Homily—23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Fr. Timothy Castor

Some time ago I received an email from a woman who contacted me through a Catholic website with which I was affiliated. I don’t know the sender; I don’t even know where she lives. But I’m fairly certain she’s not from around here. I’d like to read this email to you because the question it raises is an important one for us to consider in the light of today’s Gospel. Here it is:

My brother is a strict Catholic and believes that if he is unable to communicate with me on a deeper spiritual level about Catholic doctrine and beliefs then my friendship with him is not worth his while. I am a believing Christian but not Catholic. I would rather us find common ground than to dismiss our relationship because we do not have "cloned minds". I tell him I don’t understand how he can say he is a true Christian and yet turn his back on me just because we don’t think identically on some topics. He just remains adamant in his thinking. Is he in the right and am I expecting too much?

This hit home with me for two reasons. First, because when I received it I had just been reading today’s Gospel. And second, because the situation described here bears an uncanny resemblance to my own life: I happen to be the only Catholic in a family of "believing Christians," and I can well understand how the brother described in this email must feel. There are many times I have been with members of my family and I have not been able to share the one thing that is most important to me—the thing that defines me as a person—my Catholic Faith. And I admit there are times I’ve been tempted to give up on my family, to turn my back on them—it’s my way or the highway!

But is this really what Christ calls us to do? He says in today’s Gospel that no one can be his disciple "without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters." Does he really mean this? If so, the demands of discipleship are pretty steep! Maybe the brother in this email got it right. Maybe I should disown my family and have only Catholic friends.

Something tells me, however, that if we jump to this conclusion, we’ll be making a terrible mistake. You see, it’s always dangerous to isolate one of our Lord’s sayings and ignore all the rest. It’s also dangerous to quote only part of what Christ says. If you’re sharp, you’ll notice that I left out the final clause of the saying I quoted earlier. Here’s the whole sentence: "If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." There’s another place in the Gospels where Jesus speaks about hating one’s own life. In the twelfth chapter of John he says this: "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life." This gives us a clue as to the kind of "hate" our Lord is talking about: it’s not life, in and of itself, we are to hate. Rather, we are to despise whatever draws us away from God; whatever distracts us from our primary goal: to know, love and serve God in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next. That means we are to despise sin, we are to despise a worldly lifestyle, we are to hate the very impulse to surround ourselves with comfort and security and convenience at the expense of preparing for eternal life.

This is what we are called to reject in our own lives; this is what we are called to reject in the lives of our family and friends.

You see, the same Lord who said "Hate your parents, your spouse, your siblings" also said "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Certainly, family members at least fit into the category of neighbors. So is our Lord contradicting himself? No. True love means that we seek our neighbor’s good; we want what is best for him. When we see our neighbor or our brother wandering into sin, love doesn’t turn a blind eye and excuse him, love gently tries to bring him back to the right path. We don’t hate the person; we hate what stands between him and God—what prevents us from having a holy and God-honoring relationship.

This is hard work—this is the cost of discipleship. And this is where the brother of my email correspondent failed. His sister was right: he should’ve sought common ground in the beliefs they both shared. Then, building on that foundation with prayer and charity, he could have gradually drawn her to the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church. Instead, he apparently decided his sister wasn’t worth the effort: she could simply be written off and discarded as a lost cause. It’s heartbreaking, really, but it’s a scenario that’s been repeated thousands of times throughout history in families and nations.

Let it not be so with us. The cost of discipleship is high: it’s all or nothing. But we’re called to be engaged in the work of making disciples, too. Let’s recommit ourselves to that task today, and let’s show the world our Catholic faith through the love we bear toward one another and toward all.

© 2004, The Rev. Timothy W. Castor

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