Can I Count on You?

Many employees these days, work from home. One of the tricks to working at home is to make sure people know that you actually are working, so one man decided that he needed a professional-sounding voice-mail greeting so everyone would know he was hard at work.
As luck would have it, the moment he decided to record his message, his wife was across the hall from his office, folding clothes, while their six-year-old daughter was just getting out of the shower. Given that set of circumstances, you can understand why his so-called professional message ended up sounding like this:
Male voice: “Hi, this is Jeff with IBM.”
Female voice: “Look at you! You have no clothes on!”
Male voice: “I’m not available right now...”

Think of how many communications devices we have today: Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, texts and e-mail. And every one of them allows us to present the image of a constant presence — a constant availability to the world, but that presence is always on our own terms. Every one of them allows us to some degree to screen out those communications we don’t want to respond to. We can seem to be available when we really aren’t.

And that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about with the crowd when he says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” The word for hate is a Semitic expression meaning ‘to turn away from, to detach oneself from,’ rather than our animosity-laden understanding. In other words, Jesus is asking, “Will you set aside every other loyalty — as important as they are — and really be available to me? Can I really count on you?”

Sadly, we fail to make ourselves available with all kinds of excuses and put ourselves on “voice mail.” We get the call, know the caller, but refuse to answer because we don’t want to be available.

Christ was available for you and me. And he asks us to be available to walk in his footsteps. Are we willing to do that or are we too attached to our own plans, our easy lives and our usual way of doing things?

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who find the humility to be available to a neighbor, veteran, coworker, abandoned kitty and family. Give us the compassion and commitment to put ourselves in an uncomfortable position, Help us to walk in your footsteps.