THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2023)
Readings:
2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16
Psalms 89:2-3, 16-19
Romans 6:3-4, 8-11
Matthew 10:37-42
Hospitality for the Israelites was an essential component of their day-to-day living. Like Abraham whose offer of a meal to ordinary strangers led to his entertaining angels (and, more importantly, to his wife Sarah bearing a child (Gen. 18:1-15) – not unlike today’s first reading) – hospitality was, no doubt, very much a part of the “woman of influence’s” life. For her, it meant that her friendship with the peripatetic man was actually a friendship with one of the Old Testament’s greatest prophets. Later in the chapter from 2 Kings, Elisha raises the same boy from the dead.
Throughout the Old Testament, God rewards those who practice hospitality, especially towards widows and orphans. The importance of hospitality overflows into the New Testament, where Jesus’ Last Supper and His obedient Death on a Cross are signs and symbols of the ultimate ‘hospitality’, a hospitality which is most definitely unselfish and life-giving. The Shunemite “woman of influence” could not have imagined that her simple act of kindness would result in her bearing a son, and when that son would later die in the fields helping his father, it was to Elisha she went in her grief, surely not expecting her son to be raised from the dead.
We as Christians are told what to expect from the God we worship. Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, our friend, and to Him we go when we are in need. It is Jesus who teaches us the kind of hospitality we are meant to show others, a hospitality which upbuilds and strengthens God’s kingdom here on earth. Paul tells the Romans exactly what to expect if they undergo a Christian baptism: [you are] “buried with Jesus through a baptism into [His] death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”
Jesus, also, is forthright with His disciples in explaining to them what He expects of them. Jesus has just finished telling them that His message inherently brings conflict. Not necessarily the kind of conflict waged by warring nations, but a conflict which can cause interpersonal discord, separating families and sometimes resulting in persecution and martyrdom. Jesus is meant to come first in our lives, even above the natural affections that bind us to family. Jesus’ words foreshadow His own death, and His disciples are invited to “take up their own crosses,” identifying themselves so closely with Jesus that they are willing to die as He did. Jesus’ generosity is life-giving, for “he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” Not only will His disciples be rewarded for their fidelity, but all those who welcome them will be rewarded, for His messengers bear His message and authority.
The promise of “rewards” should not tempt us into thinking that genuine Christianity is easy – it’s not. Even if the disciples in today’s gospel didn’t fully understand what Jesus was teaching them, they eventually would come to understand just how difficult following in the Lord’s footsteps would be. We too, perhaps, far too often, lull ourselves to sleep, happy to be part of a religion which elevates love to the highest of pinnacles. But a love which is Christian, is not without its suffering. The cross with which we sign ourselves when we begin our prayers, is not meant to be an empty gesture. It is meant to remind us that suffering and eventual death are an integral part of Jesus’ message, and if we are going to be His messengers, we must share His message with others without sugarcoating.
Debie Thomas, an episcopal minister from California, writes: “To take up a cross as Jesus did is to stand, always, in the center of the world’s pain. Taking up the cross means recognizing Christ crucified in every suffering soul and body we encounter, and pouring our energies into alleviating that pain, no matter what it costs us. It means accepting – against all the lies of our culture – that we will die, and following that courageous acceptance with the most important question any of us can ask: How shall I spend this one, brief, singular, God-breathed life? Shall I hoard it in fear, or give it away in hope? Shall I push suffering aside at all cost, and in doing so, push Jesus aside, too? Or shall I accompany the one I call ‘Savior’ on the only road that leads to resurrection?”
As messengers of the one we call the Christ, may we recognize that to believe in the saving power of the cross involves far more than intellectual assent. May we unite any sufferings that we are privileged to endure to those of our Lord, God, Jesus Christ, that He may cleanse those sufferings of any selfishness, and make them truly redemptive.
parishionersforjustice.com 