You Gotta Serve Somebody

“You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed/ You’re gonna have to serve/ somebody/ Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord/ But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Do you remember Bob Dylan’s song about making choices? Dylan says, we may be a state trooper, a construction worker, or a preacher, we might wear cotton or silk, drink whiskey or milk, but we all have to make choices. God calls us all. We can turn our backs and refuse to hear God’s call, or we can fall in with God’s people and follow God’s lead. It’s our choice, but “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Young Elisha faced such a choice when Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulders. Elisha knew what that gesture meant. He knew that God was calling him to take Elijah’s place. He also knew that taking the prophet’s mantle was a risky choice. Elisha knew that Elijah has spoken truth to power in a culture where truth-telling was unwanted and dangerous. Elijah had publicly that the prophets of Baal were false prophets. He had openly criticized King Ahab for the injustice he had perpetrated. And Elijah had had to flee for his life because Queen Jezebel had put a price on his head.

You can see why young Elisha might have wanted to think twice before accepting Elijah’s mantle. Was Elijah counseling discernment when Elisha asked to first bid his parents farewell? Or perhaps just Elisha needed to settle his affairs before embarking on the prophet’s itinerant life. As he slaughtered his oxen, broke their yokes, and made a great farewell feast with their flesh, clearly he was severing his last ties with his old life. Despite the perils, Elisha had accepted God’s invitation and courageously followed in Elijah’s footsteps.

“You gonna have to serve somebody.” This week we have begun our road trip with Jesus. Jesus has made his choice, no question there. He has “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” He has agreed to endure all that will take place there. However, despite all of Jesus’ teaching, his disciples have yet to understand what following him really means. On the way to Jerusalem, they pass through hostile Samarian country, where Jesus has to remind them that his way involves forgiveness not retribution. The group then encounters three wannabe disciples. All three in their different ways suggest to Jesus’ friends – and to us – something about the choices that Jesus’ disciples must make.

The first wannabe must have been following Peter’s play book, as he naively declares that he will follow Jesus “wherever you go.” “Oh, yeah?” says Jesus, “do you realize that if you do you may not know where or when you’ll sleep or where your next meal will come from?” It’s a warning, perhaps a suggestion that the wannabe disciple needs to discern some more. However, the message is clear for any disciple. You have to choose to follow Jesus, but don’t expect worldly security if you make that choice. Jesus’ way is not for the faint-hearted, nor for those who value personal safety and comfort above all.

On to the next wannabe disciple. When Jesus calls him, this one asks to first bury his father. A reasonable request? Making sure that proper burial rites were carried out, especially for one’s parents, was an important duty in the ancient world. Yet Jesus’ request carried some urgency. And his response suggests that the spiritually alive must choose to answer God’s call now. There can be no procrastination in responding to God’s demands. Jesus’ response also reminds wannabe disciples that traditional relationships are reordered in the Kingdom of God. Family ties must be secondary to bonds within the Body of Christ. Later Christian martyrs understood this aspect of discipleship fully, as they went to their deaths in Roman arenas, despite the pleas of their families to give up the new faith.

The request of the third wannabe disciple also seems reasonable: he wants to bid his family farewell. Elisha asked to do the same thing. However, Jesus warns the man not to have a divided heart. There will always be some reason to delay following Jesus, some obligation pulling you back into the old life. What Jesus tells him – and all of us – is that once we commit ourselves to following Jesus we must not look back to what we had, what we gave up, or what was better about our old life. In the Rule of St. Benedict, new entrants to a monastery are required to surrender every one of their possessions, including their clothing, so as to be able to grow wholeheartedly into the new life of the community. When Jesus calls us, we must set our faces to the work that God is calling us to do, the transformations that God is inviting us to undergo, and the new family that God is bidding us to join.

“You gonna have to serve somebody.” Even Paul had to make a choice. He had had an experience of Jesus’ presence on the road to Damascus. He could have chosen to reject that experience and return to his old life. Instead, he said, “Who are you, Lord?” When he heard Jesus’ answer, he made the fatal choice: to make a radical break with his own past. He then let himself be led into the city where he was baptized by Ananias. Some years later, after proclaiming the gospel to several gentile communities, here he is writing to the newbie Christians in Galatia. In most of this letter he has been rebuking them for following those who want to circumcise them and make them into Jews. Paul reminds them that in Christ they have been freed from the demands of the law. They are not Jews, and they don’t need to be circumcised or do anything else that the law requires. However, they still face a critical choice. They can revert to their old, self-centered pagan ways, or they can live as those who are members of God’s kingdom. They can discipline themselves so that the fruits of the Spirit will grow among them. It is a choice: to be guided by the Spirit or not.

“You gonna have to serve someone.” Dolores Hart was a beautiful and talented actress. At the age of ten, she had joined the Roman Catholic Church. In 1956, at the age of only eighteen, she was signed to play a supporting role as the love interest to Elvis Presley in the 1957 film Loving You. Thereafter, Hart was in frequent demand, and she made two more films before playing with Presley again in 1958's King Creole. Hart went on to make her debut on Broadway. She won a 1959 Theatre World Award as well as a Tony Award nomination. In 1962, she starred in the film The Inspector, in which she played Lisa, a Jewish woman tortured in a Nazi concentration camp.

Although she was engaged to be married, she had begun to hear the invitation to a different kind of life. She had been in Rome, filming Francis of Assisi. While there she met Pope John XXIII. She told him, "I am Dolores Hart, the actress playing Clare." The Pontiff replied, "Tu sei Chiara!" ("No, you are Clare!"). Francis’s sister, Clare too had been beautiful, talented, and wealthy. Yet she followed Francis into a life dedicated to God, founding her own order, the Poor Clares. Now Dolores herself heard God’s call. In 1963, at the age of twenty-four, Dolores entered the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, taking her final vows in 1970. In 2001, she was elected the prioress of the abbey. Dolores was profiled in the documentary God Is the Bigger Elvis, which was nominated for an academy award in 2012. In her autobiography, The Ear of the Heart: An Actress’ Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows, released just this May, she describes her inspiring journey from a full life in Hollywood to an even fuller life in the monastery.

“You gonna have to serve someone.” Choosing to follow Jesus is never easy – despite our Scripture lessons, or even Dolores Hart’s story. When we hear God’s call, we rightly fear the destabilization of our lives, we wonder what might be coming next, we fear the loss of status, and we fear our choices may make life more difficult for those who are dear to us. Those who think they are called to the ordained ministry must undergo a lengthy period of discernment, involving members of their parish and a diocesan commission. As a requirement of the Wellstreams program, earlier this month I spent a full day discerning whether I felt called to continue in the program. Discernment is healthy and appropriate – and there are many different aids to discernment – so long as we understand that ultimately we must make a choice.

Elisha had to choose whether to follow Elijah. We don’t know what the wannabes in the Gospel decided to do, but, even if they all turned their backs on Jesus, that was a choice. Dolores Hart had to choose. Even I had to sign my name to a piece of paper committing myself to the next phase of the Wellstreams program.

Our lives constantly call us to make choices, to answer God’s call or to fall back into a comfortable status quo. “You gonna have to serve someone.” Who will it be?