Abba

A homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 18, 2023

Ex 19:2-6a, Romans 5:6-11, Matthew 9:36—10:8

While I was on vacation, I watched the “Avatar” sequel, and while I don’t necessarily subscribe to the New Age-y theology that undergirds the plot, I do agree with a key notion: A father’s role is to protect.

Now, let’s clarify how we define “protect.” In the movie — possible spoiler here — the human-turned-Na’vi was protecting his family from death and destruction as angry Earthlings rained down fire upon them. That’s capital-P protection. Macho stuff, arguably, yet still an expression of love.

But protection is a range. Shades of gray or a spectrum, if you will.

On one end of this range is the brute force needed to ward off enemies who threaten a family’s lives and limbs. On the other is the gentle support that family members need to fully express who they are, who God created them to be.

And the power and grace and wisdom to be that protector — and to know how to be that protector — comes from God.

We recognize God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one Almighty and Eternal Being. When we bless ourselves and one another with the Sign of the Cross, when we refer to our deity, we start with Father.

The Father was the first person our Israelite ancestors knew and had a relationship with.

When God’s Hebrew children — God’s special possession — strayed from the righteous path, the Almighty Father sometimes had to resort to chastising and correcting them, as human fathers do when toddlers show their immaturity. Our image of the Old Testament God is primarily that of a stern parent whose patience is tested again and again.

God was protecting them from themselves. Which God is still doing for us while we grow and mature in our relationship with him.

Which is a sign of love, though we might refer to it as tough love.

And then, as the Israelites began to understand that what the Father was doing was totally for their own good, as our passage from Exodus reminds us, then the Father-Children bond strengthened, matured, deepened. The love woven through their covenant became clearer.

Just as children begin to appreciate how their earthly parents are still protecting them, even as they loosen the reins and trust their offspring more and more.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul paints a vivid picture of the Father’s love, a love expressed through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and his breaking of the bonds of death that fetter every person who ever lived or ever would. Our passage from Paul today echoes the essence of John 3:16, which we know so well as “God so loved the world…”

The Father shares love, protecting his children from eternal sorrow, torment and damnation through the gift of his Son.

Then, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus challenges the Apostles — challenges us — to protect this world and the next as all good fathers do. On behalf of his Father, Jesus commands the Twelve to educate, to heal body and soul, to comfort everyone, with parental altruism.

To protect humankind from all sorts of evil.

Every one of our lives is a gift from God, the Father who creates out of the purest love. Every one of us — woman, man or child — has in that same Father the greatest example of how to love.

Today, as we honor and thank all fathers, grandfathers, godfathers and everyone who plays a fatherly role in someone’s life, let’s all make our gift the promise to pay love forward, always and only.