And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’ words “But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” sound very much like “Ite, Missa est,” the words spoken by a priest or deacon at the end of Mass. One translation is “Go, the Mass has ended”; another might be “Go, it [the Mass] is sent.” The harshness of Jesus’ response is tough love, a way of saying that we should place God above all people and all things.
Help me understand, God, that the revelation to all of humanity of your Son—his birth, death, and resurrection—is pure gift and truth above all truth. The Creator of the Universe came to us, fully human and fully divine, to rescue us from sin and death. “Let the dead bury their dead.” God, above all, has conquered death and put it in its proper place, the grave.
“Start Seeing Motorcycles” is a long-running campaign for drivers to become aware of smaller vehicles on the road. I would think that God wants me to be aware of him in the same way, to start seeing him throughout the day by placing him in front of every thought and action. God, I want to start seeing you today! The Mass has been said and goes out. “Ite, Missa est!”
Jesus’ challenging command to go and proclaim the kingdom of God calls for deep conversion on the grounds that Jesus is the Son of God and that his Father in heaven is above all. Above all. Above family, above moral obligations, above love of persons and things. “No one,” Jesus says, “who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” It would take a lifetime and then some to begin to understand what it means to follow Christ in this way. God’s grace accelerates through the gift of understanding the means to attain this.