What does Jesus Christ
want of us?
Any parent of a sluggish (usually teenage) child knows the
expression, ‘How many times must I call you?’ as a teenager will often put off
a painful duty. A girl in her 20s told me how her teenage niece texted her from
the couch in her home to the kitchen to make her a cup of tea! How lazy can you
get?
We delay the inevitable thought of discomfort. We text ahead
that we are running late (but what really delayed us?). There is no ad break or
commercial break, there is no ‘I’ll get back to you’ for our response to God. Abraham Lincoln once said that ‘my
father taught me the value of hard work, but he didn’t teach me to like it’.
What does God want? There is no snooze button or pause button
where God is concerned. Nor does He does not want to be put on hold!
He wants obedience –
·
listening,
·
and doing,
·
promptly
·
to the present moment.
He wants our friendship and a return of the love that He has
shown us.
He calls each one of us, not just priests and nuns or missionaries,
to follow Him. He wants of each person the faithful performance of their daily
duty as required of their state in life. It need not necessarily be (though may
include) getting up and facing the day sometimes on a dark, dreary wintry
morning that is bleak and daunting to go off to work.
He wants us to follow Him to Jerusalem - to deny ourselves,
take up our cross and follow him. He wants a particular kind of friendship and
relationship – of trust and of reliability.
What kind of friend am I to Him? What
kind of person am I?
Three people make what we might deem valid excuses in their response
to Christ’s call today.
But the excuses that we make tell us a lot about ourselves in
our present state. The delay tactics, the reasons for delay are about us
wanting to put off an uncomfortable but necessary duty that urgently presents
itself to us!
‘I’ll do it later’ tasks are often never done at all,
of if done are done later in the day, under the pressure of the clock or
deadline, and grudgingly or slipshod. As creatures of habit we might work better
under the pressure of a deadline and how ironic it is that the more time I have
on my hands, the less I get done.
‘I don’t feel like it’ is not refer to things that a matter
of taste but those very things are a matter of duty, of honouring and being
faithful to a commitment. As Nike ads say ‘Just do it’. Laziness, or sloth in
one place will ultimately spill into all areas of our lives. This is part of the
self-indulgence that St Paul warns the Galatians about in today’s Sunday
reading. A good test of our response, our obedience to the present moment, to
the duty required of us, is our punctuality vis
à vis suiting ourselves. So we see that
the Cross that we are called to pick up every day (last week) does in fact
involve denying ourselves, and if for no other reason let us at least be motivated
to act straight away by our consideration for others’ feelings. This is very
telling when we see that Our Lady went with haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth
and was so attentive at Cana before everyone else noticed that the wine had run
out and spared the couple’s and family’s embarrassment in a real concrete
situation.
We are at constant war with the self-indulgent back-sliding
that years of bad ingrained habit tempt us back to, and the striving to live a life
in the Spirit – the new life which Christ calls us towards and ultimately leads
to eternal life.
If we are truly, madly, deeply in love with Our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ and faithful to Him in prayer (even when we don’t feel like
praying when the opportunity presents itself), we will find ourselves saying
more and more often when we are tempted backwards: ‘How could I do that to Him?’
and throughout the day we will see Him and serve Him with consideration more
and more in our neighbour. Then our constant question will be ‘what am I
waiting for?’
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