13th Sunday, Year C
27th June 2010

A few days ago we heard Jesus tell his disciples to be alert and recognize false prophets and bad teachers. He said that ‘a tree is known by its fruit’. A good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit.

In today’s second reading St. Paul tells the Christian community in Galatia that the presence of the Spirit of God in us does not produce bad fruit like self-indulgence. If we are self-indulgent then the Spirit of God is not at work in us. He names snapping at each other and tearing each other down as acts of self-indulgence that is dangerous to a community.

Last week we heard Jesus tell his disciples that his would-be followers must renounce themselves and take up their cross every day and follow him. They must at least be willing to part from everything that forms their present life – they may not have to part from it all but they must offer to do so.

Then we heard the prophet Elijah call Elisha who replied ‘let me kiss my father and mother, then I will follow you’. A man Jesus called replied ‘let me go and bury my father first’. Another he called said ‘let me go and say goodbye to my people at home’. To all these requests the answer would be do not delay.

Suddenly everything but Jesus becomes the past and he has one thing to say about the past, leave it be and look forward. For those of us who spend hours and days recalling past injuries, past problems, past sins, past shames and past victories he says: ‘once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’ (end of Luke, Chapter 9).

St Paul spoke of the same thing like this: ‘I can only say that forgetting what lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies in front, I am racing towards the finishing point to win the prize of God’s heavenly call’.

So, Jesus is not interested in our past only what good we can do now and in the future. If we accept freedom from the past we gain a whole lot of energy for the now.