Sunday Mass 30th June 2013 Christianity is not a free lunch!

Jesus resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem. A man said I will follow you wherever you will go. Jesus rejects three applicants. By deduction 9/10 Christians will not get off Jacob's Ladder to Heaven! For many are invited but few are chosen. Say, Todays Gospel Reading is from Luke 9:51-62. It appears incongruent and unusual when taken within its context and viewed out of context from the universal scope of Jesus mission on Earth. In thrust it deals with Jesus basically rejecting the applications from three different men to be his disciples on his impending fateful or destined journey to Jerusalem. Let me copy/paste Luke 9:57-62 from the Catholic Online (this website is fantastic, I only discovered this a few weeks ago through my Ipad: 57 As they travelled along they met a man on the road who said to him, 'I will follow you wherever you go.' 58 Jesus answered, 'Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.' 59 Another to whom he said, 'Follow me,' replied, 'Let me go and bury my father first.' 60 But he answered, 'Leave the dead to bury their dead; your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.' 61 Another said, 'I will follow you, sir, but first let me go and say good bye to my people at home.' 62 Jesus said to him, 'Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.' We know that Jesus was in a hurry to face his destiny in Jerusalem from Luke 9:51-56 - 51 Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he resolutely turned his face towards Jerusalem 52 and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, 53 but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. 54 Seeing this, the disciples James and John said, 'Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?' 55 But he turned and rebuked them, 56 and they went on to another village. Let me sum up the situation. The end is nigh. Jesus could see that not many around him were spiritually minded. Most Jews were speculating that Jesus might be the Jewish Messiah in a worldly sense, to save the Jews from Roman oppression. Even the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, with their religious knowledge, saw salvation in terms of the redemption of worldly sins so as to acquire immortality of their worldly beings after death. They did not like his New Law which made nonsense in part of their Old Law. His parables were only understood by a small minority. Most only saw with their worldly eyes and seeing without, were persuaded more by sight or news of miracles and wonders. Few were then seeing within as in spiritual insight and being baptised or reborn in the spirit. He already had a chosen few his thirteen disciples. He already knew that this motley crew of thirteen disciples was not all quite up there. That is why he rebuked John and James for suggesting punishing the Samaritans. These top guys still had no idea about loving your enemies. The Parable of the Good Samaritan would have to come later. Poor Jesus! He knew he had a good man in uneducated Peter, but he knew that Peters faith was worldly rather than spiritual, and that Peter would eventually deny him. Jesus knew that Thomas was an educated man and not one into blind worldly faith and that Thomas was keeping an eye out for proof of Jesus spirituality. He knew that Judas was a fence-sitter who might become a turncoat anytime and join the opposition. Most of all we should sympathise with Jesus in his dilemma as he faced this crowd of followers or devotees who were mainly uneducated. If the educated Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees could not understand what Jesus Parables were about, what hope was there for the hoi polloi?

Why is this guy taking about learning to suffer? Is he the Messiah or is he the Servant of Suffering? Why is this guy talking about reaping what you sow? Is he the Redeemer or is he the Harbinger of Retribution? Why is this guy always talking about God loving the poor, the sick, the needy and little children? Why is this guy telling us to love our neighbours the Samaritans? Are not the Jews Gods chosen people? Why is this guy talking about God unconditionally loving all sinners and the oppressed? What is this allegory about sheep and goats? As per last Sundays discourse, all in all we have a Spirit Jesus incarnated as a man trying to tell men that their true beings are eternal spirits; that we have to suffer to lose or put to death the goat in us so that we can live eternally in the spirit as sheep of the Good Shepherd. So why should Jesus accept new disciples under the circumstances, when he is facing his worldly destiny around the corner? Just to further expand on the background or curtain backdrop let me refer you to what Jesus said earlier in Luke 14:26-33: 26 'Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. 27 No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple. 28 'And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying, 30 "Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish." 31 Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? 32 If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. 33 So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns. Is not this earlier sermon very clear that to be a disciple of Jesus that you have had to submit yourself solely and totally to Jesus? No, not to Jesus as a man, as what these three candidates were thinking of doing, but in the spirit! That is, as a spirit already lost or dead to the world! You have to follow and bear your own cross right till the end! You have to work out why you do not want to be a goat, and how you are going to put your worldly goat to death, before you embark on the journey to rebirth as a sheep! Otherwise, do not bother, just sue for peace and surrender to Satan, and continue to stay as a goat on Jacobs Ladder! We find the same thing said in Matthew 10:34-38: 34 'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; 36 a person's enemies will be the members of his own household. 37 'No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. 38 Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Let us now conclude. To the 1st candidate Jesus is saying that to be a disciple is to be like a tonsured monk, a mendicant. You have to be dead to the world and be homeless! Your home is not anywhere on Earth! To the 2nd candidate Jesus is saying that if you were reborn in the spirit you would be a different being living a different life. If you are eternally alive in the spirit, the worldly are either mortal or dead. Therefore let the worldly mortal bury the worldly dead! In the spirit you are a different being living a different life. To the 3rd candidate Jesus is saying that his going back to the family to say goodbye meant he

still had worldly attachments. Having family attachments at the point when he wanted to become a disciple meant he had not said goodbye to the world. That is like Lots wife not yet prepared to say goodbye, and looking back, when leaving Sodom and Gomorrah [Genesis 19:26]. When you start ploughing you must see where you are going ahead and what you are sowing. You must have already decided not to be a goat and have already worked out what you had to do to leave your goat behind, to allow your sheep in you to resurface. The lesson to learn is that being a Christian requires sheer hard work, commitment and dedication. Refer to what Jesus said in the Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:8-14: 8 Then he said to his servants, "The wedding is ready; but as those who were invited proved to be unworthy, 9 go to the main crossroads and invite everyone you can find to come to the wedding." 10 So these servants went out onto the roads and collected together everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 When the king came in to look at the guests he noticed one man who was not wearing a wedding garment, 12 and said to him, "How did you get in here, my friend, without a wedding garment?" And the man was silent. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth." 14 For many are invited but not all are chosen.' The learned and wealthy Jews i.e. the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, the so-called 'worthy ones' did not want to attend the wedding feast. When the ordinary folks, both good and bad, were invited, one, and I presume there were others, was not appropriately 'dressed' for the occasion. Are we appropriately 'dressed' for the 'occasion'? We are all invited but not all are chosen. Do not be misguided by the modern day Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees of the Christian Church. To be chosen, you have to be suitably 'dressed'! To be chosen requires not just faith alone. It requires faith and more; and that more is not just good works. It requires you to be baptised by water (i.e. clear your karmic residue and kill the goat in you) and to be baptised in the spirit (i.e. reborn to your spirit son of God, the sheep or the little child in you); so that you can return home as the Lost Prodigal Son to the Spirit Father. It requires you to carry your own cross and suffer the false self-ego worldly existence in the Image of Christ! It requires you to love one another as Jesus has loved us, so that we are all one in the Holy Trinity; and that means in spiritual terms Love the Spirit Father with all the mind, body and soul of a good repentant filial spirit son and to love our spirit siblings (neighbours) as we love ourselves. Being a Christian therefore requires sheer hard work, commitment and dedication. By deduction 9/10 Christians will not get off Jacob's Ladder to Heaven! Isn't that a sombre 'time to check the pulse' thought? Remember the Aussie expression - 'There is nothing like a free lunch!' Contemplate wisely! God loves his children but he weans them by allowing them to learn from their mistakes. God Bless! Chuan. 30/6/13