One of the great criticisms of Catholicism…lodged mainly by our modern culture…is that Catholicism attempts to make generally happy people unhappy just so that it can spend its time and energy ministering to their unhappiness.  In other words…to justify our existence.  This perception certainly isn’t helped when we hear gospels like this one today from Luke.  It doesn’t sound like very Good News.  But lying just beneath the surface…in the words beneath the word…there is a message that I think must change our lives. 

The seventh week in a row now of hearing off-putting messages from this cycle of Luke’s gospels.  Today’s is maybe the most outrageous…Anyone who comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters…even his own life…cannot be my disciple.  Really?  How is this possible?  We’re supposed to love our parents…our husbands and wives…our children.  I don’t hate my life…I love my life.  How are we to respond such a bizarre message from Jesus?  It’s easy to struggle with this passage...most of the time we just move on and don’t bother with it.   But the more I read over the passage and the more I’ve thought about it this week…the more I listen for the words beneath the word…the message comes into focus.  The theme of the passage is Costly Discipleship.   Salvation isn’t free.  It’s not easy.  It’s not popular.  It’s doesn’t always feel good.  And in some ways it’s not even natural.    There is a cost to Discipleship…to follow Jesus…to relinquish our place at the table for someone else - costs us something…to become small enough to pass through the narrow gate - will cost us something.  To say day after day after day…Thy kingdom come they will be done – costs something.  And the price we pay is summed up in one word…Change.   If you want to be saved you are going to have to change something in your life.  And it’s not just thinking about it either…it has to be something physical.   The Change a true disciple must make involves…Our Life…Our Relationships…Our Possessions. 

First…our Life.  Being a True Disciple means that we physically Change our Life.  Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.  This is a physical expectation of Jesus…Carrying…actually picking something up and putting on our backs and doing the work.   Following…actually walking after Him…not just thinking about it…stopping what we are doing and following…often times requiring a total change of direction…we actually have to do it rather than just imagine it.  Being a good Catholic isn’t just sitting down and reading the Catechism and then saying…OK I got it…I’m a Catholic.  No…being a practicing Catholic is doing the things that the Catechism teaches.  It’s a physical act…getting up out of bed and coming here…making the sign of the cross…singing alleluias…Holy Holy Holys…Amens…And also with yous…physically returning back to God what he has so generously given us when the basket comes by…actually coming here to the food pantry every month and looking into the eyes of a poor person and smiling and giving them some of God’s dignity…physically walking up here in fifteen minutes and receiving into our bodies His Body.  You want to be a Disciple…Great…so do I…Do it.  Physically change your life.  

Second…our Relationships.  Being a True Disciple means that we have to change relationships.  Language is always a dicey proposition when studying Sacred Scripture.  Here’s why…Jesus spoke Aramaic to his friends and Hebrew to his fellow Jews.  The gospels were written in Greek and then translated into Latin in the 5^th century by St. Jerome and then translated into English with the invention of the printing press in the 1500’s.  So what we hear Jesus saying today is the 5^th layer of Jesus’ original words.  And as anyone knows who speaks another language…some words don’t exactly translate from one language to the next.  So the word Hate needs some clarification.  Hate is a strong word.  When we hear that we must hate our father and mother…wives and children…even our lives…we have to understand that Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience with a Hebrew manner of speaking…and he meant this: our love for each other…husbands and wives…for our families…even for ourselves...in comparison to our love for God…should be less.  It doesn’t mean stop loving each other.  But for the True disciple…God must  be our first love.  And when our love for God is first then it most naturally affects our relationships with everyone else…it Changes our relationships.  When I love Jesus MORE than anyone or anything else it Changes how I love other people and how I love things.  When we love Jesus more then our love for each other reaches its fullest flowering.  Being a disciple has to change our closest relationships. 

And finally third…our Possessions.  Anyone of you who does not renounce his possessions cannot be my disciple.  Easy to say and not so easy to do.  I like my flat screen TV and my Cole Haan Loafers.  Truthfully though…it is actually easy to give away things when we live in surplus as most of us do.  But our possessions go much deeper.  Our things that need to be let go of are our dispositions…our unbending opinions…our grudges…our need for control…our closed minded-ness…our lack of compassion for those different than we are….these possessions are always the hardest to give away.   But to be a True Disciple our Possessions have to Change and this is the Cost of Discipleship. 

We all know Pope Francis has been saying daily mass at the Domus Santa Marta…his dorm residence in Rome.  Just this week at his Thursday homily he talked specifically about this.  He explained…there is no such thing as low-cost Christianity.  Following Jesus means swimming against the tide…it means renouncing things. 

Jesus said…no one comes to the Father but through me.  So we need to listen to his words today.  Difficult…confusing…almost absurd words.  What do our lives look like?  What do our relationships look like?  Is our love for each other a result of our love for Him?  What do our possessions say about our lives?  Do we value Him more than our things?  When someone sees us in our daily lives…at home…at the office…at school…at HEB…even right here at Christ the King…do they say…now that guy…he’s a true Disciple of Jesus.  That’s the goal…to change our lives so much so that it becomes obvious that we are in fact His Disciple and nothing else in life is as important as being his Disciple.