Homily for Sunday, 8 September 2019

Readings of the day: Wisdom 9:13-18b; Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17; Philemon 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-33

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Full disclosure: Yesterday was my brother Eric’s and (officially) new sister-in-law Chelsea’s wedding at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Sherwood Park, a great celebration of love, family, friendship and, dare I say, Christian discipleship. What exactly, then, does Jesus mean when he says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate their father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters… and even their life itself cannot be my disciple”? How many of us here now, maybe with your family or friends, are here because you in fact really hate your father or mother, husband, wife, or children, brothers or sisters, or even your own life? And petty squabbles and, kids, sibling rivalries do not count. Jesus says we really need to hate each other to be his disciples, right?

Well, not quite. At least I hope that, having just celebrated my brother Eric’s and sister-in-law Chelsea’s wedding, I am now not supposed to hate them and the rest of my family if I want to be Jesus’ disciple! I think we may understand what Jesus says in today’s Gospel a little better with a brief lesson in Greek, because Jesus’ original meaning when he asks us to hate “father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters… and even [our] life” in order to be his disciple gets lost in translation to English. When Jesus asks us to hate “father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters… and even [our] life” in order to be his disciple, the word we hear as “hate” is from the Greek misei. In English, words like “miser” or “miserly,” for somebody who is not very generous with his or her money, derive from this Greek word.

So, does this mean that Jesus’ ultimate disciple would be somebody like Ebenezer Scrooge? Well, again, not quite. Misei in Greek means, more precisely, “to treat as nothing”; “as of minimal to no importance.” This may still be troublesome for those of us who love our families and like to spend a lot of time with them, as I do. One great blessing I have when I have taught here at St. Joseph’s College is to live, for a few months of the year, in the same city as most of my immediate family and many of my closest friends. I would have difficulty being Jesus’ disciple if this meant treating my family as if they were not important. This is simply not my reality; my experience.

But to be Jesus’ disciple, I think Jesus is saying to us today, is a question of priorities. Even if (as I hope we all do) we love our mothers and fathers, our wives, our husbands, our children, and know the beauty and dignity of our own lives, Jesus is asking us to put God first. Jesus is inviting us to put our relationship with God above all the other great relationships we may have with people closest to us and however much we may love our own lives. Compared with our relationship with God, Jesus invites us to consider even the greatest of our relationships with other people and with ourselves (and certainly our own ego) as of minimal to no importance. This is especially because all our relationships with other people—our families and close friends—and our ability to recognize and love the dignity of our own lives all find their source in God.

If we understand Jesus’ saying that, to be his disciple, we must “hate… father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters… and even [our] life” in this way, this may also help us to place what Jesus says to us in the context of our other readings today, from Wisdom, the Psalms, and Philemon.

The Book of Wisdom, not surprisingly, invites us to prioritize and seek after wisdom. Now, the Book of Wisdom is a strange book of the Bible. It, like several books that make up the so-called “wisdom literature” of the Old Testament—Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach, some of the Psalms, and Wisdom—barely mention God and at times include statements that are theologically problematic if they are not interpreted carefully. We hear even today, for example, that “a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind.” Texts like this would be used by people on the fringes of the early Church called Gnostics (from another Greek word, gnosis, that means “knowledge”), who taught that the human body is like a prison dwelling from which the soul had to free itself to go to heaven. This teaching, and the Gnostics’ view that there is knowledge, gnosis, that is essential for our salvation that is outside the Bible or the teaching of the Church handed on from Jesus’ Apostles, were eventually condemned by the Church as heresy. But the Biblical wisdom literature is also peculiar in that it mentions God sparingly and, at face value, tends to prioritize human faculties like wisdom over anything divine.

At least today’s reading from Wisdom acknowledges a divine source (who remains unnamed, but still) of wisdom. The Book of Wisdom asks, “Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high”? So, if Wisdom prioritizes or glorifies wisdom above all, we could say that it does so because to prioritize or glorify wisdom is to point us to the source of all wisdom, the ultimate source of “all that is good,” whom we call God.

Like the Book of Wisdom and Luke’s Gospel, St. Paul’s letter to Philemon also calls us to discern priorities. Philemon is the shortest and one of the latest of St. Paul’s letters that are included in our Bible. St. Paul writes from prison to a wealthy Christian of the time, Philemon, who was possibly a bishop or other leader of the Church and who owned slaves, but whose slave Onesimus had run away from him. In the meantime, Onesimus had become a Christian (possibly baptized by Paul) and was being accompanied and taught by St. Paul in the Christian faith. If the Old Testament Book of Wisdom prioritizes the human faculty of wisdom, Philemon gives pride of place to virtues like forgiveness and reconciliation. Like wisdom, forgiveness and reconciliation point us to our utmost priority, God. Who here has forgiven or reconciled with another person, or been forgiven, not least in the sacrament of reconciliation, and so knows of what I speak?

Philemon, whom St. Paul addresses with this brief yet moving letter, was in no way obligated to receive Onesimus back as his slave, much less as “a beloved brother” in Christ as St. Paul asks of him. St. Paul knows this; he knows Philemon’s legal rights toward Onesimus, yet he asks Philemon to receive Onesimus back anyway, using affectionate terms for Onesimus like “my child” and describing his relationship with Onesimus like that of a father to a son.

St. Paul’s letter to Philemon, Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, our Psalm today, and the Book of Wisdom all point us to our ultimate priority, who is God. But each reading we hear today points us to God in a different way. In the letter to Philemon, the way to God is through practice of the virtues of forgiveness and reconciliation, especially when we are not required to forgive somebody; to receive that person back as “a beloved brother” or sister. Forgiveness and reconciliation without conditions is how God acts toward us when we stray from God and hurt one another by our sin. Unlike Onesimus, though, we do not begin as slaves; we begin as beloved people, created in God’s own image and likeness.

Our Psalm, like the Book of Wisdom, prioritize wisdom among ways of seeking God first. To know the shortness of our earthly days is, in a way paradoxically, to know the “favour” and “steadfast love” of the LORD for us; to know God as the source of our life, both our finite life on earth and our eternal life with God in heaven for which this life is our preparation.

In this earthly life, family and close friends can help us to prepare for eternal life by acting as examples of God’s love toward us, and our acting as examples of God’s love toward them. It will be unlikely for us, but it does happen still in our world today that people, Christians, are asked to choose in a moment between love for family, friends, and this life, and God. It is for these moments especially that Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

Whether in the rare event we will be called to give our life for the Lord, or whether we seek wisdom, or love of family and friends, or forgiveness and reconciliation—all of which are good things—may we allow our seeking after these things to point us toward God. All earthly realities are secondary: Wisdom, human love and relationships, even giving our lives for our faith. God is and must be first. God is the source of “all that is good”; all that God gives us in this life for our salvation.

Homily for Sunday, 2 July 2017

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a; Psalm 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42

When was the last time you have ever been rewarded for something? Within these last few weeks, another school year has come to an end. Our high school seniors have graduated. In our parish, beautiful “moving up” celebrations have been held for our St. Kateri School fifth graders who will be moving to sixth grade in other schools, as well as for pre-kindergarten students preparing to enter kindergarten in the fall and kindergarten students who will be first graders after a well-earned and, we pray, enjoyable, safe, and peaceful summer break.

If you work, have you ever been recognized for excellence at your job? Have you ever been rewarded for above-and-beyond community service? Has our Church ever recognized you for your service? Parents, have you ever been proud of your children for something they have accomplished, and told them so? Children, are you able to think of a time when you were thankful to your parents, brothers or sisters, other family, or friends for something kind they did for you?

Our readings we have heard today speak to us of being recognized or receiving a reward for something we have done well. In the Second Book of Kings we hear of a woman who lived in a town in Israel called Shunem in the time of the prophet Elisha. 2 Kings describes the woman of Shunem as “a woman of influence,” which could mean that she was wealthy or had otherwise been recognized and rewarded often for who she was or how she acted. We know that she had been a close friend to Elisha. Each time Elisha passed through Shunem, “he [would] stop there to dine” at the Shunammite woman’s home. “Since he visits us often,” the Shunammite woman says “to her husband” in today’s reading, “let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for [Elisha] with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, so that when he comes to us he can stay there.”

The hospitality of the woman of Shunem toward Elisha reminds me of the hospitality of many of my brother Basilians and of my parents and family. A few days ago I was speaking with Mom and Dad. My father, who clearly is looking forward to having me closer to home in Edmonton starting later this week (I am looking forward to being nearer to family, too, although I will once again miss many of us, my friends of St. Kateri), asked me something like: “So, you’ll be able to spend some time at our place, right”? For me, of course, this goes without saying: I will definitely spend a fair amount of time with Mom and Dad. Besides, it would be impossible to pass up their cooking and good conversation around the dinner table! And so the spontaneity of Dad’s question (out of love) and the hospitality behind it, which I have known to extend beyond our immediate family, caught me just slightly, and delightfully, off guard. The Shunammite woman’s hospitality also brings to my mind the people I have met everywhere I have been around the world who say to me, “Let me know if you or your family is visiting here. We have a place you and they can stay.” And, having visited Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the culture behind the Shunammite woman’s spontaneous hospitality resonates with me in this way, too. Yet kindness and hospitality like that of the Shunammite woman know no borders!

The best part, whether speaking of my mom and dad, of people who have invited me, my family, and my brother Basilians into their homes around the world, or the woman of Shunem in 2 Kings, is that none of these people expect any reward for their hospitality. In fact, in the short section that is left out from the middle of our first reading today, the woman of Shunem refuses the reward offered her by Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. And yet, self-sufficient as the Shunammite woman is, she longs for one thing: A child. Without her asking anything from Elisha or Gehazi, Elisha prophesies that, within a year, she will give birth to a son. And, if we read just beyond the end of today’s reading, we know that Elisha’s prophecy comes true for the Shunammite woman.

As with the woman of Shunem, in Matthew’s Gospel from which we hear today, Jesus promises his disciples; promises us a great reward for our hospitality, whether we expect it or not. Jesus says that “whoever receives a prophet… a righteous” person, or a disciple; “one of [Jesus’] little ones,” simply because they are who they are, prophets and disciples of Jesus, “will surely not lose his [or her] reward.” My sisters and brothers, the reward Jesus promises us for our hospitality is eternal life. This is so great a reward that it is beyond us to know what to expect of it. We know what eternal life is; what heaven is, but we have only a small hint of what the “reward” Jesus offers us is and what we hope for, if we have known the kindness; the spontaneous hospitality of one another, the Church. Our Lord invites us, then, to be that hint of heaven to one another.

Even so, only to a point is it possible to think and speak of a reward so great as heaven as something that can be merited or deserved, much less expected; something for which we might somehow be made worthy. But does our Church not still struggle with this language of merit or worthiness of eternal life, even in our prayer? In our Prayer over the Gifts, which we will pray in a few moments as bread and wine are brought to the altar, we will hear: “O God… Grant, we pray, that the deeds by which we serve you may be worthy of these sacred gifts.” And yet, in our opening prayer of this Mass, we have recognized that God’s gifts of our Church; of our ability to worship together; of God’s gift of eternal life to which this celebration points us, are beyond our wildest imagination. We have prayed this prayer to our “God, who by the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light.”

We did not choose God first. God chose us first to be his daughters and sons as if “by adoption”; “to be children of light”; to be God’s Church. God has chosen us to be baptized into God’s Church, as St. Paul says to the Romans; to be baptized into a share in the death and resurrection of Christ by which heaven is opened to us. God, in supreme kindness and hospitality, has chosen to promise us eternal life, insofar as we offer one another in some way a hint of God’s own kindness and hospitality. Definitely, God’s gift of eternal life is the one gift I am able to think of that is greater than Mom’s or Dad’s cooking or any gift; any hospitality; any reward any human being besides Jesus is able to offer.

We are caught in a beautiful, necessary tension, then: We can never offer or be worthy of a gift or reward to match God’s offer to us of eternal life, yet God invites us to be but a small hint of this gift; of this reward of eternal life we can only begin to imagine. If we place any priority before God; before Jesus Christ and eternal life, Jesus says, we are “not worthy of him.” Even worldly priorities that are in themselves good, like “father or mother… son or daughter”; dinner with Mom and Dad; on this long weekend of celebration of Canada Day today [yesterday] and, here, Independence Day on Tuesday, our countries and the friendship and peace between them, must be of lesser importance to us than the only goal that ultimately matters: Heaven; eternal life.

Jesus, I believe, is inviting us here to accept heaven as God’s free gift to us. Jesus is inviting us to place no earthly priority; no earthly reward before God’s free gift to us of heaven. Jesus is inviting us to trust that, if we offer one another even a small hint; a small sign of heaven by the way we act toward one another with love; kindness; hospitality, we “will surely not lose [our] reward.” We will gain heaven, even if we cannot possibly grasp fully this side of heaven the eternal reward that awaits us.