ON PUTTING GOD FIRST IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS

 

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,

Wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life,

He cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:25-33

 

We should not take these words literally. Eastern language at the time of Jesus was always as vivid as the human mind can make it. When Jesus says that we need to “hate” our nearest and dearest, he does not mean that literally. After all, he teaches us all throughout the gospels that we must love everyone, even our enemies. Jesus simply meant that the love of God must always be our number one priority! Jesus also warned his disciples about what will happen when they make him a priority – a life of gain and pain!  

Every time I put on this Roman collar, it often occurs to me that it has been the source of both joy and pain. At one of the receptions following my ordination, an angry young woman confronted me in front of a circle of friends. “How long did you go to school for that,” she hissed, pointing to my collar. When I answered her, “twenty years counting grade school,” she responded, “My God, you could have been something!” I suppose she meant a doctor or lawyer, but obviously she could not imagine anyone in their right mind choosing priesthood! As a very young priest, I was kicked out of a ministerial association meeting being held in a local church, down in the southern part of the state, when I showed up in it for my first meeting. The host minister left the room when I entered and sent a note back in by his secretary that read, “I can no longer in conscience be part of this group now that it has a Catholic in it! Please leave my church!” During the worst days of the sexual abuse scandal, I caught myself, one day, putting my hand over my Roman collar at a stop light here in Louisville. It has always taken courage to wear a Roman because of its association with a life of discipleship.

I am a Catholic priest, yes, and I have been happy being one for over 55 years now. In fact, I am happier today than I was when I started. Let me be clear about one thing, however! That is not an accident. I decided, even before I was ordained, to commit to becoming happier and happier at this as the years rolled by. I decided that if I were going to be a priest, I was going to do all I could to be a happy, effective priest or I was going to get out!  I am still working my program. I understood what I was getting into, I calculated the cost and I made long-range survival plans so I could finish my life as a priest. From the beginning, I have been like that person who set out to build a tower in today’s gospel. I first sat down and calculated the cost to see if I had what it would take to finish. I did not want to end up being “an ex-priest” if at all possible. I have not always put God first every day, but I have always wanted God to be my first priority!!  

I grew up in a small country town twenty-seven people. where almost everyone was a Catholic. I deliberately set out to have a lot of variety in my life. I have worked for the United Church of Christ, as a campground preacher In Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, when I was a seminarian at St. Meinrad. I earned a Doctor of Ministry degree in Parish Revitalization from a Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago as a young priest. I have been a “home missionary” in southern Kentucky, a country pastor in the center of the state, a Cathedral Rector in downtown Louisville, a staff person at St. Meinrad Seminary after being rewarded a large grant from the Lilly Foundation, a writer of a weekly column in the local Catholic paper for fifteen years, an author of over thirty books, a presenter of well over 100 priest retreats in ten countries, a main speaker at seventy Parish Missions, a volunteer missionary in the Caribbean for a few years and now a supporter of mission work in Kenya and Tanzania. I have heard it said that heroism in today’s world is the ability to tolerate paradox, to embrace opposing forces without rejecting one or the other just for the sheer relief of it. I am proud of all this variety, good and bad, because it has enriched my life more than I could have ever imagined fifty-five years ago!

I am certainly not setting myself up as a model of how to live one’s life! Most of you did what I did before you married. You sat down and counted the cost before you got married to see if you, and your partner, had what it took, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to build your “tower” called marriage and a family.     

As a single person with lots of freedom, I have relished engaging in so much variety. All this variety in life, both its gain and pain, has expanded my mind. I have a high tolerance for different perspectives, but I have no tolerance for bigots, meanness, cruelty, laziness and whining.

I am proud of my happiness level today, yes, but I want to repeat – it did not happen by accident! I made a commitment many years ago, with God’s help, to try my best to end up where I am today.

One of the quotes that guided me in all that, is one from George Bernard Shaw. "This is the true joy in life...the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." Another quote has guided me as I have worked to “build the tower” that I call “priesthood.” “It is easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world.” It is easier to change myself than change other people. I learned through my bad experiences that there is certainly no rescue party out looking for me! All of us should know by now that we have to stand up to the discounting voices in our own heads, as well as those coming out of the mouths of the people around us!   

The latest manifestation is the decision to take charge of my own retirement rather than leave it up to our Chancery Office to take care of it for me. Actually, I have been taking charge of my retirement since ordination. For one thing, I wanted to own my own home by the time I retired so I started saving for it back in 1970. That is only one of many of my goals set years ago that I am still struggling to meet! 

When I retired a few years ago, I knew one thing for sure. I did not want to look at retirement as a time to lay back, relax and start dying. I was not interested in playing golf every day, puttering around the yard or hanging out at the local McDonald’s with other old men who gossip till noon every day on free coffee! In the words of Shauna Niequist, “I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. I want my every day to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift!”

I wanted retirement to be about constantly “re-inventing myself.” I wanted to keep on living deliberately, consciously and on purpose. I do not want to continue hanging on to the stuff that I have always done – but just turning down the dial a bit. I wanted to keep serving in new ways with a renewed passion. I wanted to be personally interested and interesting. I want to burn out, not rust out! Yes, I want to live what’s left of my life, deliberately, consciously and on purpose – just as I made up my mind to do one day on a fire escape, back in seminary college. 

What I have tried to say today is this, change is inevitable, but growth has to be intentional. There are a lot of things we can’t control, but there are still a lot of things we can. We can be one of those people who believe that “life is something that happens to you and all you can do is accept it - or you can be one of those people who is a “force of nature,” as Shaw called them. We can be one of those people who chooses to live deliberately, consciously and on purpose – not only when we are young and starting out, but also when we go into retirement. Even in sickness and times of great loss, we can still choose our response to life’s challenges. In retirement, I choose to continue to try to keep God first by serving other people over pampering myself. I wish the same for all of you who have had the courage to put God first in your life by constantly “reinventing yourself.” As Bob Dylan said, ‘If we are not busy being born, we are busy dying.’

In short, whether it is discipleship, priesthood, marriage or the single life, we have to count the cost and then be willing to pay the price! Either way, there is both gain and pain!