In the area of discipleship, "Christian disciples can make no claim on God’s graciousness; in fulfilling the exacting demands of discipleship, they are only doing their duty." (NABRE) In the area of faith, as human beings, we want “affection”, that is getting the job done well, and “affection” a little praise or thanks. Our basic human and Christian struggle seems to be about present-time versus eternal-then. We are all in the family of God and we listen to what is “commanded”. Fr. Alexander of our staff is fond of saying, “Jesus is grateful.” Though that can bring a smile to my face, I do wish Jesus would congratulate, praise, or thank me in person, especially when I feel like Habakkuk. We are all believers in the promises, the “eternal then” and we wait and keep washing windows, mowing lawns, plowing and tending the flocks in our care. Our faithfulness to our doing such things is our service for our Master and our pledge of trust in the life to come.
I am sure that God is grateful, but if God were to send me a thank-you card each time I did something good, I think I would end up serving myself and not God. And that wouldn't be such a good thing. Jesus himself said that he did not come to be served but to serve.
Capstones are different from keystones, a fact I recently learned. A keystone is used at the apex of a structure to hold it together, as seen below:
A capstone is used atop a structure to decorate and/or protect it from the elements. The difference can be seen below:
St. Paul refers to Jesus in today's reading as the capstone. He is at the head. He is there to protect the structure below, the "household of God," the " temple sacred in the Lord," the "dwelling place of God in the Spirit." A problem exists, however, in Paul's use of a capstone as a metaphor. We hear "Through him the whole structure is held together." If the English translation is correct, that would actually be describing a keystone.
But enough about keystones, capstones and even, as he is described elsewhere, cornerstones. Well, humor me a little longer actually. Below is a picture of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis in its closing weeks. Notice that a keystone would soon be needed by which the "whole structure is held together".
That day would come on October 28, 1965. As you can see in the picture below, the keystone was gently placed between the north and south legs on a bright, sunny St. Louis fall day. There was a problem, however.
Bright sun on stainless steel causes expansion. There was already going to be immense pressure on the "keystone". In fact, according to the arch's website, "over 500 tons of pressure was used to jack the north and south legs of the Arch apart for the last four-foot piece to be placed at the top." (gatewayarch.com) It would not be such a gentle process. The thermal expansion didn't help matters.
This 4' wide section (not very long at all) would be the last of 142 sections. And the most important one; precisely because through it, "whole structure is held together". With the sun causing expansion, however, the two legs were not going to be perfectly aligned, which would cause serious structural problems that would prevent the arch from being completed. Below is a description of the intricacy and simplicity of the problem and solution- quite interesting actually.
The base of each leg at ground level had an engineering tolerance of one-64th of an inch (0.40 mm) or the two legs would not meet at the top. During construction, both legs were built simultaneously. When the time came to connect the legs at the apex, thermal expansion of the sunward-facing south leg prevented it from aligning precisely with the north leg. The St. Louis Fire Department sprayed the south leg with water from firehoses, cooling it until it aligned with the north leg. (worldhistoryproject.org)
Where am I going with this reflection? St. Thomas, whose feast we celebrate today, is known as "doubting Thomas". It's not a great way to go down in history. He is chided by Jesus before all the other Apostles for his lack of faith. (St. Peter could relate.) And yet he is an important member of the household of God, so much so that we celebrate him with an annual feast day.
Maybe we can relate. St. Paul says to the Ephesians, "you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit". He does not say, "you have been built". He says, "you...are being built". And not just one of us but "together" into a dwelling place of God.
Discipleship can have many unexpected and unforeseen problems, just as we saw in the building of the Arch. These can be very complicated and intricate, delicate problems. Yet Jesus Christ, often through the humblest means (St. Louis Fire Department, rather than the world's most learned architects) can provide simple solutions. It may take hard work (500 tons pressure) to accomplish the simple solution, but Jesus allows for himself to be the capstone (really keystone) that absorbs the pressure so that the other parts of the structure (the legs, or we ourselves) can experience the freedom the pressure that comes by "being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." To watch a fantastic video on the St. Louis Gateway Arch construction, click here.
Each one of the readings today shows us one thing very clearly. Discipleship is just plain messy. Whether it be the little tiff between Elijah and Elisha in the first reading, St. Paul's warning against the Christians "biting and devouring" of each other in second reading, or the train wreck of events in the Gospel, we see that without a doubt, Christian discipleship is never black and white. Let's take these examples in the Gospel one-at-a-time. First we have two of the closest disciples to Jesus, James and John, being overzealous and threatening to kill the Samaritans. Here's the text.
When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heavento consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them.
Just as Christian disciples can be lukewarm, so also they can be overzealous, "rigid" as Pope Francis recently said. In this way, the Pope said, they fail to be Christian any longer. The next example we have are those who are quick to speak but fail to act. They make a commitment to discipleship without even being called. As the saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." But not in their case. When discipleship becomes uncomfortable or difficult, as it inevitably does, they run away.
“I will follow you wherever you go.”
The next group are the would-be disciples Jesus calls, but they have other things to do first. Discipleship for them is not a top priority.
And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
The next example of how messy Christian discipleship can be comes from those who are well-intentioned, good people but who cannot make a commitment to the Lord because they allow other people and things to pull them away. In other words, their attachment to others keeps them from attaching to the Lord.
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”
All of this, remember, is in the context of the whole Gospel that is not presented in the Sunday reading for today. If one were to pick up the Bible they would see what follows this chapter in Luke. After the Transfiguration, Jesus comes down from the mountain and is immediately confronted with complaints about how his disciples are ineffective.
I begged your disciples to cast it out but they could not.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you and endure you?”
Not only can we disciples be ineffective at carrying out the Lord's commands, but we may not even understand them at all. Though we may think we know God's will (a risky claim at best), we may later realize we can't even begin to understand the ways of the Lord. See this example, following chronologically in the Gospel. Jesus says to his disciples,
“Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
And finally, where does St. Paul find the reason to say what he says in the second reading. From the same experience Jesus himself had of his disciples. It is awfully difficult to witness to Christianity when Christ's disciples are fighting amongst themselves. Know that the unChristian way we Christians treat one another today is nothing new. Following the Gospel chronologically again, we hear,
An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest.
We Christians really are something else. Thank God for his patience and mercy this Sunday. The truth is clear. But as the Gospel shows us, knowing the truth and living it are two very different realities. Try to recognize we need God's patience and mercy because Christian discipleship has many shades of gray. It's just plain messy.
