Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (A)
Our smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers offer us ready access to an astonishing amount of information on nearly every conceivable topic. One can even “google” oneself, and see what that brings up. Nowhere, however, do we find an app that will help us sort out all that information, help us discern the true from the false, and help us discern what information really is relevant to our lives. Like Pilate, we are tempted to ask, “What is truth?” Our culture does not offer us a clear answer to that question. How do we know what truth is? How do we receive it?
Although the magnitude of information available to us now is unique, this challenge itself is not so unique. In a sense, it is like people gathered around a fireplace centuries ago, or a fire thousands of years ago, sharing stories with one another about other people, places, and times. How would the listeners know if a story was true or not, if they themselves had not known those people or places? It depended on the credibility of the storyteller. What storytellers had the most credibility? Those who were seen as being holy in some way. And what was holiness, in this context? To be holy was to be perceived as belonging to God in an intense way. A holy person’s very presence gave off a divine aura or aroma, so to speak. Such a person lived in harmony with the will of God to an unusual extent. Since God was truthful and unchanging, the holy person was also seen as truthful and credible by definition. A holy person could be trusted.
Since such holy people were perceived as being especially close to God – God’s ambassadors, so to speak – the holy person was to be welcomed as though God himself was coming in and through that person. To welcome the holy person was to welcome God; to reject the holy person was to reject God. This principle could also be extended to holy places and objects. They, too, had a divine aura about them. They belonged to God in a special way, and so people treated them with respect.
In our own day, we continue to seek holiness. We look for signs of God’s presence in our lives. We seek ways to discern God’s will for us, and ways to respond to it. God is holy, and God continues to offer us a share in his holiness. We are invited to welcome this holiness and trust it as it transforms our lives.
The three readings for this Sunday’s Mass speak to us, in various ways, of welcoming the holy. They show us some obstacles to that welcome and some blessings that come when we do welcome the holy.
The first reading, from 2 Kings 4, is a part of the story of the prophet Elisha’s encounter with a “woman of influence” in the city of Shunem. She perceives that Elisha is a holy man, close to God, and so she goes out of her way to welcome him. She invites him to dine with her and her husband whenever he is in town. She proposes to her husband that a room be set up and furnished in their home where Elisha can stay when he visits – and Elisha stays in that room the next time he comes. She seems to be very willing to welcome the holy man – and, by implication, God – into her life.
However, when Elisha asks her if he can do anything for her in return, she demurs. She says that she has a supportive extended family. She is financially well-off. She acknowledges no need. Is this a problem, we may ask, and why? Isn’t it better to give than to receive? Surely it is. However, there can be a certain kind of pride in being the giver, but never the receiver. Besides, can any of us – no matter how well-off we may be at any given time – ever say that we need nothing from God? We can say more. This woman is content with her life as it is. She doesn’t see the need for change.
Elisha doesn’t take no for an answer. Even if this woman has no obvious needs for herself, she still needs God’s graciousness if she is to fulfill God’s plan for her life. He tells her that she will have a baby son by this time next year. Welcoming the holy will bring changes into our lives. We become drawn into God’s plan for us and for creation, and also drawn into the role that God has in mind for each of us. Not only do we need God’s gifts for ourselves; we also need God’s gifts that we might be faithful to the calling we receive from God to serve others in some way. Welcoming the holy may be hazardous to our complacency.
In the Gospel reading, drawn from Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve before sending them out to preach and heal, Jesus speaks of two aspects of this welcoming of the holy. On the one hand, he assures us that the one who welcomes a holy person because that person is known to be holy will be rewarded in the same way as the holy person. Even the smallest expressions of genuine welcome and kindness – a cup of cold water, for example – will be noticed and blessed by the Father.
On the other hand, to welcome the holy implies being changed by it and becoming holy oneself. That has serious implications. It changes our priorities. Jesus himself, as the full expression of the Father’s holiness, must become the priority in our lives. All other goods – even love of family and love of country – must yield to our love for Jesus. We must even put our lives on the line for him. Welcoming the holy – in this case, Jesus himself – changes everything. We become his. His word becomes our guide. Like Mary, we, too, say, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your will”.
Does the idea of putting our lives totally on the line for Jesus every day – which is what ‘taking up our cross every day and following him’ means – make us pause? Do we feel tempted to look for a way out? A compromise? A loophole? Here is where Paul’s words in our second reading come in. Paul reminds us that by virtue of our baptism, we have already welcomed the holy into our lives. In baptism, our lives are reshaped by the pattern of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Baptism plunges us into the death of Jesus, who “died to sin”, as Paul put it. Receiving Jesus, the Holy One, into our lives breaks the power that sin and fear have over us. We also “die to sin”. Baptism also breaks the power of death over us. We know that even death does not have the last word. Moreover, because Jesus was raised by the Father, we, too, will be raised up. That is why we can carry our cross every day and put our lives on the line for Jesus every day. We need not fear even our physical death. We have already died in Christ, and we will live in Christ forever. This gives us the grace to be faithful to him, come what may. Our lives are in his hands. Being the Holy One, he can be trusted with everything.
Welcoming the holy can be hazardous to our complacency, our sins, our bad habits that we have almost forgotten about. Welcoming the holy can also be the means by which we are reborn and given a fullness of life that we can never lose. The Holy One is faithful. If we are faithful, he will not abandon us. Let us, then, dare to welcome him. Let us dare to be led by him. Let us dare even to carry our own cross every day and follow him.