The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, June 28, 2020

Matthew 10:37–42

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. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple— amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

For many people today, even for Christians, this is a “hard” saying.  For many of the Lord’s early disciples, in John 6, 61, his commandment to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood was σκληρός [skleros, from which we get the word “sclerosis”], usually translated as “hard”, but its meaning is more like “harsh”.  While Catholics accept the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, many struggle with the words, “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.”  Part of accepting these words is to understand what they mean, and so we should keep in mind that in the mindset of a person living in the Ancient Near East, “love” and “hate” were synonyms were “to obey” and “to disobey”.  Thus, Jesus is saying that a person who puts obedience to his parents above obedience to him is not worthy of him.  On the face of it, this is a remarkable statement to make.  No teacher or philosopher could make it.  Only God could.  But if Jesus is God, the statement is the most reasonable thing in the world.  It might remain a hard teaching to follow, but no one can quarrel with its logic.  At the same time, the Christian knows that Jesus does not merely command, but he provides the grace necessary for carrying out the command.

Many examples exist of people putting obedience to God ahead of everything else.  I have known young men who were disowned by their parents when they entered the seminary.  I know a young woman whose family cut her off when she entered a convent.  In the year 203, a young noble woman named Perpetua was imprisoned and sentenced to die in the arena in Carthage for professing the Faith.  Her aged father came to her and begged her to recant, but she would not do it.  She died as a martyr soon afterwards.  These are fairly obvious examples, but we must also take care not to prefer obedience to addictions and bad habits or immoral bosses to that owed to Jesus. Jesus comes first because Jesus is everything. 

“And whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  The cross was a horrific punishment meted out to escaped slaves and to rebels.  To “take up his cross” means to accept this punishment for one or another of these crimes.  To “take up his cross” and follow after Jesus means to perform the works that Jesus did, which the world judges as crimes, and to accept this punishment, which the faithful consider glory.  Indeed, the one who takes up his cross and follows after Jesus is a rebel, a rebel against the idolatry of this world.  He is an escaped slave, too, for he has escaped the vile slavery of this world so as to enter into the freedom of the world to come.