Newman Centre at University of Toronto

Costly Grace

- 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C -

In Australia, we celebrate Fathers' Day on the first Sunday in September, and it happens from time to time that today's readings coincide with Father's Day. At the beginning of Mass, one welcomes the fathers in the congregation and wishes them 'Happy Fathers' Day', and then, in the Gospel, proclaims to them, "You must hate your father and your mother." It leads one to think about other days we celebrate, and what readings might either go well or clash violently with them. October 17 - International Day for the Eradication of Poverty - you have the poor with you always. February 21 - International Mother Language Day - God at the Tower of Babel saying, "Let us … confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." July 11 - World Population Day - "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." Third Tuesday in September - International Day of Peace - "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." October 1 - International Day of Older Persons - "Adam lived nine hundred thirty years." October 5 - International Teachers Day - "You must not allow yourselves to be called teacher, for you have one Teacher, the Christ." Second Wednesday in October - International Day for Disaster Reduction - The Ten Plagues of Egypt. March 23 - World Meteorological Day - brought to you by the apostles James and John, the Sons of Thunder, with the text, "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell-- and great was its fall!" [Mt. 7:27] May 3 - World Press Freedom Day - They said to Pilate, "Do not write, `The King of the Jews,' but, `This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." Then, of course, we could invent a couple of days to fit particular readings: International Tennis Day - Joseph serving in the court of Pharaoh. International Chauffeurs Day - "And God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden."

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters… cannot be my disciple." [Lk 14:26] It's shocking language. Thankfully, we Catholics are not fundamentalists, taking each and every line of scripture at its face value. This talk of hating our families does not mean we should feel extreme enmity towards them. And this is clear for a number of reasons. Firstly, common sense tells us so. But common sense, of course, is not infallible. So we look at what else we receive from revelation. There we find the commandment to honour father and mother, a commandment of the Old Law reiterated by Jesus in his reply to the rich young man [Mk 10.19]. There we find also Jesus' new law of love, and his command to love even our enemies. We also know that in Semitic languages and cultures, it is common to emphasise a key message with stark, exaggerated language. The parallel passage in Matthew makes clear the basic message of what Jesus is saying, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." [Mt. 10:37]

So much for clarifying the meaning of this sentence. But let's not let go entirely of its shock value, for Jesus did want to make a very bold claim about what discipleship entails, what being his follower demands. And what it demands is everything. It demands a readiness to let go the closest relationships of family: "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, cannot be my disciple." It demands a readiness to let go all that I have: "None of you can be my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions." It demands a readiness to embrace suffering for Christ: "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." It demands a readiness to give up even my own life: "Whoever come to me and does not hate even life itself, cannot be my disciple."

This is the cost of discipleship. Stated in the abstract it seems an impossible cost. Removed from the context of actual life decisions, actual listening to the voice of conscience, actual prayerful encounter with the Christ who calls us, it can seem completely unnatural. And yet, when we see it embodied in actual, living people, we can see how attractive and how deeply human the paying of that price can seem. On a level which is not explicitly spiritual, we see this deep humanity in those who, in the course of duty, risk their own lives. This week we will remember September 11. Leaving aside all that has happened as a consequence, one of the enduring memories of that day is the selflessness of those who entered those buildings to rescue people when everyone was trying desperately to get out. A selflessness which is so deeply attractive when we see it embodied in real life, so deeply and truly human. On the more explicitly spiritual level, we read of someone like St Francis - the way he flew in the face of his family's expectations and gave up literally everything he had - and we wonder at how powerfully he incarnates the message that full, free humanity surrenders all for Christ, and in so doing finds the pearl of great price.

We also see the truth of this message in a negative way when we see the effects of not living it out - the effects of making anything, anything at all, our god except for the living God incarnate in Jesus Christ. The anxiety that comes when I seek to please everyone around me, rather than God; the fear that comes from relying on my own power, rather than God's; the lingering sadness when I pick and choose which moral commandments I will obey; the resentment that comes from preferring my plan for other people to God's plan for them; the pressure that comes when I seek to project a perfect image, rather than being who I am before God; the lies I buy into when I prefer political correctness, of whatever stripe, to God's truth; the disorder that comes when I manipulate others, or cling to them, rather than loving them freely as God does.

All these are ways in which we lose our serenity, lose our selves, if we are not willing to pay the cost of discipleship, of putting Christ above and before all else. It is costly. It should not be undertaken if we have not counted the cost of paying that price daily. But it is the only way that we can remain open to grace, emptying ourselves of all else so that we are dependent on alone. It is costly, and it is grace. Costly grace. That's the title of a classic chapter in the book The Cost of Discipleship. It was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany during World War II. He knew the cost of discipleship at first hand, sensing that his following of Christ obliged him to work for the defeat of the Nazi regime. He was sent to a Gestapo prison, and then a concentration camp, and eventually killed. He found in Christ a grace for which he was willing to pay the ultimate price. Let's hear his reflections on the cost of discipleship, on costly grace as opposed to the cheap grace for which we often opt:

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace is …cheap forgiveness ... it is the priceless grace free for all….Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before…Well, then, let Christians live like the rest of the world, let them model themselves on the world's standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from their old life under sin. That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sins departs. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without disciple-ship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a person will pluck out the eye which causes them to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciples leave their nets and follow him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must the asked for, the door at which a person must knock.

"Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs you your life, and it is grace because it gives you the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'you were bought at a price,' and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

"Grace is costly because it compels us to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

1. Adapted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship [Macmillan: New York, 1959], 35-37.