Daily Office
Jesus says in Luke, ""No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
Well, there goes capitalism.
Instead of work, Jesus encourages what looks like a sort of discipleship. It almost seems flip, the way he is answering the questions, raising the bar each time someone makes these promises to follow him.
But perhaps we are missing the point. The first impulse of the apostles is to curse the village. That's one way of settling problems. I can imagine Jesus looking at them, frustrated at their dense interpretation of apostleship. Another asks to follow him, and Jesus answers cryptically: everyone has a home except me.
It might be that this is not exactly an invitation to follow Jesus. The invitation, to be precise, is to declare the kingdom of God - to preach forgiveness of sins, to invite people into the liberated state of the blank slate, the opportunity to start over. When he is asked by two others about disciple ship, Jesus raises the challenge: don't obey any of the traditions; liberate yourself from your responsibilities. You look at the old ways, and you cannot preach the kingdom.
The hyperbole Jesus makes here demonstrates the subtle link to our past which often inhibits us from forgiveness. Relationships with parents and peers, for example, is often frought with control and threats of emotional (and sometimes physical) violence. Our daily attachments may also inhibit our discovery of more rewarding work. What Jesus wants to do is get us to unleash our yoke and preach with a bit more confidence, trusting more in the power of God to make our relationships and our lives more rewarding and full.
to "follow Jesus" then isn't exactly to follow Jesus - for Jesus is perfectly aware that that leads to the sort of thinking that chains us rather than liberates us. To follow him means preaching forgiveness. Bringing the kingdom means altering our relationships, to the past, and in the present. Not easy work.
Hebrews offers a clue to this, but I find Hebrews a bit obscure. I'm not exactly sure what the author means by "perfection" in the first part of the section, which is a problematic concept if taken literally. But toward the end of the reading the author says, "And we want each one of you to show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope to the very end, 12 so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
I think this might give us a techne for how we live forgiveness: a sense of hope that allows us to envision what our future looks like - if we can imagine ourselves at a certain point (say, as I am imagining myself completing a triathlon in August) we might then diligently take the steps toward that vision (which means I'm in the gym on a daily basis). My tools of faith and patience are helpful here mean making small changes rather than long ones, and allowing oneself the space to make mistakes.
We often bash ourselves for not making long and immediate changes in our lives - instead, looking at shorter changes is often useful. This extends to even politics. The civil rights act of 1964 was predicated on the civil rights act of 1957, which depended on Brown vs. Board of Education. We continue forgiveness with the small steps we know we can make, guided by the vision we have for our selves and the community.