What should we make of
the words of our Lord in today’s Gospel?
His examples of the builder and the general
would seem to counsel prudent calculation:
don’t start projects you can’t finish;
don’t get into fights you can’t win.
But when he tells his listeners
that to be his disciple you must
hate your family and even your own life,
take up your cross and follow after him,
renounce all of your possessions…
well, this sounds pretty reckless
and imprudent.
the words of our Lord in today’s Gospel?
His examples of the builder and the general
would seem to counsel prudent calculation:
don’t start projects you can’t finish;
don’t get into fights you can’t win.
But when he tells his listeners
that to be his disciple you must
hate your family and even your own life,
take up your cross and follow after him,
renounce all of your possessions…
well, this sounds pretty reckless
and imprudent.
But what if our sense of what is prudent,
our capacity to calculate,
changes when being Jesus’ disciple
comes into the equation?
I’m not any sort of mathematician,
but it seems to me a bit like trying
to introduce infinity into basic math
(those of you with math-phobia
might want to tune out for a minute
and read the bulletin or something).
For example, since the value
of five-plus-one is larger than five
and a thousand-plus-one
is larger than a thousand
and a billion-plus-one
is larger than a billion,
you might think that the value
of infinity-plus-one
would be larger than infinity.
But it’s not, since “infinity” is, by definition,
that than which nothing can be larger.
So infinity-plus-one would still be infinity—
indeed, infinity-plus-infinity
would still be infinity.
You can’t treat infinity
like a number in making basic calculations,
because it is not a value among other values
but rather it is the concept of limitlessness.
As someone once put it, “infinity”
is a shorthand way of saying
“what would happen if we kept going?”
(Those of you who are math-phobic
can now tune back in,
because the math is over.)
The point is that being Jesus’s disciple,
following him on the way of the cross,
entering the kingdom he proclaims,
is not a value among other values,
something that can be a factor
in calculating our life plans.
Rather, it is an invitation to live a life
that hurls us beyond the limited horizon
that the world offers us.
It is an invitation to step into
the wild world of God’s limitless love,
the God whose counsel
no mortal can comprehend
and whose intention are beyond conception.
It is an invitation that makes us ask,
“what would happen if we kept going?”
The book of Wisdom says,
“the deliberations of mortals are timid,
and unsure are our plans.”
Our problem as humans
is that we believe too little;
in our calculations, we underestimate
the limitlessness of the journey
that Jesus is inviting us to join.
We want to weigh the value of following him
against things of real but finite value,
like family and possessions
and our own lives.
Jesus invites us to count the cost
of being his disciple
not so that we can put a number on it,
but only so that we can realize
that it is beyond calculation;
it costs both everything and nothing;
it demands the totality of our life,
it demands that we keep going
beyond the limits
of what we have to give,
but only so that we can realize
that everything is already given,
everything is already gift.
And this will change our lives.
“the deliberations of mortals are timid,
and unsure are our plans.”
Our problem as humans
is that we believe too little;
in our calculations, we underestimate
the limitlessness of the journey
that Jesus is inviting us to join.
We want to weigh the value of following him
against things of real but finite value,
like family and possessions
and our own lives.
Jesus invites us to count the cost
of being his disciple
not so that we can put a number on it,
but only so that we can realize
that it is beyond calculation;
it costs both everything and nothing;
it demands the totality of our life,
it demands that we keep going
beyond the limits
of what we have to give,
but only so that we can realize
that everything is already given,
everything is already gift.
And this will change our lives.
Our second reading gives us
a bit of the letter Paul wrote
to a Christian named Philemon,
a letter that was borne to him by Onesimus,
who had been one of Philemon’s slaves.
Onesimus had fled the household of Philemon
and encountered Paul and his preaching
and had been baptized as a Christian.
He desires to remain with Paul,
but Paul sends him back to Philemon,
telling him to receive Onesimus
“no longer as a slave
but more than a slave, a brother.”
Onesimus is not exactly freed—
he is to return to be a part
of Philemon’s household—
but neither is he a slave.
Now that they are both Christians,
now that they have both taken up the cross,
now that they have joined Jesus
on the journey without limits,
the relationship of Onesimus and Philemon
is radically changed:
Philemon can no longer
be master of Onesimus
but must become his brother.
Think what this might mean
in their social context,
in which slaves and brothers were people
of quite different kinds of value.
However useful your slave might be to you,
the value of a brother or a sister
would always be more.
To treat one who had been a slave
as a family member
could be seen as a gross insult
to other members of the household;
as if the elevation of the slave’s status
were a reduction of everyone else’s.
Some might even see Philemon’s act as
“hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters.”
Were Philemon to calculate the cost,
he might well decide that welcoming Onesimus
back into the household as a brother
is simply not worth it.
be master of Onesimus
but must become his brother.
Think what this might mean
in their social context,
in which slaves and brothers were people
of quite different kinds of value.
However useful your slave might be to you,
the value of a brother or a sister
would always be more.
To treat one who had been a slave
as a family member
could be seen as a gross insult
to other members of the household;
as if the elevation of the slave’s status
were a reduction of everyone else’s.
Some might even see Philemon’s act as
“hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters.”
Were Philemon to calculate the cost,
he might well decide that welcoming Onesimus
back into the household as a brother
is simply not worth it.
But Paul is inviting Philemon
to be not timid in his deliberations,
to calculate not in the terms
of the values of his world
but to open himself up
to the limitless love of God,
to look at Onesimus,
who has become his spiritual equal
in the waters of Baptism,
and ask himself,
“what would happen if we kept going?”
What would happen if we pressed forward
with our newfound brotherhood in Christ?
Can the call to be Jesus’ disciple
lead us to places of love and communion
that we cannot even now imagine?
Can it lead to a life together
where there are no slaves and masters?
Who can conceive what the Lord intends?
to be not timid in his deliberations,
to calculate not in the terms
of the values of his world
but to open himself up
to the limitless love of God,
to look at Onesimus,
who has become his spiritual equal
in the waters of Baptism,
and ask himself,
“what would happen if we kept going?”
What would happen if we pressed forward
with our newfound brotherhood in Christ?
Can the call to be Jesus’ disciple
lead us to places of love and communion
that we cannot even now imagine?
Can it lead to a life together
where there are no slaves and masters?
Who can conceive what the Lord intends?
And for us too,
what might happen if we kept going,
if we let the infinite kingdom
disrupt our calculations?
What love and communion might await us
if we let go of everything to follow Jesus?
What impassible borders could be crossed?
What irreparable harms could be healed?
What unimaginable gifts could be received?
We should pray that being a disciple of Jesus
would hurl us beyond the limits
of what we think possible,
and tune our hearts to God’s intentions.
We should pray that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.
