26 June 2016 – 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – 1 Kings 19: 16b, 19-21, Luke 9: 51-62

     God called Elijah to be his great prophet for many years.  After having endured many trials and tribulations, he journeyed for days and days to Mount Horeb in order to encounter God face to face.  When God appeared to him in that small, silent whisper, God told Elijah that he was to anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat, as the prophet to succeed him.  When Elijah came to visit him, Elisha was still living at home, working the fields with a team of oxen. On the surface, Elisha does not seem to be the logical choice to be the successor of the great prophet Elijah. He accepted Elijah’s invitation, but he wanted to say goodbye to his parents.  Elijah told him to go and bid them farewell, but Elisha thought better of it.  Instead, he slaughtered his oxen for food that he gave to all his men.  Then he burned his plough in order to make a fire to cook over.  Elisha destroyed his means of making a living, leaving everything behind in order to follow God without any hindrances or restrictions.  Elisha served Elijah as his apprentice until it came time for Elijah to depart this earth.  Elisha then wandered the land of Israel for 65 years as a prophet, performing many miracles in the name of the Lord.  He purified a polluted lake.  He cured a group of young prophets who ate a poisonous meal.  He healed the Syrian General Naaman of leprosy.  He provided counsel and advice to the Kings of Israel, calling them back to the Lord when they had strayed.  Little did he know where his journey would take him when he left his father’s farm to follow the Lord.  But Elisha was very loyal in following the Lord as his prophet. 

      In our Gospel today, as Jesus proceeds on his journey, a man calls out to him: Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go.  It is easy to say those words, but it is tough to follow them when the Lord takes us to some difficult and challenging places.  While we might admire the courage in the response of this man who calls out to Jesus, perhaps Jesus is able to look beyond the surface into his heart, realizing that he does not have the resolve to make such a commitment.  This man said that he would follow Jesus wherever he went – physically, geographically.  Even though he said this, I wonder if he really would follow Jesus to Jerusalem, even knowing that Jesus’ death there was a certainty.  We know that following Jesus is not just a matter of traveling to a physical place with him.  It is much more than that.  Jesus tells him – I don’t even have a place that I call home. Even though a fox has its den, even though the bird has its nest, I have nowhere to lay my head at night.  I go from place to place proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes I am sometimes welcomed into a place, but sometimes I am not.  Are you willing to follow me everywhere under those conditions, no matter how difficult, no matter how uncertain?

       In our Gospel message today, Jesus calls us to faithfulness, to constancy, and to sacrifice in our lives of faith.  We may say we want to follow Jesus, but then we may want to place limits and boundaries on the way we follow him. So many martyrs and missionary and saints in our faith exemplify this steadfast call that Jesus asks of us.  Throughout my missionary work and throughout my priesthood, one of my heroes and patron saints has been St Jean de Brebeuf, a Jesuit priest originally from region of Normandy in France who was a missionary in Canada in the early 17^th century.  While a student with the Jesuits, Brebeuf contracted a severe case of tuberculosis, which almost ended his studies and his dream of becoming a priest.  However, he endured and after serving as a professor at the Jesuit college in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, he was sent to the French missions in Quebec to bring the Gospel to the native Huron people there.  In the novel Black Robe, based on the life of Jean de Brebeuf, the author Brian Moore has a scene where Jean de Brebeuf is kneeling at the site in the city of Rouen where Joan of Arc was martyred by being burned at the stake two centuries earlier.  At that site, Jean de Brebeuf’s mother prays for him and gives him a blessing, realizing that her son is undertaking a very dangerous assignment by becoming a missionary.  His mom realizes that he himself may die a martyr’s death, yet for the sack of the faith and her son’s calling to the priesthood, she still gives him her blessing.  She realized that this was God’s call for her son. Jean de Brebeuf, did die a martyr’s death in 1649 at the hands of the Iroquois, an enemy tribe of the Huron.  Yet, Brian Moore, a fallen away Catholic who wrote this novel about Jean de Brebeuf, saw in him a faith and a courage and constancy that still has a very strong message for us today.  So many in our faith have taken up their crosses and have followed Jesus wherever he called them, no matter the inconvenience, no matter what else is going on in their lives.  Being a disciple should take priority.  It should be at the center of who we are. Yes, it is indeed hard to be a disciple of Christ.  It can be very challenging and very frustrating.  It can try our patience and our steadfastness to the core.  But that is what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel: that our faith needs to be a priority in our lives.  It boils down to that.