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 as to 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
in 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, this is good news.
Good news because these opportunities for hospitality are never far from
us. You all have been very generous to
me as I’ve dropped in and out of your home here over these past months. The Lord will surely reward you for
this. Fr. Pierre will arrive this week,
giving you another chance to demonstrate how your love for God above all others
expands your love, as you receive him with generous hospitality. These and the countless other sacrifices of
radical hospitality you offer will surely engender new life in this parish and
will grow and expand love in your hearts even further.
May the radical love engendered in the sacrifice of Jesus
that we re-present here on this altar sustain us in love until the day we see fully
the reward prepared for us in heaven.
Given
at St. Charles Borromeo Parish: Peru, IN – June 28th, 2026
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