Did you know that St. Petersburg/Tampa reportedly has the highest number of auto accidents on Florida’s west coast. And then I read a story about one incident.
A driver crashed into another car; fortunately, no one was injured. The other driver insisted, "It was your fault." The offender replied, "You look shaken up. You could use a shot of whiskey." He handed over a flask. The other man drank and said, "Thank you." The first fellow said, "You still look rattled, have another." He did. "One more, and you'll feel fine." After a third drink, the man asked, "Why don't you have one." The guy giving him drinks replied, "No, thanks. I'll wait until after the police arrive." The moral of the story: always keep your wits about you!
The word of God takes us back to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel. The author asks, who can understand the “things of the earth” let alone the “things in heaven.” The author here highlights the transitory nature of human life with all its limitations and shortcomings. But, says the author, take courage; God gifts us with wisdom to help us discern what’s the right thing to do.
Some may wonder whether today’s so-called gurus and pundits are trying to marginalize God. Fyodor Dostoyevsky proposed in his classic novel The Brothers Karamazov that “if God does not exist, everything is permissible.” Think about it. Today’s word challenges us to anchor our lives in the wisdom of God and the things of God, to do the right and love goodness and walk humbly with God.
We also heard today St. Paul, in a letter he wrote from prison, asking his friend Philemon, a Christian slaveholder in Colossae, Turkey, to welcome back a runaway slave whom Paul loved as a brother in Christ. Philemon could have had the runaway executed, so Paul pleads that he forgive this slave and love him as a brother because we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of God our Father.
Now some may ask, why didn’t Paul specifically condemn slavery? Others, of course, excuse the question by arguing that the society and times then were different. But that still begs the question. In any case, Paul sees the dignity of every human being and asks us, do we love one another as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ?
In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus challenges us to make discipleship our first priority. In the two parables here, Jesus cautions us not to naively rush into discipleship without gauging the cost. If discipleship with Jesus is our first priority, all of our other relations will thrive. Yes, God will bestow upon us the grace, the power and energy of the Spirit, to persevere in a life of discipleship with Jesus, who is our way, our truth, and our life. In times of darkness, Jesus is our light; in times of brokenness, Jesus is our healer; and in times of depression, Jesus is our counselor.
Yes, we pray that we will persevere. Perseverance generally means working steadily to achieve the good things we set out to do. We obviously can’t do everything. But if we commit ourselves to worthy goals, like discipleship, we can achieve many good things.
We have many examples of perseverance, religious as well as secular. I give you one: Mother Teresa of Calcutta whose feast day we celebrated September 5. Mother Teresa is a model of perseverance in faithfulness to God, prayer, and love.
There’s an African proverb that goes like this, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito.” The mosquito makes a difference in an annoying way, but the principle is the same. One person can stop a great injustice. Think Nelson Mandela, One person can be a voice for truth. Think Rosa Parks. One person’s kindness can save a life. Think firefighters, police officers, EMS personnel. Each person matters. That was Mother Teresa.
Born to a devout Catholic Albanian family in present-day North Macedonia, she traveled to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto. In 1929, she embarked for India to enter the Loreto novitiate and then she began teaching. Seventeen years later, en route to a retreat, Teresa felt the calling to work among the poorest of the poor. Eventually she left the Sisters of Loreto, studied the basics in nursing, and began to care for the poor, sick, and dying on the streets of Calcutta. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose numbers expanded exponentially to over forty-five hundred sisters in more than 600 missions in 133 countries today. The missionaries continue to minister to the sick and dying in some of the poorest areas in the world They have touched the hearts of millions of people of all faiths. There’s also a men’s branch of the congregation and an association of Lay Missionaries.
Mother Teresa showed us what holiness is: doing whatever our life’s work is as best we can. Through a life of prayer despite her own “inner spiritual darkness,” and through a desire to meet people’s basic need for love, she taught us the priority of prayer and service in realizing one’s true self as a son or daughter of God our Father. She found purpose and tried to do her best. The following poem by an unknown author expresses for me that spirit:
Fortunate are the persons who in this life can find
A purpose that can fill their days and goals to fill their mind.
For in this world there is a need for those who’ll lead the rest,
To rise above the “average’ life by giving of their best!
Will you be one, who dares to try, when challenged by the task,
To rise to heights you’ve never seen,
or is that too much to ask?
There are many examples of perseverance in trying to do the right thing. In light of the Gospel theme, let us ask God to grace us with the energy and power of the Spirit to persevere in our life of discipleship with Jesus, to let the beatitudes in Matthew Chapter 5 be our spiritual guide so that we can indeed be coheirs to the kingdom of God. Amen.
