Our Lord has some hard teachings, and this may be one of them.  Burying your own father or saying a final goodbye to your family don’t really seem like unreasonable requests.  And indeed, if those kinds of things are within the will of God, which they often will be, they’re not unreasonable.  But this is an example of the Lord being really rather jealous of us.  He actually does want to be first in our heart.  He wants to be our highest priority; he wants to be the prism through which we see everything.  He even wants to define and mold what his command “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” will mean in our life.  And I think a good way to summarize his point to us in the gospel is this: Don’t look back.  Don’t look back.  When you’ve set your eyes on God’s will and you’re moving forward and the path before you is clear and correct, don’t indulge in nostalgia and regret.  To continue the Lord’s image of the ploughman: if you start ploughing and you’ve started off well and you’re doing good work, and then you turn around to look behind you…you’re going to wind up with some very uneven and crooked furrows in your field; plus, you won’t be able to see where you’re going and will be susceptible to running into rocks and slipping into ditches.  It will create all kinds of set-backs in your farming process, and probably result ultimately in failure.  Don’t turn back.  Keep facing Christ. 

This is a dynamic in our personal relationships too, especially when it comes to forgiveness.  It can be very tempting for us to keep turning back around, to keep dwelling upon injuries and glancing at past hurts that we’ve experienced.  One of you told me recently that forgiveness can be understood as “giving up hope for a different past.”  I like that.  And I think another way of saying the same thing, is that really integrating forgiveness into your heart is giving yourself permission not to look back any more.  Don’t turn back.  Don’t hope for a different past, when the past is now written in stone.  Look forward to a future that is still in the process of being created, through the grace of God and by means of your own choices and decisions.  Don’t turn back.  Face Christ; use the freedom he gives you, the freedom for which he has set us free, to do good work in his kingdom.  Let him be your highest priority; let him be the prism through which you see everything.  Let him define and mold what his command “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” means in your life. 

In that light, I don’t think I can let the day pass without saying a little something about the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday.  I certainly encourage you to read the statements of our national bishop’s conference and the specific statement made by our own three bishops here in the State of Tennessee; they’re thoughtful and good statements.  The Lord wants to be the prism through which we see everything: and a fundamental part of Christ’s teaching, over and over, is a complete refusal to allow anyone to be defined as a second-class person, anyone.  For him, in the age in which he lived, those in danger of this were predominantly women, widows, lepers, public sinners: for him, when his society would deny any person or class of person dignity and respect, he would not permit it; he would always insist upon respect and dignity and protection.  And the Church has tried to live that, and has prayed and worked hard for progress in this specific area for a long time.  And we have some major progress now, and it’s important, and we rejoice: but we don’t gloat, and we aren’t done.  We continue to work and pray for those whom our society continues to want to define as second class; and in our day, among the very most vulnerable are still the unborn; but as we continue to fight for them, we also never forget the sick, especially the terminally ill who are in serious danger today more and more, as well as the poor, the imprisoned.  The Lord has a special love and almost a personal preference for those who are small, both literally and figuratively.  We should too.  We must.  St. Paul says that “the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  And he goes on to say, “But if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.”  That is very timely advice.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Even the neighbor with whom you disagree about critical issues.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Even the one who has wronged you and hurt you.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Do not turn around with your hand on the plough and stare at him. Love him.  Charity.  Charity.  In all things, charity.  “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.”  Those are the words of everlasting life.  Charity in all things.  Charity in all things.