The Gospel of Luke, chapter 14:33

Have you ever observed a person do something or perform some feat and imagined to yourself, “that’s easy . I can do that,” but failed miserably when you tried it? Experiences like this give us pause, cause us to think again. Today’s Gospel calls on us to think again. It challenges us to plan carefully if we are to become followers of Christ. We must prepare ourselves for the reception of Christ into our lives by renouncing “our” possessions, the greatest obstacle to His kingdom.

The book of Wisdom (Wisdom 9:13-18b) reminds us that when it comes to insight, even the wisest person barely scrapes the surface of things. True wisdom, we are told, means knowing how little we know. “Scarce do we guess the things on earth,” we are reminded; and when it comes to things that “are in heaven, who can search them out?”

St. Paul challenged Philemon, a slave-owner, to re-think his social and political philosophy. Philemon had a slave called Onesimus, who became a Christian. What was Philemon now to think? St. Paul asked Philemon to think again in a revolutionary way, not just to acquiesce in the values of the Roman social order, but to create a new order in Christ where a person like Onesimus is treated “no longer as a slave” or as a possession but as “a beloved brother,” an equal.
Today’s Gospel from St. Luke, chapter fourteen, offers a collection of mini-parables about discipleship and, in each of them, Jesus asks us to think twice before acting. He tells us not to be like the man who set out “to build a tower” or the King who marched “on another King to do battle,” without planning. We must think twice about what we’re doing. We must resist easy solutions and answers, and risk the hard business of thinking His message through. Think about what Jesus says in today’s Gospel:

“If anyone comes to me without turning his back on his father
and mother, his wife and his children, his brother and sisters,
indeed his very self, he cannot be my follower.”
and
“None of you can be my disciple if he does not
renounce all his possessions,”

If you think these are simple statements, then think again! If you think the message is easy, think again!

Fr. Hugh Duffy