A SALUTARY JOLT?

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Come, follow me!

The gospel reading for Saturday Feb. 17 recounts the call of Levi, the tax collector (Lk 5:27-32). It contains an interesting detail that caught my eye. In Matthew and Mark, when Jesus calls disciples, they leave specific things behind: their nets, their father, their tax-collecting post. But not so in Luke: In Luke, Peter, Andrew, James and John "leave everything behind," just as Levi does in this today's passage.

This seems to reflect Luke's theme of complete detachment from material possessions (look at Lk 12:33, 14:33, and 18:22). 

But, what does this have to do with you and me? What might "complete detachment from material possessions" look like in your life, or in mine?  What does it have to do with Lent? 

One possible approach might be to distinguish between "renunciation" and "detachment." Renouncing material things seems to me to smack of body-hating and an un-Christian negative attitude toward material creation; being detached, on the other hand, seems to respect the inherent goodness of material things while encouraging us to keep them in proper perspective. St. Gregory the Great warns us that our possessions have a way of turning the tables and owning us. Lent is a good time to ask myself what things I need to be more detached from (my iPhone? My television?)

Another thought that occurs to me comes from Jesus' encounter with the rich ruler in Lk 18:22; you remember how the rich man says that he has kept all the commandments since his youth, and Jesus says that there is still one thing lacking for him -- to sell everything he owns and give it to the poor, then come follow Jesus. The idea here, it seems to me, is that in the case of this individual, what was keeping him from being able to follow Jesus was his wealth; for another person it might be their pride, or their years-old feud with a relative. Lent is a good time to ask myself what one thing might be holding me back from following Jesus.

In any case, Luke's insistence on complete detachment from material possessions can be a salutary and sobering shock as we begin to spend the forty days of Lent in the materialistic wilderness that is our contemporary culture.