Rom 13:8-10 / Lk 14:25-33
As long as any of us have been reading the newspapers, they’ve been bringing us bad news about divorces, troubled children, failing businesses, collapsing buildings, and imploding enterprises of all sorts, here and everywhere around the world. The bad news just keeps coming, and we have to wonder why. There is, of course, no easy explanation, but there’s at least one common thread that can be found in most of these disasters. And that is under-investment, reliance on half measures, when nothing less than all-out efforts have any chance of success.
It’s a very old and very deeply ingrained human tendency: trying to achieve our goals on the cheap. It almost never works, but we keep trying it nonetheless. And that’s why Jesus raises the issue with such fervor in today’s gospel. “You can’t win battles with half an army, and you can’t build a tower with only half the materials,” he says. We can’t create Christian lives, construct great hearts, and build God’s kingdom with half measures. Jesus is asking us for a total “yes” to our Father, with no subordinate clauses and no contingencies.
So how do our commitments look under the spotlight of Jesus’ words? Have we really cast our lot with him, or are our hearts still divided and our loyalties still split? Our lives and our futures depend on our making the right choice, and we have a limited amount of time to choose. So think twice before you say to yourself, “I don’t REALLY have to commit EVERYTHING! I can ALWAYS get a deal!” It’s a lie, and it could wreck your life in the long term — the VERY long term.
