{"id":405,"date":"2013-09-08T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-08T17:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=405"},"modified":"2013-09-07T22:40:09","modified_gmt":"2013-09-08T03:40:09","slug":"filling-your-vessel-with-honey-or-vinegar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"Filling Your Vessel with Honey or Vinegar"},"content":{"rendered":"

23rd<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/h2>\n

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary<\/h2>\n

Wis 9: 13-18b; Phil 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14: 25-33<\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

In one of his sermons St. Augustine of Hippo said this:\u00a0 \u201cConsider that God wants to fill you up with honey, but if you are already full of vinegar where will you put the honey?\u201d\u00a0 I think that this summarizes the essence of today\u2019s Gospel.<\/p>\n

You see, when we begin life, we are empty vessels.\u00a0 We are filled with neither honey nor vinegar.\u00a0 Life happens, and the experiences of life fill us with a combination of honey and vinegar.\u00a0 One of the experiences we have that fills our vessels the most is the influence of our families- mothers, dads, spouse and siblings.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, nobody is perfect; so we inherit both honey and the vinegar from our families.\u00a0 When we first embrace our Faith, we embrace it with enthusiasm and resolve.\u00a0 But the facts are that most of us are vessels that are partially filled by that time.\u00a0 And the problem is this- the vinegar can block our way from the objective to follow Jesus, because we need a full vessel of honey to make the whole journey, it is either all or nothing with God.\u00a0 And so, we must dump the vinegar.<\/p>\n

Now consider the people following after Jesus in this morning\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 We are talking about adults who have lived in their culture of the day and who have sour experiences and sweet experiences that have filled their vessels.\u00a0 And yet at this particular moment in their lives, they are brimming with enthusiasm about Jesus.\u00a0 They are following Jesus and hanging on every word.\u00a0 They want to follow after him on the road to the Kingdom of God that he promises them.<\/p>\n

But Jesus shakes them all up with reality- the fact that their enthusiasm may not match their ability.\u00a0 Most scholars agree that the word \u201chate\u201d here is not to be taken literally.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I like the honey and vinegar concept.\u00a0 We cannot be totally dedicated to our families if we are to follow Jesus because some of the influence and commitment which members of our families require of us is the vinegar in our vessels.\u00a0 Which of us hasn\u2019t heard the comment: \u201cIf you love me, you will\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 That baggage may be filled with vinegar.\u00a0 And yet, if we follow Jesus, we can\u2019t embrace the vinegar that our families demand of us.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not talking about pain, but \u201cvinegar\u201d, or sin because all of us need to bear a certain amount of sacrificial pain on behalf of our families to show real love.\u00a0 But that is different than an expectation that we will support someone or do something for someone that is clearly wrong and keeps us from following Jesus.<\/p>\n

The two parables today are interesting messages that support this argument.\u00a0 Take the tower for example.\u00a0 Unless we are committed to following Jesus, we will be like the guy who doesn\u2019t have the resources to complete the tower.\u00a0 You see we might get most of the way there in building the tower before we realize we can\u2019t complete the task \u00a0\u00a0Because our hearts are still tied to something of this world- a person, place, or thing- that we are just not willing to give up.\u00a0 Others, looking from the outside, might find this attachment, this impediment, laughable.\u00a0 But we may be blind to it, and frustrated by an inability to complete our task.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the story about the king and the army resources can have a similar meaning.\u00a0 We might decide we aren\u2019t able to go the whole 9 yards to follow Jesus because we don\u2019t have courage to go all the way.\u00a0 That means the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.\u00a0 So what do we do?\u00a0 We try to bargain our way into a settlement.\u00a0 But sadly, we cannot bargain that way with God.\u00a0 What we end up doing is bargaining with the devil instead.\u00a0 We draw a line in the sand to hold on to something, and think we can still follow Jesus at the same time.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this Gospel is telling us it is either all or nothing with God.<\/p>\n

And so, Jesus is telling the crowd to wake up to the reality of what committing to follow him is all about.\u00a0 It means we have to make a choice when we are confronted with a real test in life- a choice to give up whatever is necessary to follow Jesus.<\/p>\n

Our second reading is a great example of the whole process of such a test.\u00a0 You see, Onesimus was a runaway \u201cindentured\u201d slave from Philomen\u2019s household.\u00a0 Nowadays, we can\u2019t relate to slavery; but it was ingrained in Roman society.\u00a0 Not only that, such property, as Onesimus was considered, was quite valuable.\u00a0 But the Christian teachings that Paul spread called for people to be converted in heart and set aside evil.\u00a0 Paul is asking Philomen to forgive the runaway slave, make no further claim to him, and accept him as a brother instead.\u00a0 Wow! What a choice.<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s the kind of choice each and every one of us will face at some point in our lives- maybe even more than once.\u00a0 We will be challenged to put aside the things of this world that hold us back, and make a choice to follow Jesus.\u00a0 What will you do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Wis 9: 13-18b; Phil 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14: 25-33 Dc. Larry Brockman   In one of his sermons St. Augustine of Hippo said this:\u00a0 \u201cConsider that God wants to fill you up with honey, but if you are already full of vinegar where will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[155],"tags":[240],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}