The disciple is called not only to start, BUT ALSO TO COMPLETE

It should be, also in the disciple, freedom and lightness to complete the path of life traveled as a sequence of Christ. Love is called to become responsibility and freedom perseverance: there lies the necessary renunciation, purification, stripping.

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The prevailing image is that of Jesus the Gospels have transmitted to us is that of an itinerant charismatic who imposes on those who intend to follow him a break withethos traditional exclusively by virtue of its word, the requests must have seemed and still seem extreme to us, as in the case of this one: «Let the dead bury their dead; you go instead’ and announces the kingdom of God" (LC 9,60).

But the ethics of Jesus is the ethics of waiting, incompatible with the modern ethics of progress or with the ethics of values. This Sunday's Gospel passage measures the quality of Jesus' relationship with his disciples, as well as the distance that separates us from his religious feeling as soon as we seriously look beyond the thick curtain of theological elaboration. Let's read it:

«A large crowd went with Jesus. He turned and told them: “If anyone comes to me and does not love me more than he loves his father, Mother, the wife, children, the brothers, sisters and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. He who does not carry his cross and does not come after me, he cannot be my disciple. Who among you, wanting to build a tower, he doesn't sit down first to calculate the expense and see if he has the means to carry it out? To avoid that, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the job, everyone who sees it begins to mock him, saying: 'This man started building, but he wasn't able to finish the job'. Or which king, going to war against another king, he does not sit down first to examine whether he can confront with ten thousand men whoever comes to meet him with twenty thousand? if not, while the other is still far away, he sends him messengers to ask for peace. So whoever of you does not give up all his possessions, he cannot be my disciple”» (LC 14,25-33).

The occasion for the short sayings of Jesus preserved from today's evangelical page is narrated in the opening verse: «A large crowd went with Jesus. He turned and said". People were going and Jesus turns: In this way the reader understands that the journey has resumed. So long as, previously, the Lord was caught at table with his disciples, invited by a leader of the Pharisees (LC 14,1). And we also remember the situation in last Sunday's Gospel regarding the choice of places and guests, while now the evangelist draws attention to the journey that Jesus has undertaken and which will come to completion in Jerusalem. The previous context of the banquet ended with words of invitation for all, so that the house would be filled: “Go out into the streets and along the hedges and force them in, so that my house may be filled" (LC 14,23); now, however, Jesus' words add something and clarify how to enter that house. These are demanding conditions to be able to follow Jesus, some rules, indeed, to be disciples, they are necessary. E, Once again, these words are for all those who want to call themselves Christians. The invitation to love Jesus more than your parents, to carry the cross, and giving up possessions is not something reserved for a select few, but it applies to every disciple who wants to be of Christ.

Words about family relationships we also find them in the Gospel of Matthew, almost identical, but the two short parables are missing in the first evangelist, the one about the tower and the one about the king going to war, which are therefore properly Lucanian material, drawn from a specific source of this evangelist. These are indeed striking words, modern sensibility perceives the contrast of loving and hating as very harsh when referring to one's family members or even to one's own life: «If anyone comes to me and does not love me more than he loves his father, Mother, the wife, children, the brothers, sisters and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" (v.26). Jesus is really calling for a rejection of human relationships, a rigidity with others, even with those of your own family? Without weakening the eschatological tension that animated the preaching of Jesus we can affirm that here we are faced with a typical Judaism, where the verb hate means: «put it later, overshadow". We find this type of occurrence in the Old Testament, as well as in the Gospels, for example in the passage from Matthew: «No one can serve two masters, because either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will become fond of one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Mt 6,24). Matthew himself helps us to better understand the demanding words of Jesus, because it brings them back in an attenuated form, that is, without using the verb to hate, but a comparative one: «Who loves father or mother more than me, It is not worthy of me; who loves son or daughter more than me, not worthy of me " (Mt 10,37). It deals with, in conclusion, to subordinate all love to that of the Lord, without ceasing to love those whom the law itself commands to love, like their parents. It means that being a disciple is a serious thing, even more so in the time that has become short, and these are valid indications for all believers in Christ, we have already said it, and for every moment of life.

They follow, then, Jesus' words about carrying the cross, already met in LC 9,23, and finally two short parables. As said at the beginning of this comment, this is where we must start to understand what being a disciple entails. These parables have in common the denominator of struggle and perseverance. Following Jesus is equivalent to build a tower, commitment and perseverance are needed, like building a house on the rock (cf.. Mt 7,24); is equivalent to go to war, knowing how to measure one's strengths well.

The following is demanding also because the disciple is called not only to initiate, but also to complete (vv. 28.29.30), and indispensable for following is the willingness to lose everything, also "one's life" (v.26). The good to be possessed is the renunciation of goods, learn the art of loss, of decreasing, of not falling into the trap of possession or the logic of having. Jesus, says Paul, "he emptied himself" (Fil 2,7) and «as rich as he was, he became poor" (2Color 8,9). It should be, also in the disciple, freedom and lightness to complete the path of life traveled as a sequence of Christ. Love is called to become responsibility and freedom perseverance: there lies the necessary renunciation, purification, stripping. The demands of discipleship therefore have to do with the whole of the person - his heart - and with the whole of his time, for the duration of his life. And they warn us against the risk of leaving the work undertaken halfway.

Clement of Alexandria (Protreptic X,39) he spoke of faith as "a big risk" (calos kíndynos). For the first Christians often adhere to Christ, in a context with a pagan majority, it involved persecution and even martyrdom. Today, in our countries of old and tired Christianity, the price of conversion is not felt and even less paid. We are looking for insurance that eliminates insecurity and risks, also with regard to faith and its testimony, When, instead, Jesus, invites you to lose everything to follow Him. We do not hide the fact that we experience difficulties when faced with the harsh and demanding words of Jesus, forgetting that the radicality of the Gospel has first of all a value of revelation, reveal, that is, perspectives that would otherwise remain inaccessible to us. Pope Leo XIV also remembered this in a recent Angelus:

«Brothers and sisters, The provocation that comes to us from today's Gospel is beautiful: while sometimes we happen to judge those who are far from the faith, Jesus puts in crisis “the safety of believers”. They, indeed, tells us that it is not enough to profess faith with words, eat and drink with Him celebrating the Eucharist or know Christian teachings well. Our faith is authentic when it embraces our entire life, when it becomes a criterion for our choices, when it makes us women and men who are committed to doing good and taking risks in love just like Jesus did; He did not choose the easy path of success or power but, just to save ourselves, he loved us until we crossed the “narrow door” of the Cross. He is the measure of our faith, He is the door we must walk through to be saved (See GV 10,9), living his own love and becoming, with our life, workers of justice and peace" (WHO).

From the Hermitage, 7 September 2025

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