Imagine something important you feel like you should do — even something you want to do — but don’t prioritize. This can be something for which you know there’s a time limit, but it doesn’t feel urgent. For example, maybe you want to clean the gutters before the beginning of fall, to ensure they’re not clogged once the trees start shedding their leaves. Or maybe you want to have your car inspected, so you make sure it’s still safe to drive.
Now think of all things that bump that important task down the list. Your parents are visiting for a few days, and you need to clean the house. Your child is having a birthday, and you want to plan a party. Your spouse wants to have a romantic dinner on the one evening you’d set aside for the task. You’ve got thank-you cards to write to friends and loved ones.
Now what if that original chore was something more urgent . . . like, say, escaping from a burning house. Think how silly it would be to apply the same excuses to that. “Gee, I’d love to flee this raging inferno, but first I need to get the house cleaned before my folks arrive.” Or “Y’know, I should get out of this deadly blaze, but we had this meal planned in the dining room tonight, so I don’t see how I can get away . . .” It seems pretty silly, right?
The intersection between urgency and obligations came to mind as I reflected on today’s readings. In the Gospel selection from Luke, there are people who, yes, feel like they should follow Jesus. And they even want to! But first they have some familial errands to run. One person wants to bury his dead father, while another wants to go say good-bye to his family. Jesus replies to them both in the negative; to the first he says, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” To the second he responds, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
Those seem like really harsh words! Is Jesus suggesting that you just disappear from your family if you follow him?
To me, this is a tale of two urgencies. The urgency of many of us to follow Jesus is of the first sort I described earlier: something we feel we really ought to do and want to do, but may be tempted to let lag lower on the list of priorities. Daily mass? Sure, that seems like it’d be really spiritually invigorating, but I want to make sure I have my sleep schedule on track first, so I’m fresh for work. Volunteering to help the downtrodden? Yes, I feel a calling to that, but it’s a big commitment each week, and I need to coordinate with my spouse to make sure I’m not creating hardships for us. And so on.
But Jesus tried to spur those near him to a different kind of urgency — one that’s actually . . . well, urgent. Perhaps Jesus was implying: No, don’t go bury your father; if you do, you’ll be tempted to sort through his estate, and then you’ll be drawn into continuing to run the farm, and — before you know it — you won’t have followed me. Maybe Jesus realized that going to say goodbye to family is another way of asking them to talk you out of it.
When you realize that Jesus is God, this urgency makes even more sense. God has seen the timeline of all of creation, from the first star up to the moment he was talking with those would-be followers. And he must have known how infinitesimally slender the human lifespan is in comparison with the scope of humanity — and when compared with how much of eternity (for good or ill) remained before each of their souls. In that way, failing to answer the call of Jesus as immediately and vehemently as possible is as foolish as puttering around the house while it’s on fire, sorting through junk mail and watering the plants. And the fires of Gehenna are even more urgent than a regular old housefire!
It’s hard for me to say whether Jesus was truly advocating that the faithful — then or now — should vanish from the lives of their families and loved ones. He often used rhetorical exaggeration to make his points as emphatically as possible. But we do know the urgency that Jesus wanted us to turn over our lives. In a regular housefire, we might risk our mortal lives to grab an irreplaceable heirloom or family photo album; even if it’s an understandable impulse, it’s not for me to say if that would be wise or not, but the consequences of being caught in an inferno are indisputable and irrevocable. In a similar way, I can’t say with certainty how unwise it is to put familial affairs in order before following Christ, but the consequences for not following him are well spelled out by Sacred Scripture, and the risks seem pretty substantial.
I’d urge you to today — right now, if possible — do something for God that you’ve intended for a while, but for which you keep finding excuses not to. Go to confession. Volunteer to be part of your church’s choir. Donate to that worthy cause. Begin saying the Rosary every night. Whatever way the Spirit has been calling you to act, think of its urgency not as you would a household chore, but with the immediacy of a household fire. Jesus calls us to act, but only you can answer that call.
Today’s readings: Neh 2:1-8; PS 137:1-2,3,4-5,6; Lk 9:57-62
