Job 9:1-12, 14-16 / Luke 9:57-62
Job speaks about God: God is beyond our comprehension.
The God who emerges from the Book of Job is a God beyond human comprehension. The greatest blunder a person can make, the book seems to say, is to try to reduce God to the level of human definition and comprehension. St. Augustine, the great fifth-century Christian, put it this way: "God is inexpressible. It is easier for us to say what he is not than what he is …. "If you could conceive of him, you would conceive of something other than God. He is not at all what you have conceived him to be."
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Who am I to understand God? If one says: I understand God, it is no more God what he says he understood. God rewards every one according to his deeds. But: Does he? Is that correct? Job answers: 1. God is always right. 2. God is immensely great. 3. God plays. His game is a cosmic game. It is like every game: capricious. What God does is beyond human understanding. Just believe. 4. God is the cause of it all and at the same time the judge. What can man plead when God is the party of the opposition and judge? Man cannot plead with God, he has just to believe. Is this the correct image of God? Is man only a toy in the cosmic play of God? Is that not a cruel, impersonal God? Does God not take man seriously? Christ changed this image of God. God is for us the loving father. How much more than sparrows are we!
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How do we think about God in our prayer? "God is that indefinable something which we all feel, but which we do not know." Mohandas Gandhi
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As much as the book of Job presents God as beyond our human comprehension Jesus in today's gospel demands of a discipleship way beyond our human comprehension. Our initial reaction would be: How could Jesus be so demanding and unreasonable? But when we reflect deeper, we will understand the purpose of Jesus. Jesus is asking for an instant response to His call. There can be no hesitation; all else must be put aside. He is asking us to put Him as top priority.
In every situation that we are going to come across, the same question will be asked: Do you want to follow Me? Now?
An immediate response will be demanded of us. But when we are surrender totally to Him and make an immediate response, Jesus will never short-change us, for He will also be immediate in responding to our needs and whatever we require to follow Him. When Jesus calls, may we respond immediately? Because when we call out to Him, He too will respond immediately. That is not too difficult to comprehend.
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Three enthusiastic young men want to follow Jesus, not only for the journey, but for life. All three have a difficulty; basically all three have the same difficulty: that of giving up family life. The first yearns for the comfortable home. He needs a hole to hide in and the warmth of the nest to return to. The second wants to come only when his father is dead. It may well be his moral obligation to look after the family once the father is dead. Jesus worked in his family till he was thirty, but he also said: I must be about my Father's business, where he meant God's work. When God calls, man must listen. Relatives often find difficulties when a member of the family has a vocation. The third man is sentimentally attached to the family. Some never leave home emotionally. "You cannot plough a straight furrow as long as you look back", is a proverb. All three concern family life. The comforts, the duty, the attachment to the family life. All three refuse God: the perfect service., Once Christ calls, man must decide, once and for all. We might be too impulsive in our decisions or procrastinate often in our actions or wavering when it comes to changing our directions or attitudes as we see in these three men. May we examine these elements in our lives as this story challenges and invites us.
Let us Pray: God our Father, we have accepted your invitation to follow your Son as his disciples. Let your Spirit give us the wisdom and the strength to take our faith seriously and to accept our task in life with all its consequences. Let the Spirit help us to go your Son’s way without fear or discouragement, for we are certain that Jesus will lead us to you, our loving God forever and ever.
