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.
