen. ************ *We saw that last week when I presented the parish vision. The vision is bold: The world encourages self-exaltation, me first, do your own things= – even if like David it brings harm to others. What matters is me. Our vision says that it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus: Lift up Jesus. Love others even if it requires personal sacrifice. Make disciples because what brings happiness is not doing things my way, but Jesus’ way.