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”
