The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Dear brothers and sisters,
It would be difficult for Jesus to speak more clearly than he does today: “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” (Matthew 10:37). If the Fourth Commandment is to “honor your father and mother” – a commandment Jesus requires of his disciples - why does he speak so forcefully (cf. Exodus 20:12; Matthew 15:4)? Why does he demand so much of us?
To understand just how shocking Jesus’ words were for the Jewish people to hear, we have to remember the Fourth Commandment in its entirety: “Honor your father and mother, that you may have long life in the land which the Lord your God, is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). Of the Ten Commandments, this is the only one that also bears a promise of blessing
It speaks of the land and of the stable continuance of life in the land. In other words, it connects the land, as the place for the people to live, with the basic order of the family. It binds the continued existence of the people and land to the coexistence of the generations that is built up within the family structure.[1]
By demanding a first allegiance to himself, Jesus seems to be upsetting the very foundation of society and of violating Torah, the Law upon which Jewish life is built. How can he do so? “If Jesus is God, then he is entitled and able to handle the Torah as he does. On that condition along does he have the right to interpret the Mosaic order of divine commands in such a radically new way as only the Lawgiver – God himself – can do.”[2]
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Saint Augustine gives us an answer to these questions of Jesus’ intent. Our heavenly patron says, “Let us answer our father and mother when they justly say, ‘Love us.’ Let us answer, ‘I will love you in Christ, not instead of Christ. You will be with me in him, but I will not be with you without him.’”[3]
In this way, Jesus established a new People, no longer centered around the Torah given to and by Moses, but around himself. This new people – the new Israel – is not reserved to certain bloodlines from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but is open and intended for everyone who is baptized into the Death of Jesus and shares in the newness of life he gives through his Resurrection from the dead (cf. Romans 6:3, 4).
Now, Jesus’ intention is not to abolish either the family or the Sabbath-as-celebration-of-creation, but he has to create a new and broader context for both. It is true that his invitation to join him as a member of a new and universal family through sharing his obedience to the Father does at first break up the social order of Israel. But from her very inception, the Church that emerged, and continues to emerge, has attached fundamental importance to defending the family as the core of all social order, and to standing up for the fourth commandment I the whole breadth of its meaning. We see how hard the Church fights to protect these things today. Likewise it soon became clear that the essential content of the Sabbath had to be reinterpreted in terms of the Lord’s day. The fight for Sunday is another of the Church’s major concerns in the present day, when there is so much to upset the rhythm of time that sustains community.[4]
The Church continues this fight, but too many of her members are actively working against her by not keeping the Lord’s Day holy or putting a prominence on the community of faith.
Here we must ask ourselves what it is that keeps us from fully following after Jesus, from living as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (I Peter 2:9)? What is it that keeps us from establishing each of our relationships with others in him? What keeps us from walking straight into his embrace without looking back so as to embrace the entire community and no longer live for ourselves but for him and for others? Whenever we place sports, work, studies, shopping, gaming, or any other activity of life ahead of Jesus, the family, or the community, we walk away from Christ and from his family, the Church.
It should be remembered that at the same time Jesus gives his radical reinterpretation of the law he also gives a promise of blessing to those who adhere to him: “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). If we walk away from Jesus, we walk away from life itself, from life himself (cf. John 14:6). If we walk away from him, we walk away from everything that makes life good.
Keeping the Lord’s Day holy by honoring our Father – God – and our Mother – the Church – involves more than attending Mass. This is why the Church requires that, in addition to attending Mass on Sundays and holydays of obligation, obliges the faithful “to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body” (canon 1247). In addition to spending time with family, both of the Church and of blood, Sunday “is a time for reflection, silence, cultivation of the mind, and meditation which furthers the growth of the Christian interior life.”[5]
Let each of us strive to place every relationship of life in Christ and not instead of Christ. Let us strive to honor father and mother by honoring the Lord Jesus above everyone and everything else. In doing so, may we find the newness of life Christ offers and live as full members of his family, singing the goodness of the Lord forever (cf. Psalm 89:2). Amen.
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