Juggling many topics
I just remembered a workshop with the diocesan leadership where, in the evening, someone invited us to take a break from all the topics by practicing juggling together. Have you ever tried that? Keeping several balls in the air … except we weren’t juggling with balls, but with scarves that float a little more slowly through the air. I’m completely unskilled at it, so even with three I always end up dropping one, and that thought comes to mind now, because today we are juggling quite a lot of topics at once, and I have no idea if I will manage it. There are at least three major themes in the room, and of course another hundred that we have all brought with us into this service.
The first major theme is, of course, the blessing of this wonderful space. The second major theme, with which we began and at least as impressive for me, was when, what feels like a hundred years ago, back when I was still a parish priest, I was able to celebrate for the first time the admission of adult catechumens. I can tell you, that has a huge impact on our community … but that’s another subject, and I have to be careful not to take a detour here and slip in an extra homily. The third major theme today is the readings from the Word of God of the Church.
There are many balls in the air, and I can’t guarantee that I’ll manage to handle them all well. But I’ll give it a try. I just hope I don’t drop any of them and that I can manage it within a reasonable amount of time. If it goes on too long, you can signal that with a discreet yawn. I’ll be watching a little, and then I’ll know it might be wise to start heading toward the conclusion. I had one in mind, whether I actually get there, we’ll see.
Discipleship of Jesus – following after Him
So where do we begin? Let’s begin with the Gospel and with this church building and I hope that in the end, at the altar and the consecration of the altar, we will still be holding the last ball in our hands. So, the Gospel and this church building: that actually fits together a bit, doesn’t it, with the comparison Jesus makes about building a tower. You didn’t build a tower, but you did renovate a house, and I suspect, dear Fr. George and dear co-workers: you planned well otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here today in contrast to the image in the Gospel, where Jesus says: If you don’t plan, the tower will stand only half-finished or collapse because the foundation is missing. So at first glance, you managed that quite well. And for anyone who wants to know something about planning ahead and project management: here sits the expert!
In today’s Gospel, Jesus of course uses an image. And that already brings us to what we began our mass with today, the second ball, I am juggling, with our catechumens. Jesus tells this parable for people who are setting out on a journey with him. It’s really just about the question: what is essential for the Christian path? And what do I need to prepare if I am going to build on this path? It’s relatively simple, one sentence in which Jesus places two things: follow behind me. I find it beautiful that the revised Einheitsübersetzung does not only say “follow me,” but more literally “go behind me.” You can easily picture what that means: to follow someone, to walk behind them and to take up one’s cross. That is the precondition for a journey with Jesus. This decision must be made. And that, ultimately, is what you, at the beginning of this mass, at the entrance and here, asked these our catechumens: Do you want this? To go after Jesus, to listen to him, to orient yourself by him, to stay in his footsteps not alone, but together with others, because that makes it easier and – and this I find especially striking – with your own cross.
I would translate that in very prosaic terms like this: with my cross, just as I am, not with some other, not with something else, not with anything I might construct in my head, but as I am, with my strengths and weaknesses, with the blisters that come from walking behind someone for a long time, with the fatigue, with the occasional rebellion against the path that is being walked ahead of me, and so on. All of that belongs to it.
Of course, the Gospel today didn’t put it quite so softly. Because Jesus attaches two things to this one condition of discipleship that, at least in these two framing remarks, don’t sound particularly appealing: leaving everything behind: things that one could certainly reflect on more deeply, disregarding possessions and even one’s own family relationships. As it said at the beginning: father, mother, wife, children, even one’s own life, to hold them in lesser regard; and at the end once again: no one can be my disciple unless they renounce all their possessions. That is rather starkly put. Now I have a good excuse, I’ll toss this ball back up into the air, since there are other topics, and one could reflect much more on this. But perhaps one point that I will stay with, which might seem odd: Jesus sets out conditions for discipleship that, at least in these framing remarks, don’t sound terribly appealing at all—leaving everything behind. Why is it, then, that they are nevertheless so compelling, that all of us, and millions and even billions before us, have set out on this path?
Solomon’s listening heart
Back again to the ball of today’s liturgy and to the text we heard in the first reading, which was only briefly touched on. The text from the ninth chapter of the Book of Wisdom (9:13–19), a chapter that would be well worth reading in its entirety, though we only heard a small excerpt, brings us a long prayer of the Old Testament sage, King Solomon. One could say that, for the biblical tradition, the wisest of all is not merely clever: the wisest is simply King Solomon. This is likely tied to that beautiful episode—now I’m bringing in yet another ball I didn’t intend to, but never mind, you probably know it where – almost like in a fairy tale, though it isn’t a fairy godmother and there aren’t three wishes but just one – the good Lord stands before Solomon and says: Ask for whatever you want! And Solomon replies: A hearing heart. A wonderful image. That is why he is considered the wisest in the biblical tradition, because he asks for a hearing heart. The fundamental prerequisite for discipleship is a heart that listens.
But what does that mean in our context? In the ninth chapter of the Book of Wisdom, one of the latest books of the Old Testament, probably written in the Jewish diaspora in Alexandria, likely in the middle of the first century after Christ, the author has this wisest of all kings reflect on his life, on his cross – we can barely fathom what is in heaven – and ultimately on the question: What is it that still draws me, when all of this is so laborious, when there is this cross, to remain on the path?
The key word is wisdom, divine wisdom. There is something in God that fascinates and attracts him and keeps him on his path, that’s how I would put it. And now, deliberately, I’ll bring yet another ball into play, because I asked myself, and this again has to do with our catechumens: What could it be, what do we call it, what does it look like for us, that which draws us to God? What Solomon calls wisdom, what ultimately led the disciples to say, I will follow behind Jesus, and what has led millions of people to set out on this path. What is it?
Abraham – „Lech lecha“
In my reflections I found myself back in the Bible, with that person who is, after all the stories of creation and the foundations of our life told in the Book of Genesis, the very first person who sets out on a journey with God. You already know whom I mean: old Abraham. And at the beginning of Abraham’s story there is a word that God speaks to him, or more precisely, two words in Hebrew, that I find utterly fascinating and that, for me, contain what we are now reflecting on together. God says to Abraham — these are the very first words after creation and the flood, the first words he addresses to a person, with whom the whole biblical story truly begins. It is no coincidence that Paul says: Abraham is our father in faith; with him it begins. In Hebrew, God says to him and you probably all understand this: lech lecha. The first word is the imperative of lech “go!” and the second is not so easy to translate; it means “for you.” Go, for you! The ancient commentators say: of course. What it means is: go! The path I am sending you on is for you. Go, the path is good for you! And I believe that Abraham and all those after him who heard something like a call from God felt exactly this. It is good for me, despite all obstacles, despite all the crosses that rise up around ultimately: the path is lecha, for you, or, for me: this is my path on which God is leading me, because he means well with me. And with that, I am already on the home stretch.
The Altar as the Table of God
The final stretch brings us once again to Abraham. And to a moment, somewhat later after that episode when God first called him and then – as you know – promised him descendants and a land. An episode that a Russian icon painter who lived between the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, Andrei Rublev, you can see the icon displayed and probably recognize it, captured in his work.
The episode: a hot summer day. Abraham and his wife Sarah are sitting in front of their tent, that is what the building on the left side of the icon in the background is meant to depict, by the oaks of Mamre, which is why there is a tree in the middle. And three strangers come along the way. Out of oriental hospitality, of course, Abraham invites them to eat. And a meal takes place between these three strangers, the Bible says: angels together with Abraham and Sarah. During this meal, the three strangers promise Abraham that he and Sarah will have a child within a year. A little side note: Sarah finds this incredibly funny and quite absurd; she laughs. That is why the child will be called Yitzhak, which in Hebrew means “laughter” hence the name Isaac. She laughed, but that is another story. What interests me here: How does Andrei Rublev depict this scene? The first striking thing: he leaves Abraham and Sarah out, they are not in the picture. What one sees from the meal, from the fatted calf, as the Bible says, which Abraham and Sarah slaughtered and prepared so the strangers would have something to eat, is in the bowl on the table, where the calf’s head is still visible. But the bowl already looks more like a chalice, the kind we use in the Eucharist. And whoever looks closely will notice that the table is, in fact, an altar, it even has the small reliquary niche that fixed altars have, where relics are placed. This table is therefore an altar. Abraham and Sarah are not there; the three guests, the three angels, are gathered around the table, but the front side of the table is open. And when I look at the icon, I realize that I am sitting in that empty place, on the other side. In short: this is Eucharist. Conveyed through a profoundly Old Testament image. God invites us to the meal. The Triune God, who, incidentally, is communication itself, something Rublev masterfully expressed, invites you to his table. And you may take your place at this table. As I said: the front of the table is open. The one who most especially extends the invitation is God in human form, Jesus Christ. Rublev tried to show this by clothing the central angel in the garments typically associated with Christ on icons: the red tunic and the sky-blue mantle. This table, which we will bless in just a few minutes, is this heavenly table. Here we take our place, but at this table God himself also takes his place and invites us to celebrate with him, to live in communion with him, to be strengthened by him, to experience a piece of heaven. Lech lecha, God says to Abraham: Go, it is good for you! Lech lecha, I am convinced, God has said at some point, and you probably know it better, because you have said it to our catechumens, otherwise they would not have set out today. And in some way he has said it to each one of us: Go, follow me! It is good for you.
Final thought
I return to the beginning, to the conditions Jesus lays out today: to follow behind him, to take up the cross. The second story, the one we have now arrived at in our juggling, the one we will soon encounter at the blessing of the altar, casts this whole fundamental requirement in another light. Yes, it is about following behind Jesus. That is what we do, that is what we try to do. It is about doing so as we are, with what we bring our strengths, our weaknesses with what we manage to accomplish in discipleship, and with what goes wrong.
But all of this stands under the great promise: Follow behind him, for it is good for you! This promise, in one way or another, will be felt again and again in our lives. Most especially when we come here to his table, to be his guests and to experience his closeness.