In today’s Gospel reading Jesus and his disciples continue their journey to Jerusalem where Jesus will be arrested, convicted and executed. Along the way Jesus will have the opportunity to teach his disciples even more about what it means to be a faithful follower of his. Two such occasions occur almost immediately on this journey.

As they make that journey, they will pass through part of Samaria. Why Jesus wants to go through Samaria is not explained. He simply does. Since he wants the Samaritans to be prepared for his coming and whatever he might say or do while there, he sends some of his disciples ahead of him to do just that. But these disciples are met with total rejection. The Samaritans want no part of Jesus and his ministry.

This should not have been surprising either to Jesus or his disciples. Samaritans and Jews just did not get along. Whether this rejection surprised James and John we do not know. What we do know is that they were quite upset and wanted Jesus to call down hellfire and brimstone upon the Samaritans to punish them for their hardness of heart. Jesus, of course, would have none of it.

Instead, he calls James and John aside and has a private word with them. I wonder what Jesus said. Perhaps it was for a good reason they were called "Sons of Thunder." If this passage is any indication of their temperament, they both must have had a short fuse. If something did not go their way, especially if something or someone went against them, they wanted revenge and they wanted it big time. One has to wonder what would have happened had either one of them and not Peter been set up as the leader of the group.

But like most of what we wonder about that happened in the Gospels, it is a moot point and does not really matter. What matters is how what we read there pertains to us in our lives in the here and now. It does us no good to vicariously stand to the side and pretend to listen in as Jesus takes James and John to task, perhaps with a smile on our lips, a smug one at that, because, as we all have to admit, we too have been there and done that.

There have been times in the lives of each one of us when the good works we have done have either been ignored as if they never happened or have been met either with either rejection or taken for granted by the very people who benefited from our hard work. When that happened, we sometimes became rather angry with them for not caring and angry with ourselves for going out of our way for those ingrates – or whatever we called them in our thoughts. What we forgot in those moments of anger was that what was important was the good that was done and not how others accepted, rejected or ignored that good.

If the only reason we do good deeds is to be praised by those for whom we do those good acts, we are doing that good for the wrong reason. Maybe we should be ignored. It might teach us a good lesson. The truth is that a lot of good would go undone if we were all of that frame of mind. Perhaps James and John learned a good lesson in this incident. Perhaps. Hopefully we did when the shoe was on our foot.

Given human nature, there is something in us that makes us hurt when we are rejected by others. Often the temptation is to retaliate somehow in some way. We must not. What we must do is what Paul, in the second reading reminds us we must do, and that is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That does not necessarily mean our neighbor will either love us in return or accept the good we have done. We simply must let the good we do speak for itself. It always does. That does not mean that we will see the results of our good deeds. Someone will. God will. And that is really all that matters anyway.

That is the first lesson Jesus tried to get across not only to James and John, but to the other disciples as well, and to us, too. When we commit ourselves to faithfully follow Jesus, we must live and love as Jesus did. We must be compassionate and forgiving, even if those to whom we show compassion reject our love and those whom we forgive or ask forgiveness do not do the same.

Yet following Jesus is not always that easy, as we all well know. Following Jesus, being faithful, does not mean that there will not be times when knowing what to do will be all that clear. That is what the second Gospel incident is all about.

At first glance it seems that Jesus is being very harsh with those who say they want to follow him but first need time to tend to some unfinished business. But, of course, Jesus is not. He is simply speaking to the reality of what it means to follow him. There will always be some unfinished business in our lives, loose ends that need our attention, that beg for our attention. And sometimes we have to stop what we are doing and tend to those loose ends. If we do not, that which we are presently doing will not get done or certainly not get done well.

Sometimes we have to make a choice not between a good and a bad but between two goods: take care of a sick child or go to work, stop to assist a stranded motorist or make our doctor’s appointment, support one charity over another. The choices are not always clear-cut nor are the decisions we make easy ones. Often we have to make those decisions on the spur of the moment without much time for thought or reflection. Then it is only after the fact, when we have time to reflect on that decision, that questions arise in our minds as to whether or not we made the proper decision. But then it is too late.

In today’s reading Jesus is speaking about the life-decision we make to follow him. He is reminding us, I believe, that there will indeed be times when we will be tempted to back off or even turn away. That which tempts us will be so convincing that we believe we must respond. When we put our hand to the plow and follow him, Jesus says, there will indeed be times when we are tempted to turn around and look at the life we left behind.

But if we give in to those temptations, as the imagery points out, the field we will be plowing will be a mess. We cannot drive ahead while constantly looking into the rearview mirror – not on the road and not on the road of life.

There will always be distractions on the road of life. There will always be temptations to turn off the highway and try something different, go where we have never gone before, even temptations to turn around and go back to from where we came, temptations to no longer remain a faithful follower. The saving grace is that we do not travel this road alone. God is always with us and God’s grace is there to strengthen us and God’s wisdom is there to guide us. God will always help us make the right choices and do the right thing. But we have to listen to God’s voice and cooperate with God’s grace.

Not only do we have God’s Holy Spirit to guide us, as Paul reminds at the end of the second reading, we also have the support of one another. One of the reasons why Jesus gathered a group of people around him is that he could not make his journey in faith alone. He would need help and support, encouragement and love. So do we. He did not receive it all the time. Neither do we.

We are called to be faithful, you and I. We are not called to be judgmental. We are called to be forgiving and compassionate. We are not called to seek vengeance or to walk away from those who might not love us in return. It is not always easy to be faithful or even to know what we should say or do. All we can do is do our very best. That is all God expects from us and all we should expect from ourselves.