Tony Worner, St Agnes’ Catholic Parish’s Leader of Formation, reads today from the Gospel of Matthew (8: 18-22) in which Jesus says to his disciples and to us, “Follow me”.

Tony says, in today’s short Gospel today, we are given two examples of differing attitudes desirous of following Jesus, and Jesus’ response to each.

The first – a teacher of the law – approached Jesus, and in what could be considered a zealous, resolute and without reserve manner, suggests, “I will follow you wherever you go”. At first, we would assume Jesus would be glad and excited to have someone so eager to follow him. It is remarkable that Jesus responded in the way He did. Yet knowing the heart, Jesus begins to describe to this teacher the cost involved in following Him, which perhaps he had not considered. Emotional zeal without knowledge will not sustain us when times become difficult. Jesus desires for His followers to finish well and does not want them to enter into their relationship with Him without counting the cost. True discipleship must include planning and sacrifice.

Next, we discover another who desired to follow Christ, yet with a delay in fulfilling his commitment, the opposite of the first. He was slow in performing, wanting to first bury his Father. In our eyes, it’s probably a noble thing to do.

Tony says this short Gospel story reminds him of the wonderful parable “The Three Questions” by Leo Tolstoy. What is the right time to begin something? Which people should I listen to? What is the most important thing for me to do? And of course, through the king’s journey or the boy’s, depending on the version you read, the answers are: the present is the most important, the people around us matter the most, and doing good for others is our true purpose. Tony says this sums up Jesus’ way to discipleship.

And so, Tony invites us to pray from today’s Psalm:

My soul, give thanks to the Lord. 

all my being, bless his holy name, 

never forgetting all his blessings.