Discipleship Requires Detachment

The Gospel reading from Luke for Mass today includes Jesus’ instruction to the crowds that a person cannot be his disciple unless he hates his own family, takes up his cross, and follows the Lord. In each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), we find some iteration of Jesus’ call to take up one’s cross and follow him. When it comes to hating one’s family, only Luke presents this teaching in such stark terms. Matthew lightens the impact by saying, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” In either case, the message is clear. Being a disciple of the Lord Jesus requires total dedication, that is, giving ourselves over entirely to the Lord. Jesus is looking for wholehearted lovers, not ones that are lukewarm. If we truly wish to follow Jesus into everlasting life, then we must be completely detached from everything and everyone we hold dear in this life and be willing to lose it all for the sake of Christ.

This is probably one of the most challenging teachings from Our Lord in all the Gospels. His other difficult teachings such as loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us, and loving our neighbor as Christ has loved us might seem easy in comparison to the prospect of losing everything and everyone we love. The only thing that makes this even remotely possible is if we have faith in the Lord and make a conscious choice to take him at his word. We are incapable of making such a radical choice without faith. Since our detachment from natural family relationships and material goods may lead to suffering in this life, it makes sense when Our Lord says that his disciples must be willing to carry their own cross and come after him. Our suffering in this life is not meaningless or without merit when we choose to suffer in union with Christ. To be clear, when Jesus speaks about hating one’s family, he is obviously not speaking of wishing them harm or doing harm to them. Rather, he is using hyperbolic language to emphasize the necessity of radical detachment.

The Gospel of Luke is the only Synoptic Gospel that includes the analogies of a person constructing a tower and a king marching into battle. In this entire reading, Jesus lays all his cards out on the table at once. He is not hiding anything from his potential disciples. He simply informs them of the radical cost of discipleship without mincing any words. Thus, knowing this cost of discipleship, a person should sit down and calculate the cost, like a person who constructs a tower, and evaluate whether they are ready to pay that cost. Once we begin our discipleship with Jesus, there is no turning back. We must render the cost for that which we have decided, put our hands to the plow, and never turn back on what we have left behind.

The Gospel of Luke is also the only Gospel account that concludes today’s reading with this punchline: “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” Discipleship requires this total renunciation of everything in our lives. This does not mean that we can never enjoy our relatives, our friends, or our material goods, but that we should interact with these people and possessions as if we do not own them. We exercise a spirit of healthy detachment from them. Our ultimate end in life is not pleasing our family but doing what is pleasing to the Lord. We are not called to accumulate wealth and material possessions but to be detached from material goods and to share what we have with the poor.

This teaching on poverty of spirit was always very dear to St. Francis and St. Clare. In the Rule of St. Francis, the friars are instructed in this way: “Let the Friars appropriate nothing for themselves, neither house nor place, nor any thing. And as pilgrims and exiles in this world let them go about begging for alms confidently in poverty and humility as members of the household of God, nor is it fitting that they be ashamed [to do so], since the Lord made Himself poor in this world for us.” The Catechism also teaches, saying: “Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them ‘renounce all that [they have]’ for his sake and that of the Gospel. Shortly before his passion he gave them the example of the poor widow of Jerusalem who, out of her poverty, gave all that she had to live on. The precept of detachment from riches is obligatory for entrance into the Kingdom of heaven.” Our Lord himself stresses how hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven and compares it to a camel passing through the eye of a needle.

Thus, the Gospel reading today challenges us to examine ourselves and make an honest assessment of our own worldly attachments. If we truly wish to be disciples of Jesus, are we willing to give up everything and everyone to follow him? Again, this does not mean that we need to abandon everything, but that we are so detached from our close relations and our possessions that we might even count their loss as gain for the sake of Christ. Being a disciple of Christ may require total commitment and dedication, yet the reward for discipleship is something that eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it so much as entered into the mind of man what God has in store for those who love Him.

– Fr. Matthew Mary, MFVA