Loving God most

FR. TOM'S HOMILY FOR THE 23rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, September 8, 2019:

A number of years ago, I remember watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey show. The topic that day was “looking for love” and they had a group of women explaining what they were looking for in a husband. Most of them were looking for the kind of things you would expect on a daytime television show – they wanted to find a man who was really rich and could treat them the way they’d like; others were looking for someone who was extremely handsome so that the two of them would make a beautiful couple. Just about all of them were naming qualities that were pretty superficial. But, I still remember this particular show all these years later because of the answer of one particular woman. She said, “I’m looking for a man who understands that he needs to love God more than he loves me.” Her answer was surprising, even shocking, given the rest of the show. But, I’ve never heard a better answer.

In our Gospel today, we just heard Jesus use some surprising and shocking language too. He said, “If anyone comes to me without hating their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even their own life, they cannot be my disciple.” These are jarring words to our ears. Hate our father and mother? After all, one of the Commandment tells us to “Honor your mother and father.” Of course, Jesus is not instructing us to hate our families, rather, He’s trying to get us to wake up; He’s trying to shake us up so that we might embrace the full impact of His message of the Kingdom of God.

Our world is often obsessed with wealth and competition; it’s full of violence and war. We usually refer to this as the “real” world. And if someone were to suggest that instead of power, money and fame, we can live lives guided by peace, love, joy, compassion, and forgiveness, they would probably be called crazy. But, Jesus reminded us that the so-called “real” world is actually the illusion; it is phony and full of false hopes and promises. He calls us to throw off that illusion and instead be immersed in the Kingdom of God. His strategy? Well, in today’s passage, it is spiritual shock therapy. Jesus wants to shake us out of our complacency and into a whole new way of thinking, acting, and being. Jesus wants to remind us today that we cannot follow Him half way. Our faith and our discipleship is meant to be all or nothing. It is meant to be the most important thing in our life.

This is the point of His shocking words to us today. If we’re going to follow Jesus, He wants us to go with Him the whole way. We can’t stop at His preaching and miracles and leave Him when it comes to the Cross. We’ll never reach resurrection unless we’re along for the whole journey. We have to accept His way of seeing life and put that into practice in the way we live. Just as that woman on the Oprah show understood, Jesus and His Gospel message have to be the top priority in our lives. And when Jesus comes first, everything else falls into place.

So rather than judging our lives by the standards of our world – standards that are concerned with mere superficial trivialities, we need to judge our lives by the level of love and service offered to God through our relationships with those around us. What counts is not how we are looked at by others but the degree of care and compassion with which we look at them, and especially the most marginalized people in our midst.

That is the meaning of the two parables Jesus gives today. “Great crowds” were following Jesus with enthusiasm but were they ready for His message? Did they realize what it really meant to follow Him? If not, they are like the king who goes out to war totally unprepared. They are like a man who started to build a tower and ran out of funds or material. They become inauthentic. If we try to walk with Jesus without being ready to commit; we too will miss the joy and happiness of the totally fulfilled life that Jesus is offering us.

Jesus tells us today that to be His disciple is to make every other thing in life second to Him. He means that on the list of our goals and priorities in life, attaining the kingdom of God must come first and then everything else will follow. He, and only He, is the way, the truth and the life. Following Jesus is much harder than we may have thought at first. The Good News is that Jesus recognizes this and still invites us on this journey with Him.

St. Francis of Assisi often said very simply, “Jesus, You are enough for me.” Let us make his words our own, and let us know that we need to love God first and more than anything else in our lives.

​May the Lord give you peace.