In this passage (Luke 9. 57 – end) Jesus challenges his actual disciples and his would-be disciples about what it means to follow him and be a disciple.
In speaking to would-be disciples Jesus is emphatic that God comes first. Before commitments to home and to family, God comes first. This is the practical implication and application of Jesus’ summary of the Law: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul; and with all your mind.” That is the greatest and most important commandment. Love for others follows on from it, as we are then told to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
Jesus is talking here to people who were wanting to be part of his itinerant ministry but, as we also know, he did have followers who stayed in their homes and workplaces and who provided support for the team of disciples who were on the road. So, these words of Jesus don’t mean that every Christian should leave home and family in order to follow him but they do mean that wherever we are, we must put God first in our lives.
As one example, “The obligation to bury one’s father was regarded by many Jews of Jesus’ time as the most holy and binding duty of a son; but Jesus says that that is secondary to the call to follow him and announce God’s kingdom.” Jesus’ call cuts across family life and our traditional understandings of family. Here, even saying goodbye to your family before you leave seems to be criticised by Jesus!
There is no point pretending that any of this is easy. What Jesus says to his would-be disciples still strikes us today as extreme but he is doing is making clear the real choice for us; between putting God first or putting ourselves, our needs and commitments first. That is the choice and dilemma that faces us each day. If we are to be followers of Jesus, then we need to continually say to ourselves WWJD; What would Jesus do.
That’s what Francis of Assisi did and today is the day when the Church remembers him particularly. Francis was born in Assisi in central Italy either in 1181 or the following year. He was baptised Giovanni but given the name Francesco by his father, a cloth merchant who traded in France and had married a French wife. There was an expectation that he would eventually take over his father's business but Francis had a rebellious youth and a difficult relationship with his father. After suffering the ignominy of imprisonment following capture whilst at war with the local city of Perugia, he returned a changed man. He took to caring for disused churches and for the poor, particularly those suffering from leprosy. Whilst praying in the semi-derelict church of St Damian, he distinctly heard the words: "Go and repair my church, which you see is falling down." Others joined him and he prepared a simple, gospel-based Rule for them all to live by. As the Order grew, it witnessed to Christ through preaching the gospel of repentance, emphasising the poverty of Christ as an example for his followers. Two years before his death, his life being so closely linked with that of his crucified Saviour, he received the Stigmata, the marks of the wounds of Christ, on his body.
At his death, on the evening of 3 October 1226, his Order had spread throughout western Christendom. It did so, in part, because of inspirational team talks from St. Francis, such as this one recorded in the Legend of the Three Companions:
'Calling together the six brothers, Saint Francis, since he was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, predicted to them what was about to happen. “Dearest brothers,” he said, “let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments”.’
Like Francis and his followers, wherever we are and whatever we are doing, Jesus calls us to proclaim the kingdom of God by deeds and words.
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