Readings of the day: 1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21; Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
What
is the most difficult choice you have ever had to make? Has there ever been an
important choice you have had to make that you hesitated to make, or one that
you made immediately; that you were “resolutely determined” to make, maybe
despite or because of its difficulty?
Today
the word of God invites us to make a choice, to set out on a journey. The
choice, the journey, to which our readings invite us today is a difficult one.
The destination of our chosen journey is the cross, yet still we are invited to
set out “resolutely determined” on this journey.
We
have, as Church, just celebrated the great liturgical seasons of Lent and then
Easter. Our Eastertime celebrations have extended into the feasts of Pentecost,
the Most Holy Trinity, and the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Could we be
faulted if we felt somewhat of a liturgical let-down since now, as of this
weekend, we ease back into the more familiar rhythm of Ordinary Time, after the
great liturgical high points of our Church over the last several weeks?
After
the penitential intensity of Lent, the great joy of Easter, the Church’s day of
birth in the Holy Spirit that is Pentecost, the celebrations of our experience
of sublime divine mysteries through the Solemnities of the Most Holy Trinity
and Most Holy Body and Blood, now we are invited to set out, with only a few
basic necessities and with resolute determination, on a journey.
Thankfully,
we are not alone on our journey. We have each other. We are led on this journey
by our Lord, “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,” where he,
although faultless, is to die as a common criminal, crucified for us between
two thieves. Our Lord even sends “messengers ahead of him” to prepare towns
whose people we are to encounter in advance of meeting them. Still, that we are
accompanied by one another and led by the Lord does not make this journey much
easier for us. The destination of our journey is still the cross, and even the intermediate
steps of this journey promise to be difficult.
Why,
then, should we even bother setting out on this journey, let alone be
“resolutely determined” to do so? Would it not be easier for us to continue
happily as “we have always done it”? Would it not be easier for us to envision
a static world; a static Church in which styles of and the kinds people in
leadership change slowly if at all, whether at the parish level, the diocesan
level, or the universal Church level? Would it not be easier for us to accept a
Church in which doctrine or liturgical practice and their interpretation did
not develop with time, but remained certain, clear, and unambiguous forever?
Would it not be easier for us to accept, as Christian disciples, to live in a
world in which we would never be misunderstood or even ridiculed for our
beliefs and for trying to live them? Would it not be easier to be able “to call
down fire from heaven,” as James and John wished to do to the Samaritans who
would not accept them because their destination was Jerusalem, on those who
differ from us or who ridicule and misunderstand us? Would it not be easier to
accept a Church in which Christians never would, as St. Paul says to the
Galatians; to us today, “go on biting and devouring one another,” renouncing
their freedom for Christ won by Christ’s self-sacrifice on the cross to sell
themselves back into a form of slavery? (I speak here especially of a pervasive
and abusive form of seeking after power and status in the Church at the expense
of the faithful whom the power of those who have it is supposed to serve).
It
would be nice if our world, our Church, our journey were so simple and promised
clear success at its end. But this is not the reality of our Church, our world,
or the journey on which Jesus invites us to set out. The journey on which Jesus
invites us to set out “resolutely determined” features a few aspects that are
clear and certain: This journey will end in the cross. It will end in failure,
at least insofar as the world sees. It will end in shame. It will end in death.
Even its intermediate steps, its passage through Samaritan towns so to speak,
will be difficult. Does anybody here still want to join our Lord Jesus on this
journey, let alone with resolute determination?
Thankfully,
we already have some experience of this very journey to which Jesus calls us:
We who have been baptized have taken at least the first steps (or our parents
and godparents have taken them for us) on this journey. We have been baptized
into the death and resurrection of Christ. Yes, we know that the cross toward
which Jesus and we are “resolutely determined” to journey is not the end of our
story. Eternal life is; resurrection is. But to reach our resurrection to
eternal life, our journey must pass through the cross: Failure; shame; death;
Jerusalem; solidarity with the Son of God crucified between two thieves.
Today
we as Church invite, during this celebration, RJB to be the
latest disciple to be baptized into this journey toward Jerusalem, through
death to resurrection, on which Jesus leads us. Almost four years ago, on
August 1, 2015, on a sweltering day across this St. Kateri Parish from here at
St. Margaret Mary Church (which, without air conditioning on hot summer days,
may be an apt description of an earthly form of purgatory), R’s parents,
B and P, with me as the Church’s witness, were married.
B and P, and all our married or to-be-married couples, you, too, are living
a particular experience of the journey to which Jesus invites us, this journey
to Jerusalem, through the cross to resurrection. You made a promise before this
Church of faithfulness and truth to each other “in good times and in bad, in
sickness and in health,” to “love and honor [each other] all the days of” your
life. I imagine that this promise you made, on some days more than others, is
lived out more like that of the passage of Jesus and his disciples through
Samaritan towns: You know the difficulty in resisting the temptation “to call
down fire from heaven” on each other!
B and P, you accepted “children”—this child, your son RJ—“lovingly
from God, [to] bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church.” You
accepted; you were and are “resolutely determined” to set out on this journey,
led by Jesus Christ, to Jerusalem, through death to resurrection.
Our
Church now blesses all your “yeses”; all your promises; all your steps of choosing
to accept to join our Lord Jesus Christ on this journey to Jerusalem, through
this earthly life and its sacraments through death to resurrection, “resolutely
determined.” Our Lord Jesus continues to invite you, B and P, and
all of us, to make difficult choices, from the moment of our baptism. They are
choices that, we pray, will bring you great joy not only in eternal life but in
this earthly life. But they are and will be difficult choices nonetheless.
Our
Lord Jesus invites us, through our baptism into one Church, to prioritize
Christ and his mission toward Jerusalem above all else: “The Son of Man has
nowhere to lay his head”; “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and
proclaim the kingdom of God”; “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to
what is left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”
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