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Elisha touched by Elijah's cloak, and
notice what he does, he's ploughing 12 yoke of oxen, quite a wealthy
farmer and he hears the call to be a prophet and he responds, notice,
let me kiss my father and mother and then I'll follow you and Elisha
took the oxen and slaughtered them, used the plough for cooking the oxen
and gave to his men who ate. So presumably he says farewell to his
parents and then shares the oxen as his last gift to his friends and
servants and then follows the call of the prophet to succeed Elijah.
In the gospel we have the same
idea, following Christ, five very powerful statements. It says first of
all about Jesus, what his purpose in life is to seek the will of the
Father and to follow. That has pointed him to Jerusalem, it is the
turning point in Luke's gospel, Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem
where it all began with the naming of John the Baptist. It began there,
it's to finish there. Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. His
disciples enter a new way of training now, they are being taught
something different, they have to go out because that's what they have
to do when he reaches Jerusalem and is crucified. They will have to go
out and be his presence in the world, so they start going out.
Immediately, they meet with rebuffs in a Samaritan town and they miss
the point. James and John are wonderful but they miss the point
completely. Shall we call down fire and brimstone on the Samaritans.
It's nothing to do with that. He's chosen the other way, not the way of
fame and celebrity and power but the way of the cross, the way of
humility. The follower of Jesus has to follow that same road and what
will it entail, giving up everything, "the birds of the air have nests,
but the son of Man has nowhere to lay his head". So it means total
commitment. When we are baptised our Lord is saying, I'm not messing
about, it's not something you can look at, pick and choose, take what
you like, no, I want everything, everything and there's an urgency about
it "leave the dead to bury their dead" "once the hand is laid to the
plough". All those are saying that it's giving our lives to God.
So tonight's mass, this weekend's masses are all about our commitment.
You're here, what are you here for, you're here because you are
committed to what was promised in your baptism, or what you promised in
your baptism. You're here because you kept to that, so you are
committed to our Lord to follow Him. Your very presence here says that
so very powerfully and that's why you're here, in other words, coming to
mass is not about you coming to St Joseph's because the mass is nice,
because there's nice singing, because Father Aidan is such a nice man.
You would really be foolish to come for those reasons. You come because
you are committed to Christ and maybe it's the only time in the week you
can express it like this, because you are busy people. Quite a lot of
you come during the week as well but it's always because we are
following Christ, renewing our commitment. So in tonight's mass, look
at your lifelong commitments, you're renewing those as well. Husband's
to wives, wives to husband's a lifelong commitment. Parent's to
children a lifelong commitment, children to parents equally. Those are
the things that are being renewed in this mass and it's not a dramatic
thing in a way, that lovely phrase in St Paul's letter to the Galations,
what does that commitment mean husband to wife, parents to children -
serve one another in works of love. So we are called to serve God in
works of love, to serve one another in works of love. We do it, whether
we like it or not, we do it out of love for the other person. The other
person comes first, God comes first, my husband comes first if I'm a
wife, my wife comes first if I'm a husband and we see this so often,
children come first if you're a parent, grandchildren very often.
So tonight's mass is about renewing those lifelong commitments, why,
because we are following Christ, but not because it's a burden, because
it's the only way to really live. We're not messing about on the
fringes of life; we're grasping life by the heart, if you like, getting
to the heart of it. With Christ our Lord, we commit ourselves to people
for life. It's interesting you know, when Father Michael was ordained
this year at Egrement, the clothing was there wasn't it. You know, like
Elijah, the mantle is still part of the ceremony, in fact Father Michael
told me afterwards that somebody had said it was quite ironic that he
should be clothed in the ceremony by the scruffiest priest in the
diocese. I mean he'd forgotten, he didn't know about the days in
academia when the quadrangles of Cambridge were filled with hushed
whispers at the amazement of my sartorial elegance - obviously he knew
nothing about that - that wasn't true either - but still we can dream
can't we, - but it's interesting that the clothing was there, he puts on
solemnly, the Bishop through me, puts solemnly the clothing of the
priesthood because Michael is clothed in that priesthood forever and
that's what the solemn profession of the priesthood is about. Our
commitments are the same if you like, lifelong commitments, and so in a
way we have something tremendous in common. Following Christ means a
lifelong commitment, for us to our Bishop and our diocese, for you to
each other, your husband, wife, children, parents, grandchildren and in
tonight's mass we bring those commitments to our Lord and we say, to
serve each other in works of love, we need your help and we offer them
with our bread and wine and when we receive our Lord in communion, we
receive His commitment to us and He says, don't worry I am with you
always, you can keep those commitments, persevere with them to the very
end.
Amen
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