Excuse me?

Strange things are said in today’s Gospel. Jesus seems to tell people to leave their dead parents unburied and to desert their families without so much as a good-bye.

What Jesus says sounds extreme, perhaps even cruel to our ears, but that is because He is going beyond what is said and heard on the surface and reaching into the hearts of the people around Him. Most of the people around Him are saying reasonable things, but Jesus knows their hearts and He knows that they are really just making excuses.

Jesus is not telling people to forsake their truly God-given responsibilities, but He is telling them that they must break with their old ways of thinking and living in order to enter the Kingdom of God.

St. Paul is telling us very much the same thing in the second reading: not to submit to the yoke of slavery a second time, but to rise above the jealousies and desires of the flesh and to live according to the Spirit in real freedom.

Are we making excuses? Are we telling ourselves virtuous-sounding lies so that we can continue living according to the way of the world instead of the way of Christ?

If so, we must stop what we’re doing, follow the way of Christ, keep our eyes fixed on Him, and never look back.