A homily for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 2, 2023
2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a, Rom 6:3-4, 8-11, Mt 10:37-42
In the wacky 1992 comedy movie “Wayne’s World,” based on the “Saturday Night Live” skits by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and often in those skits, the Wayne and Garth characters bow down in adulation before their musician idols and chant, “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”
In the wacky spring and summer of 2023, far more than two young people are screaming and waving and jumping up and down before their musical idols. Those fans, worthy or not, could cause Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour to gross $1.4 billion.
We humans do get excited when we’re in the presence of our favorite celebrities.
And we react in a host of different ways.
Sometimes we shrink and gaze longingly from afar, absolutely certain that if the celebrity ever got to know us, they’d cherish us as their best friend and confidant forever.
Sometimes, brassy and full of ourselves, we’ll push and squirm our way to the front of the crowd, convinced we’ll get an autograph or a hand-grab or even a piece of our idol’s outfit.
Sometimes we’ll wait at the stage door with a gift that we know they’ll appreciate so much that they clear off their desk or their nightstand just for it.
Most of the time, though, the best we can do is watch TV or listen to Spotify or scroll IG or TikTok or celebrity websites or (remember these?) thumb through magazines.
Because despite their public personas, the ones crafted by incredibly highly paid professionals, our celebrities and politicians and cult leaders and what-have-you are not approachable.
As opposed to Jesus, who is totally approachable.
Which is why, in our passage from Matthew’s Gospel today, Jesus reminds us to get our priorities straight vis-à-vis awe.
Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Let’s break this down as a both/and statement, not as an either/or as it’s sometimes portrayed.
Jesus wants us to take our love for parents and children and siblings as our baseline, not to throw that love away but to measure it and then greatly amplify it in our relationship with our Messiah. That immense joy we feel when our loved ones walk through the front door? Yeah, 10 times or a million times that, whenever we feel God’s loving presence in our lives.
Which is always and everywhere, if we open ourselves to perceiving it…
God gave us our families and friends and our talents and skills, and the best way to show appreciation is to care for our gifts and use them as they were intended. Each of us knows what our unique gifts are. They’re there for us to use, to figuratively re-gift.
So we carry our crosses by carrying groceries for the less-able, and by buying them for the needy in the first place.
We sacrifice — make holy — our time when we spend it with someone who needs us — even if it’s only to be present for them — instead of doing something that tickles our fancy now but makes no ripple in the universe in the long run. In doing so, we lose our lives not the way the crucified Christ or the martyrs of history did, but as Jesus the teacher did as he donated countless hours visiting town and village with his world-changing message of love and humility.
Yes, we just might be called upon to carry and suffer on a literal cross, but those odds are slim. What’s far, far more likely is that the needs of a sister or brother will come into focus, and our shareable gifts from God can fulfill them.
The prominent woman of Shunem — dang the writer of Kings for denying her a reference by name — shared her home again and again with Elisha, even building him a pied-à-terre to crash in whenever he was in town. She who had been given much paid it forward through hospitality, and even though her hospitality and generosity came purely altruistically, she reaped a reward through the gift of a son.
We all have been given the gift of The Son. We have been given the gift of His Way, the gifts of sight and wisdom and stamina to walk in His Way.
We love and we are loved; we know what love is and we can measure it.
We should love God and say thank you constantly, using our human love as the bar to exceed as best we can, loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
Both/and.
