Gospel & Reflection for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Friends, one of Christianity’s most celebrated theologians, was the German Protestant Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His most famous book was titled ‘The Cost of Discipleship’. In that book he spells out what it means to be a follower of Christ. He asks that if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand?

To flesh out those questions, Bonhoeffer distinguished between ‘cheap grace’ and ‘costly grace’. Cheap grace seeks all the consolations of the faith, but without commitment or conversion. It is ‘grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ’. Costly grace, on the other hand ‘is the treasure hidden in the field, for the sake of which a person will go and gladly sell all that they have to buy it’. Such grace is ‘costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life’.

The story of Bonhoeffer’s life is a story of costly grace. He staunchly and vocally opposed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. In June 1939, not long before the declaration of war, he was invited to lecture at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. He would have been safe there, but after a brief stay in America, he knew he had to return home to Germany. Costly grace never seeks the easy and comfortable way out. He explained the reason for his return home to Germany: “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war, if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”

Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 and sent to a Concentration camp where he was hanged in April of 1945. His life was one of commitment. He answered the call of discipleship, despite where it led him.

In our Gospel today, Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship. He presents some very stark and uncomfortable truths. In His own way, Jesus makes clear the cost of cheap grace compared to costly grace. He calls us to love God above all others, to welcome all and to treat everyone the same, regardless. But, before we think of throwing in the towel, before we think that maybe Jesus is demanding too much of us, we need to know that the Gospel is simply asking us all about motivation. What drives us, influences us, powers us to do what we want to do?

Jesus’ love of God drove Him to welcome all, love all, serve all and sacrifice Himself for all. The influence and love of God in Bonhoeffer’s life allowed him, not just to write brave and powerful words, but to live those words and make them real in his own life.

So also, for us, we are not asked to replace our loved ones and other people with God but simply to allow God influence how we love others, what we do for them, and why we would want to, in the first place. We are asked to put God first so that we can love beyond our imagining, that we can act beyond what we think is achievable, and that we can do what we never thought possible.

Putting God first does not meaning put others aside; it is about giving ourselves to them, as God gives Himself to us. What greater love and presence is there than that?

Friends, we pray this weekend that we shall answer the call of discipleship every day and moment of our lives, and never count the cost, despite the decisions and partings that it may cost.

Fr. Richard