St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

2019-6-30-13th Sunday-Yr C-English

 

 

Homily 13th Sunday – Year C

Fr. Roberto Corral, OP

St. Dominic Church, Los Angeles, CA

June 30, 2019

 

Title: Letting Go

Theme: Letting go is the key to following Jesus.

Readings:  1Kings 19:16b-19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62

 

In various countries in the world, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America, there are lots of wild monkeys. And in those countries, hunters have found numerous clever and easy ways to capture some of these monkeys. One of the ways is like this. First, the hunters make or find a container like a big jar in which they put heavy rocks at the bottom so the container cannot be moved very easily. And they make sure the container has a narrow opening that is just big enough so a monkey can barely squeeze its hand through it. Then, the hunters put something that monkeys crave, like sweets, nuts or bananas, inside the container. They place the container out in the open and then go hide. Sooner or later a monkey comes along and smells the treats inside the container. So, it reaches in and grabs the food. But in doing that, the monkey cannot remove its hand from the jar because its hand is now holding on to all those goodies. In order to get its hand out, all the monkey has to do is let go of the food. But almost every time, the monkeys simply won’t let go of the goodies; they tug and tug but they cannot remove their hand. And, the jar is too heavy for the monkey to carry away, so the monkey is stuck there. That’s when the hunter comes along and easily captures the monkey…all because the monkey wouldn’t let go of something it wanted.

 

So what does this story have to do with us or with today’s readings? Well, I would say a lot because I think it is a great illustration of a trap that we human beings can also fall into in our lives: the trap of not being able to let go. This is especially true in terms of our faith and our relationship with Jesus. The key to spirituality and being a mature disciple of Jesus is precisely the ability to let go. And I would say that our readings today emphasize that fact.

 

I am just going to focus on the Gospel. In today’s Gospel, there are three different scenarios which show us that following Jesus means letting go. The first scenario is when James and John want to call down fire from heaven upon a Samaritan village that had rejected Jesus. First of all, how arrogant of them to think that they even had that kind of power to begin with! The Gospel simply says that Jesus turned, rebuked them and then continued on his way. Whatever he said to them, I am sure Jesus was clear in telling them that if they were going to follow him they had to let go of their arrogance, their ego, their pettiness and their desire for revenge.

 

In the second scenario, a man says to Jesus that he wants to follow him, but Jesus responds with the statement: "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." In other words, Jesus is telling him – and us – that, if we are going to follow him, we have to be willing to let go of our need for security, our need for comfort and, most importantly, we have to let go of our need for control.

 

Finally, in the third scenario, Jesus calls two people to follow him, but the first person wants to go and bury his dead father, and the second one wants permission to say goodbye to his family first and then follow Jesus. Jesus comes off sounding pretty harsh and says no to both of them. So, what is going on here? Is Jesus being cruel or overly demanding? Is he saying that he wants them to ignore their responsibilities to care for their loved ones? No, of course he is not saying any of these things. Jesus’ point is that following him demands an immediate and total commitment. We simply cannot keep putting off following him; we have to act here and now. And we cannot follow him only halfway – it has to be a total commitment. In other words, our relationship with him has to be the priority in our lives. And that means we have to be willing to let go of everyone and everything else by placing them behind Jesus in our list of priorities. And if it comes down to a choice between anyone or anything else and following Jesus, we have to put Jesus first.

 

So, the first question I have for all of you today is, do you want to follow Jesus? I hope you said yes to that. Now the second question is what do you need to let go of in order to follow Jesus more fully and more faithfully? The closer you want to get to Jesus, the more you have to let go of. Every one of us here has at least one thing we need to let go of, and probably more than one. I would break those things down into three categories as follows:

 

Unhealthy addictions or tendencies: Some of us need to let go of our addiction to food, or at least certain kinds of unhealthy food; some of us need to let go of our addiction to alcohol or to drugs. For others of us, we are called to let go of our addiction to electronic devices, the Internet, TV, gambling, sex or pornography, or anything else that can dominate our lives in an unhealthy way.

Fears: Jesus calls us to let go of our fear of failure, our fear of the unknown or fear of the future. Some of us need to let go of a fear of loneliness, and some of us have a fear of death. What all these fears come down to is a fear of really trusting God; we are afraid that somehow God will let us down. Jesus challenges us to let go of our fears.

Needs and desires: Some of us have to let go of our need to be liked, to be right, to be successful, to be comfortable, or to be in control. Others have the need or desire to hold on to a relationship that is not good for us. And some of us have a desire to hold on to a hurt or memory from the past which means holding on to anger, bitterness or even hatred and being unwilling to forgive.

 

These are some things that I came up with that Jesus is calling us to let go of, and I am sure there are other things you can think of that you or others need to let go of. The point is, if we truly want to follow Jesus, sooner or later we have to let go of anything that keeps us from putting him first in our lives

 

My brothers and sisters, Jesus does not want us to be like those monkeys who ended up being trapped and lost their freedom because they could not let go of something they wanted. Jesus wants all of us to let go so we can experience the abundant life he wants us to share with us, and  he wants us to be free to follow him wherever he chooses to lead us.