This Sunday, I want to talk to you or teach you something that I have found to be incredibly important. Last Sunday, I told you that I did not know how to make you disciples, that I couldn’t make you disciples but Jesus could. I also asked you to bring a journal, something to write down God’s word to you. Hopefully the ushers have handed you something to write on.
So, how do you become a disciple, a follower of Christ, one who listens to Jesus and engages in His mission? In St John’s Gospel, Chapter 8:31-32, Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Pretty exciting stuff. So what I thought I would do is lead you through the things that I heard when I read the Gospel of the Passion.
One question we must always ask is, “Lord, what are you trying to tell me here?” And trust me, the Lord will help you to be a student of the Word, which is what a disciple is, someone who allows themselves to hear the Word. If you don’t hear the Word, you and I will end up enslaved to different things. You may think that is not true but think of this: a Child of God uses their time, their freedom, to create with the Father. A slave uses their time for pleasure and that pleasure seeking will enslave you to all kinds of things, whereas creating with the Father will lead you to real joy and satisfaction and discipleship. Hearing the Word, immersing in the Word, is freedom to do good. Remember also that this will be hard because we were born into slavery. Once we have received freedom through Jesus, we must battle for our freedom. We do that by listening to the truth and the truth will set you free.
Are you ready? What is the first question: God what does this mean to me? Here is what I came up with and it hurts me a little to tell you that God roughed me up a bit in this account of His passion. But in order to show you that God wants to guide me and you, I will let you into my heart and show you what was said.
The first thing that God brought up was what happened when the woman lavishly poured oil on Jesus. Some of the disciples protested that it shouldn’t have been done, it should have been sold for three hundred days wages and the money should have been used to pay off the parish debt, oh whoops, I mean given to the poor. In other accounts, we know the protest came from Judas and it later said he didn’t care about the poor but he used to hold the money bag and steal the contributions. Further on it said Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Okay, what did I receive from this? Well, Judas must have considered himself poor, that is how he justified stealing. I often consider myself poor which makes me unwilling to be more generous and to trust God. It is not true that I am poor, God blesses me all the time but when I think like that I am scared to be generous so God in this challenged me to be more generous and to be like Mary who lavished attention and love on Jesus. So yeah, reading Scripture is not easy this way. It is easier not to but it is easier to be a slave of things than to be a son and it was a good correction.
But that is not all. The next thing that stood out to me was the Apostles sleeping and Jesus asking them, “Could you not stay awake and pray with me one hour? Stay awake lest you fall into temptation.”
So, the very morning after I meditated on this, I woke up and decided that I should, after a modest prayer time, simply go back to sleep. My day after that was very challenging. If I would have stayed awake and prayed, I am pretty sure that same challenges would have been there. I am not criticizing sleep. I love it but when I was to be awake I should have been awake. For a year now I have not set an alarm. It is a way I trust God. I say each night, “Lord, wake me up when it is time.” And do you know what? I have never missed anything by doing that. I have been tempted to do that but I haven’t, even when I needed to catch a plane at four in the morning three hours out of my time zone. Did God ever fail? No, He hasn’t, even in my sinful state He was still faithful. He is so trustworthy. So trustworthy yet I struggle to see it. But God keeps reminding me.
You can see a theme in the meditation that God offered me trust. If I don’t trust Him, I will betray Him, and often for a small sum.
I will give you one more small piece of advice if you want to really hear the Word of God. If you don’t then you should not, and you can enjoy slavery for a little longer.
I also now use to help me St Ignatius’ method of meditation. I will read a text in the evening and ask what are three things that stand out to me that I want to explore more. I will write them down and the next day when God wakes me up, I allot a time period for each piece and I ask the question. What is the question? “Jesus, what are you trying to tell me?” I take that verse for the time period (it could be five, ten, twenty minutes if you are advanced) and write down what comes mind. You will be surprised what you come up with. Very exciting. I also pray to saints to help me – St Ignatius, Mary, St Andrew. He might not work for you because he is my special friend. But be of cheer, there are many saints. “If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”