The Call to Abandonment
by Fr. David M. Knight
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Thirty First Sunday of the Year
Dt 6:2-6/Heb 7:23-28/Mk 12:28b-34 (Lectionary 152)
What is the difference between “surrender” and “abandonment”? Between loving God more than anything or anyone else and loving God with all our heart, soul, and might”? When does God become for us, not just our “highest value,” the “first in a series,” but our All? Is this the difference between ministry and stewardship?
God is All
There is a progression in the response to God that Deuteronomy 6: 2-6 proposes. First God tells his people, “Fear the Lord your God, and keep… all his decrees and his commandments.” Anyone who does this, the Lord promises, will “have a long life,” which in Scripture means a “full life.”
Then God promises his people that if they are “careful to observe” diligently his commandments they will “grow and prosper.” If we study God’s word, to live it with understanding, we enter into “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Finally, God gives the climax:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and with all your strength.
There is no promise attached to this. When we love God as All he is our All. There is nothing more to receive.
If our Christianity is not just a “religion” of doctrines and laws, but a spirituality of conscious interaction with God, we experience progression. In five steps.
1. Conscious Christian life begins with that “Fear of the Lord” that is not fright but awe—speechless admiration of God. To become fully aware it has to be expressed in praise and thanksgiving.
Scripture says repeatedly “the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This, our first taste of “life to the full,” is associated with happiness and praise:
Praise the Lord! Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments. (Psalm 111:10; 112:1)
If we appreciate God — and specifically as the Father who showed his love by sending the Son to give us a share in God’s own divine life (the “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”) — we are moved to proclaim:
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. (See the Introductory Rites of the Mass: Greeting and the Gloria.)
2. The prayer of praise and thanksgiving is a first experience of “spirituality,” of consciously loving God. But we go further. Appreciation of God makes us want to grow in wisdom and understanding. So we commit to study and reflect on God’s word as disciples. Then we experience enlightenment. God’s word becomes for us “a land flowing with milk and honey.” We grow into loving understanding of God’s mind and heart. And Jesus says to us:
I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.[ii] (John 15:15; and see Psalm 119. The Liturgy of the Word calls us to this.)
3. As our love matures we take a third step, pledging, not just friendship but service, choosing to help Jesus as co-workers. In our conscious dedication to his mission we experience the mystery of call.
Dedication to mission is adult love. But in Christ’s service it usually begins with the enthusiasm of youth, which can also be harsh. As prophets intent on bearing witness, we strive to embody Christ’s truth and values in our lifestyle, even if others find this offensive.
4. But as our love matures even more, the harshness of our witness is tempered by the nurturing spirit of ministry. Into our baptismal consecration as prophets we integrate our baptismal consecration as priests. Now we are conscious of Jesus working, not just with us, but in us. Our ministry is to let Jesus within us express himself — his saving truth, his healing love — in and through our words and actions. Our love becomes surrender to his voice speaking in our hearts. Now we experience love as a nurturing love in union with Jesus through surrender. We pledge this surrender of ourselves — to God and for others—at every Mass, when we say during the Eucharistic Prayer, in unison with Jesus on the cross: “This my body, given for you.” (Luke 22:19.)
We experience surrender in repeated actions, in which we are aware of our union with Jesus. With and in Jesus on the cross we are offering “our bodies as a living sacrifice” every time we minister to people. But there is one more step.
5. Surrender must grow into the enduring state of total abandonment, in which there is nothing left to surrender because all is given. When Jesus on the cross said, “It is finished,” then his flesh could be handed over as “bread… for the life of the world.” The “bread of life” is the body of Jesus that is given to us now in the Rite of Communion:
Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
The Mass is not complete without Communion, as the sacrifice of Jesus was not complete until his flesh was handed over to be the Bread of Life for the world. Nor is our sacrifice complete until we have abandoned everything we are to be “taken, broken and given,” utterly and irrevocably, for the work of the kingdom. This is abandonment to absolute stewardship. (Romans 12:1; John 19:30; 6:51-56. And see the eucharistic formula: Jesus “took, blessed, broke and gave”: Matthew 15:6; 26:26; Mark 6:41; 8:6; Luke 9:16; 22:19; 24:30.)
God and neighbor
Mark 12: 28-34: Jesus adds a second to the Great Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love of God is not complete unless we also love others with Jesus’ own measure of love:
I give you a new commandment... Love one another. Just as I have loved you.
This love reaches perfection in stewardship. As stewards we have given up everything to God. Now in his name we simply manage all we have for the good of others. As stewards of his kingship, we take responsibility for establishing the life-giving reign of God over every area and activity of human life on earth. That is all we live for. We say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”
To me, living is Christ and dying is gain. To live in the flesh means fruitful labor…. My desire is to depart and be with Christ… but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know I will remain for your progress and joy in faith. (John 13:34; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 1:21-25.)
Jesus our hope
We may feel hopelessly far from this abandonment. But Hebrews 7: 23-28 holds up Jesus as our hope:
He is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he forever lives to make intercession for them…. So let us persevere in running the race that lies before us, while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus the leader and perfecter of faith.
We abandon ourselves in hope. (Add Hebrews 12:1 ff.)
Insight Do you understand these five steps? On which one do you find yourself mostly?
Initiative: Be consciously aware of praise, enlightenment, call, union and abandonment.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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