Let True Freedom Ring

 Most little children find joy in pleasing their parents.  This probably begins with the reward of the smiling face of the loving parent whenever the infant does something that evokes joy.  The smiling parent then elicits a giggling response from the child.  The child and parent are in a perfect relationship with one another.  In fact, as a parent myself, even now the quarter-of-a century ago memories of such moments with my children fills my heart.

These moments are actually very freeing.  As children, we know we are doing something to please the person or persons whom we trust.  We are in a good relationship with the person who gives us what we need, including food, comfort and safety.  I am at peace with the person who will free me from the captivity of fear.

Of course, as we grow older, our understanding of freedom changes.  We become self-sufficient, or so we think, and we rely less on pleasing those in charge of us.  Think of the teenage and young adult who as they branch out from the family home perceive that happiness comes from the ability to do whatever they please.  The reality is that as we get used to the feel of freedom, we redefine it to fit our needs.  It is then that freedom loses its very essence.

While the Lord does expect us to pick up our crosses, for indeed sacrifice is at the heart of true discipleship, the life of sacrifice, pleasing to God, is not one that leads to misery.  True joy comes from choosing the good.  However, it is not meant purely to put a smile on God’s face. Choosing the good, despite the challenges, brings us true freedom and therefore true happiness.

This weekend, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, which is based on freedom, perhaps it is the right time to reflect on how freedom has evolved.  It is time to ask some reflective questions.  In two hundred and fifty years, has this been a place of freedom for all people?  Have we become a people who value the true freedom that allows us and prompts us to choose the good, particularly the good for the other person?  Have we stopped trying to please God and rather developed the idea that freedom only means I must protect my liberty to pursue whatever pleases me, despite the cost to others.

We have many reasons to celebrate this important milestone in our nation’s history.  It is however an important moment to think about where we are collectively in our relationship with God.  For we, who are Christians, must consider how much we have developed in our relationship with the Triune God who is love.  Is ours a selfless or a selfish society?  Do we aim to please our heavenly Father or do we see his call to sacrificial love as a yoke that is just too heavy?  Perhaps we need to become once again like the little ones.  They get this truth.

May God continue to bless these United States of America, not just with material prosperity, but with mercy and love.  A future of living that mercy and love will make us a nation that can change the world.

- The Servant

 

 

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 10: 37-42

 

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”

 

This is a strange gospel to contemplate coming on the heels of Father’s Day.  I just spent yesterday thinking of how blessed I was to have had a father (and mother) who loved me so much; who sacrificed so much for me.  I spent a lot of time, also, feeling blessed to be a father, not counting the sacrifices I (and my wife) have made for our children, and thinking, further, that I wish I could have done more, sacrificed more.  We are commanded, after all, aren’t we, to “Honor thy father and thy mother?”  Exodus 20:12.

 

So the opening line of this gospel strikes a discordant note.  It doesn’t sit well.  It can’t be right.  Rather than making us think of the fifth commandment it makes us think of when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his son. Genesis 22.  Harsh.  Difficult.  Sad.  Where in that story, or in the words of today’s gospel, is the peace that Jesus promised?  Where is the divine joy?  The comfort, the hope. 

 

This reading really asks me to dig deep, search within, consider the words from so many angles.  And, with prayer, meditation and contemplation I begin to understand.  Yes,  God’s love for me, and my loving response, means that God comes before all; that no other love – even that for father or mother, makes any sense unless I fully love God.

 

As I quietly pray and meditate, I think of a moment so long ago involving my father.  I must have been about 9 or 10 years old.  My sister had mentioned that there was a new girl in her class and that she and her mother lived down the block.  My parents invited them to come over, to welcome them to the neighborhood.  I recall sitting there at the kitchen table while coffee and cake were being served.  Friendly conversation. I don’t recall too many specifics, but I do recall that the girl’s mother came across as very nice, but with a little bit of an edge.  She was a single mother, trying to get by.  It seemed that life, perhaps, had not been too kind.  She clearly loved and lived for her daughter.  Emphasizing the point she used the phrase that she would “beg, borrow and steal” to make sure she provided for her daughter.  Such is the love of a parent.   After they left my father took a moment to talk to my sister and me.  He specifically mentioned this phrase and how it clearly showed how much this mother loved her daughter.  He reminded us how he would do anything to take care of us, including begging and borrowing.  “But,” he said, “I would never steal.  That would be wrong.  I would be teaching you that stealing, that taking something that belonged to someone else, was ok, that it could be justified.  And that,” he said, “would be worse than doing without.”   He reminded us that God commanded us not to steal, and that to do so, even for what seemed like a good reason, was wrong.  It was a sin.  It did more harm than good.  He stressed that raising us to always do the right thing and to remain faithful to God’s teaching was the most important thing he, as a father, could give his children.

 

And so this difficult passage finally sits well within my heart.  Not because it makes sense on its face; not because I feel a harsh sense of obligation; not out of a sense of reluctant acquiescence.  It sits well because of the words of a father who, so long ago, taught me that love of God comes first.  That only out of a true sense of love for God could he truly love me.

 

“Call Me Ishmael”