Discipleship according to Bonheoffer and John
Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary time -- June 27, 2010
I Kings 19:19-21 Galatians 5:13-18 Luke 9:51-62
To the Church gathered in a Temple not built by human hands[1]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke
Glory to you, Lord.
Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary time -- June 27, 2010
I Kings 19:19-21 Galatians 5:13-18 Luke 9:51-62
To the Church gathered in a Temple not built by human hands[1]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke
Glory to you, Lord.
As the time drew near for His return to heaven, Jesus resolutely set His face toward Jerusalem where He knew He would die. One day He sent messengers ahead to reserve rooms for them in a Samaritan village. But the Samaritans turned them away. They refused to have anything to do with Jesus and His disciples because they were headed for Jerusalem.[2] When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed on to another village.
On their way, someone approached and said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place of His own where He can rest his head.” Another time, when He invited a man to follow Him, the fellow agreed—but wanted to wait until his father’s death. Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me bid farewell to my people at home. To him Jesus said, “No one who sets his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
On their way, someone approached and said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place of His own where He can rest his head.” Another time, when He invited a man to follow Him, the fellow agreed—but wanted to wait until his father’s death. Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me bid farewell to my people at home. To him Jesus said, “No one who sets his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
Ordinary Time
Introduction
Ordinary Time
We are now in Ordinary Time Cycle C, which stretches through the warm summer months into late fall until November 21, 2010 (the 31st and last Sunday of Ordinary Time). Then on November 28, we will enter into the Extraordinary Time of Advent in preparation for Christmas 2010. The Scripture readings for the Sundays of Ordinary Time are a course in discipleship. In Cycle A discipleship is according to Matthew, in Cycle B according to Mark and in Cycle C according to Luke.
Costly discipleship
In the gospel today, Jesus is journeying towards Jerusalem. It’s a tough journey that lies before Him, so Luke says, “He resolutely set His face toward Jerusalem where He knew He was going to die.” (Lk 9:51) Discipleship – the following of Jesus -- is costly. It invites us to follow Him “who has no place of His own where He can rest His head.” It tells us to “let the dead bury the dead,” and it warns that “whoever sets his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”
When a young man one day approached Jesus and asked what he must do to gain eternal life, Jesus replied, “Keep the commandments.” “I have kept them from my youth,” he answered. Jesus said to him, “Go, then, sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow me.” Luke writes, “The young man’s face fell because he had many possessions.” It fell because discipleship is costly. (Lk 18:18-23)
When a young man one day approached Jesus and asked what he must do to gain eternal life, Jesus replied, “Keep the commandments.” “I have kept them from my youth,” he answered. Jesus said to him, “Go, then, sell all your possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow me.” Luke writes, “The young man’s face fell because he had many possessions.” It fell because discipleship is costly. (Lk 18:18-23)
Bonhoeffer and cheap grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a German Lutheran minister and theologian was put to death by Hitler in 1945. His most noted work is The Cost of Discipleship. It was written in the context of the Evangelical Church of Germany in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. During that Church’s watch the inconceivable horrors of the Holocaust were spawned, thrived and went unchallenged. No wonder then that the very first line of Bonhoeffer’s book reads, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”
By cheap grace he meant the sacraments and the consolations of religion given away at `cut prices.’ By cheap grace he meant the conferral of absolution without requiring costly repentance, the bestowal of baptism without requiring costly commitment, and the reception of Communion without requiring costly bread-breaking. By cheap grace he meant `discipleship’ that doesn’t cost the Church institution or its members one red cent. And by costly grace he meant discipleship which makes costly demands both on the Church institution itself and on its members.
By cheap grace he meant the sacraments and the consolations of religion given away at `cut prices.’ By cheap grace he meant the conferral of absolution without requiring costly repentance, the bestowal of baptism without requiring costly commitment, and the reception of Communion without requiring costly bread-breaking. By cheap grace he meant `discipleship’ that doesn’t cost the Church institution or its members one red cent. And by costly grace he meant discipleship which makes costly demands both on the Church institution itself and on its members.
Discipleship – a divine command to all
It’s natural that our faces fall at costly discipleship. It’s natural, too, to dismiss such a call as unrealistic or to water it down to size, or to simply `farm it out’ to others. In his book Bonhoeffer makes an interesting observation which gives us Catholics pause. The Roman Church, he writes, felt uneasy about dismissing the call to discipleship as unrealistic, or about simply watering it down. So Rome came up with a creative (or clever?) solution: it farmed out the following of Jesus and holiness to a few chosen specialists in the Church -- monks and nuns! To them the Roman Church could point and say, “Look at these heroes of mine! In them I have obeyed Jesus’ call to discipleship.” But that creative solution, Bonhoeffer contented, created a double standard in the Roman Church: a maximum one for a few chosen monks and nuns, and a minimum one for the rest of God’s people. Discipleship, he maintained, “is not the achievement or merit of a chosen few people but is a divine command to all Christians without distinction.”
Catching up to Bonhoeffer
In 1964 Vatican II caught up to Bonhoeffer’s contention that discipleship is a divine command to all Christians. In its stellar document Lumen Gentium, the council carved out a special chapter (Chapter V) entitled The Call of the Whole Church to Holiness [discipleship], and purposely placed it immediately before a chapter entitled Religious (monks and nuns). In Chapter V the council states, ”The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of all perfection, preached holiness of life [discipleship] to each and every one of His disciples, regardless of their situation. “ (Lumen Gentium, art . 40). That put an end, at least on paper, to the Church’s `farming out’ discipleship and holiness to a chosen few.
An institutional crisis
For some time now the Church has been undergoing an institutional crisis which has a magnitude as great as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: the shortage of priests. Like the oil spill the crisis simply keeps getting bigger and bigger every day, with no end in sight. A whole system of pastoral care built up over the centuries, which provided single pastors for single parishes, is collapsing before our very eyes. The Church now finds itself constrained to entrust the pastoral
care of one or moreparishes to a team of priests. Recently in Milwaukee, a team of priests was assigned to pastor the parishes of S. Rita, St. Hedwig, Holy Rosary, Old Saint Mary Parish, Our Lady of Divine Providence Parish and Sts. Peter and Paul! The days of single pastors shepherding single parishes are gone! Now it is a matter of a team pasturing a whole slew of parishes. A man-made crisis
Some say the crisis is man-made. They point to a rich reservoir of candidates out there (married or unmarried, male or even female) who would like to be tapped for priestly ministry. Not to tap it, especially in these hard times, they say, is unconscionable and a great waste. A number of theologians also maintain that there is no plausible theological argument that stands in the way of the ordination of women. Years ago, a committee of American biblical scholars chaired by Scripture scholar Fr. Richard Sklba of Milwaukee issued a statement that, from a strictly biblical point of view, the ordination of women could not be decided one way or the other.
That position, however, got bishop-elect Sklba into deep trouble. On practically the very eve of his consecration, Rome cancelled his episcopal ordination, and both Fr. Sklba and Archbishop Rembert Weakland had to take the first plane to Rome to explain matters. It turned out to be an ugly ordeal. The Archbishop writes, “The process was impersonal, demeaning, unjust, and, most of all, lacking in any sensitivity or concern for the life and reputation of Father Sklba.
[3]” That position, however, got bishop-elect Sklba into deep trouble. On practically the very eve of his consecration, Rome cancelled his episcopal ordination, and both Fr. Sklba and Archbishop Rembert Weakland had to take the first plane to Rome to explain matters. It turned out to be an ugly ordeal. The Archbishop writes, “The process was impersonal, demeaning, unjust, and, most of all, lacking in any sensitivity or concern for the life and reputation of Father Sklba.
A crisis challenging the Church institution
The present crisis, indeed, challenges the Church institution to renounce its disciplinary possession that “Only celibates may become priests,” and its doctrinal possession that “Only men may be ordained priests.”(Just as the humongous crisis in the Gulf is now challenging the nation to make far-reaching decisions about the nation’s energy future.) To simply pray for more vocations, or to import priests who speak incomprehensible English, or to blame the `faithless times’ for not being able to generate more vocations, or to concoct teams of priests to pastor clusters of parishes -- are all cheap (i.e., inexpensive) solutions. They don’t cost the Church institution anything. At the end of the day, however, they cost it much!
There are, however, other ways for the institution to solve its crisis. It could reinstate priests who wish to return to ministry. It could ordain married men. It could even ordain women! But all that, indeed, would be very costly, for institutions are always dead-sure about things, and they don’t like to change their minds. But that (`change of mind’) is the very root meaning of repentance! The Church institution, first and foremost, is called to repentance. It, first and foremost, is called to renounce its possessions and follow Him who has no place of His own where He can rest His head. Only when the Church institution has first called itself to repentance, renunciation and discipleship can it effectively call the faithful to the same.
There are, however, other ways for the institution to solve its crisis. It could reinstate priests who wish to return to ministry. It could ordain married men. It could even ordain women! But all that, indeed, would be very costly, for institutions are always dead-sure about things, and they don’t like to change their minds. But that (`change of mind’) is the very root meaning of repentance! The Church institution, first and foremost, is called to repentance. It, first and foremost, is called to renounce its possessions and follow Him who has no place of His own where He can rest His head. Only when the Church institution has first called itself to repentance, renunciation and discipleship can it effectively call the faithful to the same.
A beloved pope and his institution
On October 28, 1958, Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope (i.e., supreme head of the Church institution). He took the name John XXIII. Born of poor stock in a little Italian village of Bergamo Sotto Il Monte, he always remained poor in spirit, even as he sat on the illustrious Throne of Peter. What’s more, John convoked Vatican II in order to summon his institution to confess its many sins, [4] to divest itself of its many possessions, [5] and to invite all God's people to discipleship.[6]
Though at the top of the institutional ladder, John kept in touch with life at the ground where ordinary people lived. The day after his `coronation[7] ‘as pope, John sped off through elaborate Vatican gates to visit surprised brother-priests in nursing homes and incredulous prisoners in Regina Caeli prison along the Tiber. To the inmates there he said, “I come to you because you couldn’t come to me.”
Conclusion
The Good Pastor
John’s example emanating from the lofty Petrine throne attracted the whole Church and world. It attracted Morris West, an Australian writer (1916-1999) famous especially for his books The Devil’s Advocate and The Shoes of the Fisherman. In A View from the Ridge he writes, “I believe I can say with certainty that I remained in communion with the Church even when the Church itself excluded me
[8], and I remain there still, principally because of the presence of John XXIII, the Good Pastor, whom I never met, though I did meet his predecessor (Pius XII) and his successor (John Paul II). Goodness went out from this man to me. I acknowledged it then. I acknowledge it again.” [1] Acts of the Apostles 17:24
[2] Samaritans didn’t like Jews who called Samaritans “half-breeds,” and they were particularly hostile to Jews going to Jerusalem on pilgrimage.
[3] A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church by Archbishop R. Weakland, p 247.
[4] Anti-Semitism, implicit and explicit, was one of those sins. Confer Vatican II’s document on non-Christian religions no.4, footnote 28.
[5] In Vatican II’s many documents the Church has given up many of its old possessions. For example, in its stellar document on the Church (Lumen Gentium) the Council placed the chapter on The People of God (Chapter II) before the chapter on The Hierarchy (Chapter III). In so doing the Church in council gave up one of its prized possessions – namely, “The Church is the Hierarchy.” Not true! The Church is the people of God!
[6] Cfr. Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ,art . 40.
[7] After John, the Church gave up the practice of crowning popes.
[8] Though West was and always remained a Catholic, his various writings contain a good deal of criticism about the church, and the church was not always pleased with him.
