Homily:
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Friends, the readings for Mass
for these weeks that we are in have, as their general theme, teachings about
the costs and rewards of discipleship. Today,
that teaching centers around a more particular theme, that of how a life of
sacrifice engenders new life. So, let’s
take a look at our readings and see what I mean.
In today’s first reading we
have this delightful little story, featuring the prophet Elisha. It’s almost “cutsey”, isn’t it? Elisha is a roving prophet and this woman of
influence has pity on him so she invites him in for dinner and then this
becomes a pattern every time Elisha comes to town. This happened enough that the woman goes so
far have a little room built onto her house for him so that he’d have a place
to stay and not just a place to get a meal.
Among all of the stories of Elisha where he can seem to come off as
harsh, this story is actually pretty sweet.
We see, of course, that there
is more to the story: more that strips away the sentimentality of it and gives
a depth of emotion to the scene. The
woman is noted as being a “woman of influence”, meaning that she (also meaning,
“her husband”) had money. It would have
been easy for her to ignore Elisha as it is likely that he wouldn’t have run
around in the “influential” circles in Shunem.
Yet, she didn’t. Rather she took
notice of him and showed him hospitality, simply because she recognized him as
“a holy man of God.” We see, then, that
she was not only a “woman of influence”, but also a “woman of faith”.
Still further, we find out
that she and her husband were childless; and, it seems, not for lack of
trying. Rather, it seems (because of
Elisha’s servant’s response) like she and her husband had been married for some
time, but had not yet conceived a child.
Could you imagine what it was like for them then to build a room for
someone else on their house? Most of us
can imagine (and some of us have experienced) what it is like to have a deep
longing to have children, yet be unable to conceive. Try imagining, then, deciding to add a room
to your house for a passing guest without thinking about the child for whom
that room was always meant. Now imagine
just how hard it must have been for her to do that. Yet she did; and, as it seems from the
reading, she did it without so much as a word to Elisha: meaning that she did
it simply because, as a holy man of God, he deserved that hospitality, and not
because she had hoped to win favor from God.
Yet, she did win favor from
God, didn’t she? When Elisha first
stayed in the room that she and her husband had prepared for him, he inquired
as to what could be done for them. When
he heard the news that they were childless and that the husband was almost too
old to be a father, he spoke the delightful prophecy that God would favor them
and bless them with a child: a male heir for their family. Imagine now the shock this woman must have
felt hearing this prophecy. Imagine the
delight when, some weeks later, she discovered that she was indeed pregnant! Yes, we see that there is a depth of emotion
to this story; and in it, a beautiful lesson of how the sacrifices that this
woman made—sacrifices made in faith to serve one of God’s servants—truly
engendered new life for her and her husband.
In the second reading, Saint
Paul gets more theologically specific about how sacrifice engenders new
life. He reminds us that it was Christ’s
sacrifice on the Cross that brought us new life and that we must also sacrifice
and die to ourselves so that this new life in Christ might take hold of us and
engender new life in us and in those around us.
Saint Paul reminds us that this dying and rising to new life takes place
spiritually and sacramentally in us through baptism. This is to be for us a permanent reminder
that, one day, it will take place for real: for we all must die someday, but if
we believe in Christ and live as his disciples a resurrection to an eternal,
glorified life awaits us.
Saint Paul reminds us that we
must think ourselves as “dead to sin”.
This is because sin leads to death; and so, the more we deaden ourselves
to sin (that is, the more that we make sacrifices of ourselves for others,
instead of choosing to serve ourselves alone), the more the new life that we
have in Christ can take hold of us: renewing our lives and engendering new life
in the world around us.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus
clearly makes demands of his disciples: telling them that, if they want to be
his disciple, they cannot love father or mother, son or daughter, more than
him. Rather, he says, those who wish to
be his disciple must take up the cross (yes, the horrific Roman execution
device!) and follow after him. Then he
speaks paradoxically, saying: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and who
ever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Let’s break this down a bit, shall we?
First, is Jesus saying that we
cannot love our father/mother or son/daughter?
No, of course not. For some reason,
it’s easy for us to think (when we are thinking abstractly) that it has to be
all one way or all the other: that is, that our love must be exclusively for
one to the detriment of the other. But
in reality, we realize that, when we deeply love someone, it causes our love to
grow, doesn’t it? We realize that our
love is not a “zero sum” game, but rather that, when given to the right person,
it actually expands our love and makes it possible to love more! Jesus knows this; and he knows that when his
disciples love him first and above all that their love will expand
exponentially, making it possible to love everyone else—including father/mother
and son/daughter—with an even greater love than they first thought possible.
Author Fr. Francis Fernandez
says it this way: “To love our neighbor in God is not to go about by a long and
circuitous route in order to love him.
Love of God is a short-cut to our brothers. Only in God can we really understand and love
all men, immersed even as they are in their errors and we in ours, and in spite
of those things that humanly speaking would tend to separate us from them or
lead us to pass them by without a glance in their direction.” This is beautiful! Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers,
everyone who can hear me: this means that, if you say “I love you” to someone,
but haven’t striven to know and love God with all of your heart first, then you
are cheapening your love for them!
Because you cannot really love them fully until you love them in and because
of your love for God. This is what Jesus
means when he says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy
of me.”
This paramount love for Jesus
is what unravels the paradox. For when I
love Jesus enough to take up the horrific Roman execution device and follow
him—meaning, when I decide to lose my life (that is, sacrifice my life) for
him—then I will find new life and a true, pure love with which I can love
others and engender new life in them, as well.
Let me back up again, a moment,
because perhaps we have gone too “abstract” again in our thinking. This “true, pure” love of which I spoke will
not be passionate (though it may have passionate moments). Rather, this true, pure love will look more
like a radical hospitality: an openness to our core to recognize and receive
each person we encounter with the same generosity of spirit with which Jesus
recognizes and receives each of us. This
manifests itself in the little ways that Jesus enumerates: “Whoever receives a
prophet because he is a prophet (like in the first reading)… whoever receives a
righteous man because he is a righteous man... whoever gives only a cup of cold
water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a
disciple...” These are not moments of
passionate love, but rather small acts of radical hospitality. Nonetheless, Jesus tells us that these small
acts of radical hospitality—these small acts of sacrifice—will earn for those
who offer them a generous reward.
Friends, full-disclosure, I’m
about to turn this homily into a pitch for our Offertory Giving Renewal program,
but I hope that you receive it with the sincerity that I prepared it. It is not a slight of hand for me to say that
one of the “small acts” that demonstrates our love for Christ above all is to
commit ourselves to supporting our parish financially. Rather, it is true. So true, in fact, that it is one of the five
“precepts of the Church”: that is, one of the five, fundamental ways that a
Catholic Christian demonstrates that he/she is truly a follower of Christ (the
other four being, “attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, confess
your sins at least once a year, receive Holy Communion once a year during
Easter, and observe the days of fasting and abstinence as prescribed by the
Church”). These are not the only ways,
of course, but they are the fundamental ways: demonstrable behaviors
that show that you are committed to Christ and his Church. Returning these cards which you received in
the mail this past week, indicating your sacrificial financial commitment to
this parish and thus to the Christ’s Church, is an important spiritual
act: one important act among many that demonstrates that you have chosen to
take up your cross and follow after Jesus.
Many of you have returned
these already, and I am grateful. Most
of you who haven’t will return them in the coming weeks and I am grateful, in
advance, for your responses. I know that
this is a difficult time for all of us and I trust that each of you will
respond in the way that you are able. I
simply ask that you will, like the Shunemite woman who looked to her love of
God when she decided to provide for the prophet Elisha, look to your love of
God when you discern the commitment that you are able to make to Saint Mary’s
over the next year. Your sacrifices will
surely engender new life in this parish and will help to grow and expand love
in your own hearts: love that manifests itself in a radical hospitality that
this world so desperately needs. The
radical love engendered in the sacrifice of Jesus that we re-present to the Father
here, on this altar.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – June 27th
& 28th, 2020
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