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"By blood and origin, I am .. Albanian. My citizenship is Indian. I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the whole world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to Jesus." Words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta who, as we've recently learned, suffered a deep crisis of faith for the last four decades of her life. Writing last week in his Sacred Mysteries column in the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Howse describes how Mother Teresa was reluctant to talk of her inner trials because she wanted to talk about the One who motivated her. But there is no mistaking the depth of the darkness in her mind from the late 1940s until her death in 1997. "I am told God loves me," she wrote, "and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul." It is worth noting that these words came in a prayer that she wrote directed to Jesus, in whom she continued to have faith." And Howse concludes : "Mother Teresa's … work with the poorest of the poor was carried out while she was in this state of darkness. It was not social work that she was carrying out, but the task of loving people who needed love, in whom she saw Jesus Christ."
The same Jesus, who in this evening's Gospel, said: "Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14 : 27). Mother Theresa had chosen to belong to Jesus. That choice led her to a lifetime's work with the poor, a work carried out with such total loving commitment, and in spite of the perceived absence of the One she sought to serve. Truly Mother Teresa knew what it was to carry her cross.
Choice, and the cost of commitment. That's the theme of both this evening's Bible readings. A theme we also experience in our daily lives. For example, in the Barr household and in many others at present, there are young people starting out on their chosen courses of study. The choices made mean that some subjects have to be dropped, and commitment given to the chosen ones. Or again, at the start of the Rugby World Cup - whatever team you and I may be supporting! - it's clear that all those nations taking part have chosen to compete, and the players have had to commit themselves to the cost of preparing for this competition. Or again - for those of us not into rugby or school ! - what about the choices we have to make at our local supermarkets? Those of you who bump into me in Waitrose may have spotted a glazed expression on my face - a reaction to the bewildering variety of food options on offer! Yet, once you and I have made our choice, then we're committed to paying for it, and eating it.
This picture of a supermarket can also be applied to the world of faith, religion, or spirituality. Like a supermarket, there are such a bewildering variety of religious brands or spiritualities on offer for people to choose from. They can all seem attractive at first glance, and it may be tempting to try as many as possible - to take a pick-and-mix approach, which assumes that all are equally good for us, and that our choice doesn't really matter.
Yet, while that may be a post-modern mindset, it certainly isn't the message of either of our Bible readings. In Deuteronomy, we hear of a stark choice that was put by God to His chosen people through His servant Moses: " I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life" (Deuteronomy 30 : 19, 20). Just as God had chosen His people, covenanted Himself to them out of love, and called them out of slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, so for their part the people of Israel were called to choose to keep this covenant by committing themselves to love and obey the Lord their God. And, like a marriage covenant, this choice would mean keeping only unto God and 'forsaking all others.'
Choice, and the cost of commitment. Jesus was equally stark about the importance of this choice, and the cost of commitment: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, even life itself - such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14 : 26, 27). Stark words about the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Jesus. Words which, then as now, hardly seem the best way to win friends and influence people. Since the Christian faith is often associated, quite rightly, with what are called 'family values', it is shocking to be told to 'hate' your parents, wife and children, and siblings. Yet Jesus doesn't stop there: one must also hate one's own self, be prepared for a shameful death, and give up everything, in order to be a disciple. This suggests that Jesus wasn't in fact denying the importance of close family ties. Rather, He was issuing an all-or-nothing challenge to the crowds who were tagging along, an urgent challenge to weigh up the cost, before any choice and commitment to discipleship was made.
It was the German pastor, theologian, and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer who summed up the radical, uncompromising nature of true Christian discipleship in these words: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." And, in his book Discipleship, the Anglican minister and evangelist David Watson issued these challenging words to the Western Church; words which, though they were written a quarter of a century ago, surely still continue to have a prophetic quality: "Christians in the West have largely neglected what it means to be a disciple of Christ. The vast majority of western Christians are church-members, pew-fillers, hymn-singers, sermon-tasters, Bible-readers, even born-again-believers or Spirit-filled-charismatics - but not true disciples of Jesus. If we were willing to learn the meaning of real discipleship and actually to become disciples, the church in the West would be transformed, and the resultant impact on society would be staggering."
So where are you and I, in terms of our own discipleship? And where are we as the Priory Church? For, as our church vision statement should keep on reminding us, our own discipleship is one that needs to be worked out as part of a community which "responds to God's love in worship, welcomes all in the name of Jesus Christ, and reaches out in the power of the Spirit." While individual disciples of Jesus Christ can and do make a difference, communities of His disciples make a far greater impact. In a recent article that I read, the dynamic impact of a Christian community is pictured in this way : "Faithful community is like marram grass. Once rooted and the restless, sterile sand stops blowing around, dunes build, birds, frogs, insects begin to move in. Life happens. A new ecology starts" (Tim Marks).
How badly our society, and world, needs this life-giving ecology of faithful communities of Jesus Christ! Yet it will not happen unless and until we choose the way of discipleship, and commit ourselves to journey with one another and with the Lord. Lukewarm or half-hearted commitment isn't enough.
When it comes to following Jesus, paying lip service is no good, because the Lord sees through all the games we play with ourselves, with one another, and with Him. In the end, it comes down to this: To whom do we belong, in our heart of hearts? Let us make no mistake: As Bishop Michael Marshall once put it, if Jesus is not Lord of all, then Jesus is not Lord at all. God will not be mocked or fooled. Our lives will show whether or not the fruit of the Holy Spirit is growing within us. If we outwardly profess to love the Lord, yet our hearts turn away to worship other 'gods', then we are committing spiritual adultery. And, if this is not repented of and forsaken, then it will have disastrous consequences.
This evening, as in every service of Holy Communion, you and I are invited to renew our baptismal choice for Jesus Christ, and our ongoing commitment to be His disciples. We do so in response to the Lord's calling, and His own choice, of us, and His ongoing commitment to us. In bread and wine, we are invited to receive the sacrament of His own cross bearing, the cost of His own obedience unto death, so that we might be freed from slavery to sin. So may you and I be moved afresh by the gracious love of the One who has called us to be His friends and followers. And may the daily witness of our lives - and the ecology of our life together - enable others to bless God, and to say of us: "The Lord is your life."
John Barr
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