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It's
Personal
Rev.
George Smiga
August
28, 2005
Matthew
18:15-20
It
has become a cliché in recent movies and TV programs.
It usually occurs in detective stories, when the police are
chasing a vicious killer. The killer strikes out against those
who are trying to arrest him, and in the process one of the
cops is hurt or killed. At that moment it is usually the partner
of the person who has been hurt who looks at the camera and
says the line. That line is this: “Now it's personal.” That
cliché testifies that catching the killer is no longer
a matter of doing a job or drawing a paycheck. Because the
criminal has struck out against someone that the speaker has
known and loved, bringing this criminal to justice is now
a mission. It has risen to a new level of intensity. Everything
is different. Now it's personal.
I
hope you will forgive me, if I use this rather violent image
to interpret today's scripture readings. The image, however,
is useful, because today's scriptural readings tell us that
if our faith is to be real and effective, it has to be personal.
Being a Catholic is more than admitting that we belong to
worldwide organization led by the Pope. It is more than coming
to church on Sunday, as good as that is. It is more than knowing
the rules and living a good, moral life. It is more than reading
the Bible and saying our prayers. If faith is to be real,
it needs to be personal. We need our faith to hit us in the
gut, to affect our heart. It is only then that our faith can
change the person that we are and lead us to live in a new
and deeper way.
Faith
is certainly personal to Jeremiah in today's first reading.
Jeremiah believed he was called by God to be a prophet. Yet
Jeremiah's call was painful to him. As he announced the words
of Yaweh, he experienced rejection and ridicule. Jeremiah
deeply desired to walk away from his vocation. But his faith
was so real and so personal, he could not walk away. When
he tried to give up on what he knew God was asking him to
do, it became, in his own words, like a fire burning within
his bones. He had to obey. He had to continue to speak.
Jesus'
words, in today's Gospel, move in a similar direction. Jesus
says, “If you want to become my disciple, you must be willing
to take up your cross and follow me.” Now I do not know of
any verse in the scriptures that is more frequently misinterpreted
than this verse. Some people think that what Jesus is saying
is that in order to be a disciple, we have to go out and find
pain or suffering to prove that we really believe. Even worse,
some people suggest that God sends us pain or suffering to
test us, and to prove our discipleship. But neither of these
understandings are valid.
What
Jesus is saying is that, if we want to be a disciple, we must
believe on the level of our pain, on the level of the cross.
Any cross, after all, is personal. A cross is not an abstract
idea or a concept. Carrying a cross affects us in the deepest
and most intimate part of our being. Jesus is saying that
we will never know what it means to be a disciple unless we
allow our faith to operate in our deepest selves. So when
Jesus says that we must take up our cross and follow him,
he is not saying that we must go out and look for pain so
that we can be disciples. He is saying that we will only realize
what it means to be a disciple when our faith is personal
enough to allow us to carry our pain.
To
put this in other words, faith needs to believe that God is
loving us individually and unconditionally. Such faith must
impact the way we live. Therefore, today's gospel says to
all the young people who have gone back to school or will
be going back in the next couple weeks, that your personal
faith must go with you. You need to know that all the problems
you will face in school are personally known by God and something
about which God is concerned. God cares about the struggle
with your grades, the pain of not being accepted by your classmates.
Being a disciple of Jesus is more than knowing the catechism.
As a disciple you must believe that God is present to you
where you live, where you suffer.
For
every person in this church today who is dealing with some
problem in your family, in your workplace, some fear about
the future, some sickness or loss, you must bring your faith
to those problems. God is aware of your struggle and has promised
not to abandon you. God will not to let you carry your cross
alone.
This
is what it means to be a disciple. It is more than knowing
the Ten Commandments or being properly registered in your
local parish. It is allowing your faith to operate on the
level of your living, on the level of your pain, as you carry
your cross. Only this is real faith. For it to work, it must
be personal.
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