First reading: 1 Kings 19:16,19-21
Psalm: Ps 16:1-2,5,7-11
Epistle: Galatians 5:1,13-18
Gospel: Luke 9:51-62

—No one who sets a hand to the plow
and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.—

How was I changed?

Have I been changed by Jesus? Was my call, through God’s grace, and my acceptance of Jesus a single event that changed who I am? Yes and no. That call and my acceptance of that call changed me, but I am in need of constant change and renewal.

A little personal testimony. Some may have notice that I’ve lost some weight. 35 pounds to date. How isn’t really the issue, but I’ll give a shout out to Weight Watchers as a means. The real question is why?

I’d been looking at myself over and over for 4 or 5 years and I hated what I saw. I derided myself, told myself that I had to change. I went from loathing and self hated to thinking of ways I could do it. I looked, it got no better. I tried, it got no better. I cut back on the beers, it got no better. About 6 months ago, during the sacrament of penance, I threw my sinfulness down before God and asked his forgiveness for my gluttony. I prayed, and recognized that I was not the author of my destiny or my weight loss. No amount of personal derision or will could bring change to my weight or my life. I asked God, for forgiveness and for the grace to stop my sins against His commandment, Thou shalt not kill. I was killing myself. God stepped in. In an instant He gave me the necessary grace to overcome this sin and to be changed. I wasn’t miraculously made thin and fit, but I was given the grace necessary to accomplish God’s plan for my life. I trusted in Him and was healed. Not my will, His. Not my plan, His. Not my body, His.

Our presence here, in this parish church, this day, is an outward sign that each of us is a changed person. God’s grace is alive in us and we are more than idle bystanders. Yet, while we are changed, we remain yet to be changed, yet to take the next step, to put it all down before God and let His will be done.

Context

Outwardly, today’s readings seem simple. Do it all for God, leave family and obligations behind. In studying up the readings and the Gospel I found that there are so many messages, so many levels of complexity that we could spend weeks on the themes. I am going to concentrate today on Elijah and Elisha.

Our first reading comes from the end of 1 Kings 19. At the end of Chapter 19 Elijah has been re-energized and has returned to the world and his ministry. Elijah underwent enormous change, and the focus of the story is the renewal of a fearful and burned-out prophet.

At the beginning of Chapter 19 Elijah is so afraid and discouraged that he flees from the world and his prophetic ministry. He runs into the desert and lies down exhausted, praying for death. In his discouragement and fear Elijah blames everyone else for his problems, downplays God’s saving actions, and overstates all the negatives.

Right in the middle of the Chapter God intervenes, and brings about Elijah’s renewal. God is at the center of the story, He is at the center of every change, as He is in our lives.

Thus in today’s first reading Elijah has been reconfirmed and has set out on the way God showed him. His first stop was to confirm Elisha as his successor, and invest him with the mantle of a prophet.

Elisha who?

So who was Elisha? Elisha was a very rich man. The reading tells us that Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Now if you farmed in those days you likely did it by hand. If not by hand, and you were blessed enough to have an animal, you did it yourself with your one animal. Elisha had 12 yoke, that is 24 oxen, and each pair had its own plowman. Elisha guided the 12th yoke. Elisha was the rich corporate mega farmer of his day with workers and machinery. Elisha was about to be changed.

The change

Elijah shows up on the farm. Now picture this huge mega farm. Pretend you’re in Iowa driving along one of these miles long corn farms. Elijah started from one of those roads and walks across the miles of fields to reach Elisha, and:

Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.

Then Elijah walked back toward the road. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t do a ceremony, other than to place the prophet’s mantle on Elisha. Elisha was changed in that instant. Like you and I he was changed, but not yet changed. Elisha runs after Elijah.

Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,
—Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,
and I will follow you.—

Elijah makes an interesting response.

The reply:

—Go back!
Have I done anything to you?—

We might see that as a rebuke of some type. We may say things, in a moment of anger, like, —What have I done to you?— That was not what Elijah was saying. Rather, Elijah was giving some very key wisdom here. I didn’t change you, God did.

Elijah has done nothing to Elisha but follow the Lord’s will by placing the prophet’s mantle on him. Elijah didn’t call Elisha of his own accord or of his own power, but of God’s will and power. Elijah’s message was that he hadn’t done anything to Elisha; —Have I done anything to you?— He hadn’t changed Elisha, and Elisha was not accountable to him. Elisha was changed by God and was now accountable to God. For Elisha, nothing was to matter except to do God’s will and live out the change God affected in his life.

So, Elisha leaves it all behind. Elisha burns the bridges to his former way of life so that he can be faithful to God’s call. Elisha butchers his yoke of oxen; for an Israelite farmer this was equivalent to a modern farmer torching every farming implement, tractor, and machine he owns.

In a deeply symbolic move, the butchered meat is fed to the people. Eating meat was a rare treat for ordinary Israelites, and so Elisha’s feeding of the people symbolizes the value of his call to be prophet to the people. Elisha fed them this nourishing food, a metaphor for God’s life-giving word. Elisha then bids farewell to his parents, and sets off to follow Elijah.

Elisha’s journey is our journey, from initial change to the journey. Elijah’s journey is our journey. From burned out follower, to re-energized prophet. Like us, from our initial acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, to the next steps on the journey of our ‘yet to be changed.’

Total faithfulness:

This road of change is key. It has its starting point and its end is eternal life. For us, the faithful life is more than one sacrament, one ceremony, one event, one moment of change. I can baptize one child, one adult, or 10,000, but he who remains and lives a Christian life, who faces constant renewal and change into the likeness of Christ, will be the one who is victorious.

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the preeminent theologians of our times. Commenting on the reception of Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir he says:

—That I have spent my life thinking about God, moreover, has gotten me into a lot of trouble. I did not expect to discover that being a Christian might put one crossways with the assumptions that shape ‘normality’ — assumptions that make war unproblematic — but like it or not, I became convinced that Christians cannot kill. I even think that Christians must tell the truth — even to those they love. As a result, I have never found being a Christian easy.—

We have to live that kind of changed life; a life of total commitment, total faithfulness to the Gospel way of life, the Christian life and its narrow and difficult road.

In the moment of change we are confronted with the Jesus of great joy, a brief moment glimpsing the happiness we will find. Sin is washed away and we feel whole and energized.

Then we set to work, and the road gets tougher, rockier, steeper, and narrower. People we thought of as friends, and even family, shy away from us. Odd, you the Christian… Him, her, I never thought… I don’t get why they need all that religion stuff… The world’s absolute truths and doctrines fall away in change that comes from the light of faith. And, we are constantly called to that light, to change, to change over again and become Gospel and light to the rest of the world.

Jesus calls us to live the life He demands.

Our moment of change and our constant change, our presence here, indicates to the world that we are His disciples, His light among the nations.

Our trip through the Gospel reveals that God graciously gives the time necessary for change. Remember, James and John asking Jesus for the ancient equivalent of nuking the enemy: “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”

Jesus’ action speaks for itself. He rebukes them and keeps walking on to the next place. The disciples are not to wield their power as a club of judgment. God is giving the Samaritans in that village time. God gave Elijah and Elisha time. He gives us time in the same way, time for the first step, and time to continue our change; time to be re-energized. Time, all along under His grace.

As in my testimony, change came and by the grace of God I was forgiven my sin. I set on the road of change with the aid of God’s grace, but while changed, I am not there yet. There is still further to go, more to do. There are setbacks, but then I am re-energized.

We are His disciples and we cannot back off from the task. Our discipleship must never be a second job, a moonlighting task, a weekend encounter, an ice-cream social or a hobby. The change in our lives, and the change we are to disciple to the world, is the product of God’s calling. As disciples we are to preach this awesome opportunity for salvation, for change. Change may come to those we meet in time. For us, change has come, and we need to face, accept, and work on the constant change God requires. God constantly asks the basic questions. Are we loving sacrificially, are we gluttonous, selfish, closed, lacking in total commitment to the Gospel way of life. We must constantly renew and evaluate what we do, what we believe, in light of the constant change we must undergo.

We are here as a people called and changed, endowed with God’s great grace, but not yet fully changed. Let us set to work on the road to fulfilling the change Christ calls us to, to living the life of Christians without excuse, without looking back once we have set our hand to the plow. It begins when we put it all down before God and let Him set to work in our lives. Lord, continue the change begun in us. Ever renew, and re-energize us as Your people. Amen.