Homily: Do You Have What it Takes?

Fr. Tony Cecil Homily: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (30 June 2019) Saint Martin de Porres Catholic Church, Louisville, KY

Do you have what it takes?

I was sitting at a coffee shop with a friend a couple of summers ago when he posed this question to me. Ahead of us was ten weeks of full-time hospital chaplaincy. We would have units that we would visit regularly—we would respond to various codes that came over the intercom—we would be woken up in the middle of the night to come and be with patients who were dying—sometimes with their families, sometimes all alone—we would help families begin the process of grieving after losing a loved one—sometimes they had expected it for a long time, but other times, it was sudden, unexpected, and heart-breaking.

It was going to be a long ten weeks—a difficult ten weeks—an exhausting ten weeks.

And before it even began—my friend asked me: Do you have what it takes?

Of course I did—I’d been in seminary for six years at that point—I’d done ministry in parishes, and schools, and nursing homes, and even another hospital. I knew what I was doing—I was comfortable in the environment—I was ready to go.

Fast-forward a few weeks.

I sat on the floor of the chapel in the house I was living at—in the corner, crying my eyes out. I had been on call all day, responding to multiple codes—and I was on call that night, too. I had already been called in for several cases in the Emergency Room—overdoses, a motorcycle crash, a heart attack—the list could go on and on. I had been working for well over twelve hours, and was exhausted. I sat on the floor, overwhelmed by all that I had witnessed so far that day—and I was begging the Lord—please, don’t make me have to go back anymore tonight.

And then, the pager went off. I called the hospital. The nurse who paged me answered:

Thank God you called back—listen, we have a patient who has coded multiple times—their family is here, and they aren’t handling it well—there are already about fifteen people here and more are expected to come in—we really need you—we can’t handle this on our own.

I wrote down the information that I needed and hung up the phone.

I thought back to that day at the beginning of the summer, to the coffee shop, when my friend asked me a question:

Do you have what it takes?

I was so confident—I was so certain that I had it all together. And now, here I sat—here I was, needed to go and to do what I had felt called to do my whole life—to minister to people in need—and I felt like I didn’t have what it would take. I felt like God had asked more of me than I could possibly give.

In this weekend’s Gospel, Jesus has rather interesting encounters with three different people. Each of them, in a way, is a lot like how I was at the beginning of that summer—how I can still be at times—how we can all be at times. They were confident—they were faithful people who were certain they had what it took to be a disciple—but Jesus, just as my friend at the coffee shop, poses as question:

Do you have what it takes?

The first person Jesus encounters says, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus is quick to say, Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.

In other words, Jesus is saying, the animals in the wilderness have a more comfortable life than I do. If you follow me, you can’t worry about yourself—your wants—your comforts.

Then Jesus encounters the second person—this time, He calls them to follow Him—but they reply, Lord, let me go first and bury my father. Now, it wasn’t like his father had already died and the funeral was in a day or two—this person wanted to delay following the Lord until their father died. I know this feeling very well—there have been many times over the last few years, and even up until the very end of seminary that I was ready to drop out and come home. But Jesus says, let the dead bury their dead—but you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God. In other words—the work that Jesus is doing—the work that his disciples are called to do, is more important than anything else.

Finally, Jesus encounters a third person who says they want to follow Him, but first, they want to go home and say goodbye to their family. Jesus responds, No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God. Here, you have to understand a bit about farming—if you start plowing, and lose your focus—if you don’t pay attention only to what is ahead of you, you could hit something, you could bend or break your plow, you could hurt yourself or the animal pulling the plow. Once you begin the work, you must finish. The same is true, Jesus says, for those who wish to follow Him—once they encounter Him and decide to follow, there is no turning back.

Being a disciple—Jesus says—is hard work—its demanding—sometimes, its exhausting.

In a way, it may sound kind of harsh—but the truth is, Jesus isn’t asking his disciples, or us, anything he isn’t asking of himself.

You see, Jesus knew that doing the Father’s will would cost Him His life—when He set out for Jerusalem, He knew what was waiting—He knew what would eventually happen—and that’s why he was so determined to get there—because He knew what it meant for us.

Saint Paul tells the Galatians: “For freedom Christ set us free” He knew that His sacrifice would set us free from the bonds of sin, that it would free us from the grip of the evil one—that it would throw open the gates of Heaven, and give us the opportunity to spend eternity there with Him.

Most of all, though—I think Jesus knew that it would give us the strength we need to follow Him.

So that when you are asked that question—you can be confident in your answer.

Do you have what it takes?

Yes—you do.

Brothers and sisters—we know that being a Christian is no easy task—we know that discipleship is demanding—we know that following Christ at times asks more of us than we think we can give—but when it does, be confident in this: You have what it takes.

You have what it takes because you are here—to be nourished by Christ in His Word, to be sustained by Christ in this Eucharist, to be lifted up by Christ in this community. He, brothers and sisters, is the only strength that we need. He is our example and our guide—He has set us free to live in freedom—to live so as to love one another—to love without counting the cost—to live and to love so that when he says, “Follow me,” we respond with trust, with confidence, and we say, “Yes, Lord, I will follow.”

To view this week's Readings, click here.

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