Joy of the Discipleship over the Cost of the Discipleship – reflection of the Scripture Reading on the 14th Sunday Year C

In sequence to the last two Sundays’ Gospel readings (Luke 9:18-24; 9:51-62), the Gospel reading of the 14^th Sunday of Year C (Luke10:1-12,17-20) addresses necessary conditions for the Christian discipleship. 

In Luke 9:18-24 (12^th Sunday) and 9:51-62 (13^th Sunday), Jesus was talking more about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cost of the discipleship: self-denial similar to Buddhist teaching of anatta, embracing a prospect of martyrdom, giving up our desire for a secured life and worldly assurance and the ability to respond to the Lord’s call immediately. 

Now, through the first part of the Gospel message for the 14^th Sunday, Luke10:1-12, Jesus have found and chosen 72 followers, worthy of being sent on mission, and giving an instruction before sending them off. 

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.

Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.

Into whatever house you enter, first say,
‘Peace to this household.’

If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.

Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you,
for the laborer deserves his payment.

Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you,
eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them,
‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’

Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you,
go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet,
even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”  (Luke 10:2-12).

The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. (Luke 10:2) The harvest of the Lord means the harvest of souls.  This is a metaphor for the ministry work on Christ’s mission – the harvest for salvation.  And, this work for salvation is too great to have enough workers – ministers. 

These words of Jesus on the great harvest of the souls but not having enough worker reflects these words of Paul, “For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building” (1 Corinthians 3:9) and invoke an image of Isaiah 5:1-7 and Matthew 20:1-16.  

Being disciples of Christ and being counted as worthy to be sent on his mission, indeed, a great honor, though it sure comes with significant “cost” on us, to be his disciple and to carry on his mission.  It is because being trusted by the Lord to partake in his salvific work for the harvest of souls.  

That is why the 72 disciples were rejoicing when they returned from the mission, as the second part of the 14^th Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 10: 17-20) describes.  The disciples were in joy because of their amazement of the Lord’s salvific power affecting the people they ministered to.  In response to their joy, Jesus said, “Behold, I have given you the power to ‘tread upon serpents’ and scorpions  and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven”(Luke 20: 19-20) to eschatologically allude to the effects of serving on Christ’s salvific mission as his disciples upon our fate in the Last Judgement .  Because of their participation on Christ’s salvific mission, these disciples will rejoice their ultimate reward – the heavenly reward – their names being written in the Book of Life (Revelation 20:11-15). 

Getting our names written in the Book of Life is the ultimate “wage” for being co-workers of God’s vineyard, as being co-workers of God’s vineyard means embracing all the costs of the discipleship and partaking in Lord’s mission. 

This kind of joy over such a heavenly reward is echoed in the First Reading (Isaiah 66: 10-14c). God certainly acknowledge our dedicated work on Lord’s mission sure comes with heavy costs on us.  That is why the merciful and loving God wants to care for us like a nursing mother.  That is why God say, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you……. You will see and your heart shall exult, and your bodies shall flourish like the grass; the Lord’s power shall be revealed to his servants”(Isaiah 66:13-14). 

According to the Book of Revelation, the New Paradise (New Jerusalem, New Heaven, New Eden) will appear upon the Last Judgement, with parousia. As the 14^th Sunday’s Gospel reading describes, Jesus implies that bearing the costs of the discipleship and partake in his mission can lead to our names being written in the Book of Life. Having our names in the Book of Life is the way to enter into the New Paradise, as the Book of Revelation describes.  

The First reading of the 14^th Sunday describes an image of restored Jerusalem after the Babylonian destruction. And, this invokes an image of the New Paradise in the Book of Revelation.  For example, compare, “I will spread prosperity over her like a river, like an overflowing torrent, the wealth of nations”(Isaiah 66:12) to “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of  the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever”(Revelation 22:1-5).  Not to mention, an image of a river is also found in Ezekiel 47:1-12, the river of healing and restoration. 

The very joy we will receive as a result of paying the costs of the discipleship and accomplishing Christ’s mission is seeing God’s face (Revelation 22:4) on the banks of the river of life, as God restores our life into the very kind of eternal heavenly life, as He has promised. 

Being a true Christian means to intuitively understands the heavenly joy that only comes through paying the full costs of the discipleship and successfully partaking in the harvest of souls in God’s vineyard.  After all, “… many are called, but few are chosen”(Matthew 22:14). Many are called by Christ to be his disciples. But, as in Jesus’ parable of the royal wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14) and Revelation 20:11-15 on the Book of Life describe, not everyone is entitled to this joy because we must earn our way to be chosen – to be chosen to have our names in the Book of Life. This truth also corresponds to James’ words, “faith without work is dead”(James 2:17), because faith itself cannot get our names in the Book of Life but, as indicated by the 14^th Sunday’s Gospel narrative, it is our work of the Lord’s mission – our harvesting work in the God’s vineyard. In order for us to be chosen to work, we must pay the "cost of the discipleship" first.

Pabbajja (pravrajana) in Christianity キリスト教における出家 - Reflection of the Scripture Reading on the 13th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C

Following the Gospel reading of the 12^th Sunday (Luke 9:18-24), the 13^th Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 9:57-62) is about the serious cost of the Christian discipleship. When God, through Jesus, calls us to become disciples of Christ and to follow Jesus’ path, we must make a total commitment, without any reservation that could pull us back to our past.  God in Jesus want us our perfect dedication to His mission. In a way, the level of commitment God want from us mirrors that of commitment, which both a husband and a wife make to each other in their Sacrament of Matrimony. Luke 9:59-62 may invoke Genesis 2:24, in this regard.

As a marriage between a man and a woman is a manifestation of God’s desire (Genesis 2:18) - it is in God’s desire to have a husband and a wife make each other’s total commitment to one another,  it is, indeed, God’s desire for us to totally commit ourselves to His will and mission. Our full commitment to God reflects God’s commandment to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with all our mind (Deuteronomy 6:5; Luke 10:27).  

The 13^th Sunday’s Gospel reading describes how Jesus wants us to incorporate Luke 10:27 into our discipleship. It is also his invitation for us to the perfect freedom and peace. The freedom and peace is like Nirvana in Buddhism concept, the psychospritual state completely fee from what Buddhists call klelshas (煩悩) – worldly and carnal desires, anxiety, insecurity, doubts and bewilderment. 

Psychologically, kleshas indicates insecure heart, brittle ego. The psychospiritual state of ultimate freedom and peace  offers a taste of the Kingdom of God, as it is what salvation attains. Such a psychospiritual state is also what Buddhists strive to attain, Nirvana. 

On his path toward glorification, Jesus suffered tremendously and had to overcome all of his sufferings, while Shakamuni (historical Buddha) had to overcome his sufferings in order to attain enlightenment and awakening before entering into Nirvana. In a way, the sufferings of Jesus can be understood though a possibility of him having kleshas (i.e. Luke 22:39-46, Mark 15:34), even though he was a spiritually and psychologically strong man (i.e. Luke 4:1-13), while it is possible to see that Jesus entered into Nirvana with his last seven words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”(Luke 23:46). Now, Jesus is calling us and inviting us to attain this perfect freedom – the Kingdom of God, or Nirvana to put it in the Buddhist context, the psychospiritual state perfectly free from suffering. 

Whether we are Christian or Buddhist, as humans, we all want to be free from suffering, which is believed to be caused by kleshas .  Both Christian teaching and Buddhist teaching guide us to purify our souls from kleshas so that we may overcome suffering and attain Nirvana.  For Christians, the teaching of Jesus offers practical steps to overcome kleshas as he demonstrates these steps himself all the way to the Cross. For Buddhists, Shakamuni, upon becoming Buddha, attaining awakening to the Dharma, taught the way to dissolve kleshas, based on his own struggles toward attaining the awakening, upon overcoming series of temptations. That is why Christians seek Jesus’ teaching, Gospels, while Buddhists pursue Shakamuni’s teaching, the Dharma.

The genuinely peaceful state, which is the Kingdom of God in Christianity, and Nirvana in Buddhism, free from anxiety and suffering, is what everyone desires. But, not everyone can necessarily attain this perfect freedom and peace, because the path to reach it is challenging enough to disillusion our naïve assumption and fantasy of attaining this perfect state. The Jesus’ words in the Gospel narrative for the 13^th Sunday remind this truth. 

In a strict sense, we really need to leave our own families in order to fully commit ourselves to our serious pursuits of the perfect state – whether you are Christian or Buddhist. It is because our families are considered as a worldly factor and a potentially distracting factor in our discipleship.  This also reflects God’s desire for a husband to leave his parents in order to become one flesh with his wife (Genesis 2:24). 

That is why Catholic priests, monks and nuns leave their families and totally commit themselves to the service for Christ practicing celibacy and living in their religious communities or parish rectories, rather than living with their families. They take the three-fold vow of poverty, chastity and obesity, for this reason. Likewise, Buddhist monks leave their families in order to enter into their rigorous formation processes, remaining celibate, so that they can fully dedicate themselves to the service of the Dharma, the truth in Buddha’s teaching. 

Like Luke 9:23-24, Luke 9:57-62 is another difficult yet powerful paradoxical teaching of Jesus. On the surface, it appears to go against the teaching of filial piety – if Luke 9:59-62 were interpreted literally. But, Jesus sure did not mean to go against God’s commandment, “Honor your father and your mother”(Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16) when he did not allow a man, who is interested in following him, to wait until he can bury his father and when he did not allow another man to bid farewell to his family (Luke 9:59-62).

Just as Jesus’command to leave every personal and family matter completely and immediately to follow him (Luke 9:59-62) can be viewed as antagonistic to the God’s commandment to honor(care for)  our fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16), the concept of  pabbajja was at first criticized in China because it was believe to counter the Confucius’ moral teaching of filial piety (孝).

Growing up in the Buddhist cultural context of Japan, what comes to my mind in thinking of Luke 9:59-62 is pabbajja (pravrajana) in Buddhism. Pabbajja,which is an act of denunciation of the worldly (lay)  life to enter into a sacred life, literally means “going forth”.  Our attachment to a worldly life, lay life, which includes our families, can compromise our commitment to the mission. 

In Jesus’ words, what holds us back from “going forth” is the plow to keep one’s hand on in Luke 9:62. To follow Jesus on his mission, we do not need the “plow” which represents our worries to survive in this worldly life. Likewise, in Buddhist pabbajja, monk’s life is totally dependent upon the alms from upasaka (upasika), those who practice Buddhism without leaving their homes and families.

Pabbajja is required, in a strict sense of Buddhism, to become a bodhissatva (菩薩), which literally means one who strives for enlightenment. Through pabbajja, we can become authentic seekers of enlightenment, as bodhissatva. Being  bodhissatva through pabbajja is the way of attaining Nirvana by becoming Buddha and gaining prajna (wisdom) of Dharma. To put this into the Christian context, becoming Buddha corresponds to attaining a sainthood or Sainthood, while becoming bodhissatva through pabbajja parallels becoming a fully committed disciple of Christ by following Jesus’ command of denouncing all worldly attachments, as described in Luke 9:59-62.

Speaking of pabbajja, both Jesus and Shakamuni left their respective families. In Shakamuni’s case, he left and completely abandoned his comfortable life in the royal palace and his status of prince. In Jesus’ case, he left his mother, Mary, who was a widow then, when he began his mission for the God the Father, at around age 30, while Shakamuni denounced all his worldly prestige as the prince of his father’s loyal palace, as well as his wife and child at age 29. 

If you have to worry about your own family while following Christ, then, it is like having an  extra-marital affair. Just as a husband who has an affair cannot fully commit to his wife as he is supposed to, we cannot make our total commitment to Christ if we did not leave our families immediately upon being called. 

The importance of our total commitment is already found in the  Book of Genesis – when God called Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Of course, God really did not want Abraham to kill Isaac, but He asked him to sacrifice Isaac to test the level of his commitment to Him. God assessed if Abraham would let his concern for Isaac get in the way of his commitment to Him. By faithfully following God’s order to sacrifice Isaac, God noticed that Abraham’s level of commitment and judged worthy of His covenant with him.

If we interpret Luke 9:57-62 as antagonistic to filial piety, if we interpret Luke 9;23-24 as trivialization of life, then, this logic would view Genesis 22:1-18 that God solicited Abraham to murder Isaac.

Jesus wanted to make sure that those who are interested in his mission will not follow him out of impulse and whim but they rather know another set of cost of discipleship – in addition to self-denial and embracing a possibility of martyrdom.  This is why Jesus had to say things like,” Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head”(Luke 9:58), “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God”(Luke 9:60), and “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God”(Luke 9:62). 

When Jesus said ,” Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head”(Luke 9:58), to a man who wanted to follow him, he meant to teach that there is no security or stability in life on the discipleship. A life of a disciple means living a life on the edge and on the move, never to have a settled-in life. But, in a worldly life, we all desire to have a secured life – especially financial security (aren’t we all crazed about our retirement savings, 401K, pension, Social Security benefit, etc?) – something to rest our head on, something to rest our anxious heart on. But, to have a life on the discipleship, a life of pabbajja, we are to find a sense of security in the kind of insecure life. This is a paradoxical aspect of this Jesus’ teaching. To find a sense of security and peace in a life on the edge, we must find ourselves in God for Christians and in Dharma prajna for Buddhists. 

By saying “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God”(Luke 9:60) to another man who wanted to follow him, Jesus wanted him to understand the urgency in the discipleship. It means that we cannot wait until our parents die or that we cannot wait until we become free from family obligation, in order to become Jesus’ disciple. We must follow Jesus immediately upon receiving a call – if we desire a secure life in God, the perfect Nirvana-like freedom and peace. 

When Elijah called Elisha to be his attendant companion to carry on God’s mission, Elisha was allowed to bid farewell to his parents and cleared his earthly belonging by slaughtering all his lives stocks and treating his people with them to make a closure on his worldly life (1 Kings 19:19-21). However, Jesus did not allow even such a time to anyone who wants to follow him and whom he asked to follow him. This also teaches that we must be ready, at any moment in life, to follow him, dropping every worldly things – objects of our worldly attachment, whenever Jesus asks us to follow him, in the manner of pabbajja. That is why Jesus does not want to see our hand holding the plow when he calls us, by saying, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God”(Luke 9:62), though Elija let Elisha use the plow one last time before he left his worldly life. 

Following Luke 9:18-24 from the 12^th Sunday (last Sunday), reading Luke 9:51-62 on the 13^th Sunday makes it clearer about what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “costly grace”, required as the “cost of the discipleship”.  By contrasting with Buddhism tradition of pabbajja, we can also associate Jesus’ teaching on the discipleship to Buddhism, while deepening our understanding and appreciation of the Christian discipleship. 

Of course, it is not all about the “costly grace” to be disciples of Christ in the pabbajja-like way. The second reading of this Sunday, 13^th Sunday, Galatians 5:1, 13-18, describes the benefit of paying the “costly grace” in our discipleship, and the benefit is the freedom set by Christ for us. But, Paul warns us not to abuse this freedom by giving into the fleshly and worldly temptations. Of course, as we continue to grow in our discipleship, we can handle this freedom better, as we gain stronger abilities to detach ourselves from our worldly desires and carnal temptations for the sake of the  Nirvana-like ultimate and perfect freedom and peace, with joy.