HOMILY FOR THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A

Among modern saints and blesseds, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter of Austria is probably the single most profound illustration of the message of today’s Gospel. Franz was not a monk or priest but a farmer, husband, and father of three young daughters. He loved his family deeply, yet refused to swear loyalty to the Nazi regime or serve in Hitler’s army because he believed it would betray Christ. He knew that his decision would lead to his execution and leave his wife to raise their children alone.

What makes his witness so compelling is that he was not choosing between Christ and family in the sense of abandoning them; he was choosing Christ even when fidelity would cost him his family life. His wife, Franziska Jägerstätter, eventually supported his conscience despite the terrible cost. The compelling 2019 film made about his life, titled, A Hidden Life, is highly recommended.

Christian discipleship is not for the faint-hearted. Being a Christian is not something that you fall into, or do by default. It is not some cultural or family practice. Belonging to Jesus and sharing in his mission involves deliberate choice and sacrifice. The German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another martyr of the Nazi regime, referred to this as ‘the cost of discipleship’.

Anyone who loves father or mother more than me

Jesus says: “Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Isn’t it true that at first glance this seems unreasonable? We might legitimately think this is intolerable. In ancient Jewish culture, family relationships were very important and so these words of Jesus would have seemed no less demanding to them than they are to us.

However, properly understood, this teaching is that Jesus must be the clear priority. When you think of the legitimate and extraordinary depths of love between family members, we are challenged to go above and beyond this, in our love for Jesus. So, this does not mean that other people shouldn’t play significant roles in our lives or that they are unimportant. We are to imagine the close, intimate bond between a child and its mother or father, or the bond between parents and their child, and realising this, we must know that our loyalty to Jesus must be even greater.

Even so, it might be useful to think of what ways you could be faced with this challenge of other loyalties other than to Christ. Many great saints had to choose Christ over the demands of their families. Think of St Francis of Assisi, St Clare of Assisi, and St Thomas Aquinas, to name a few. And there are some who have spouses who are hostile to their practice of faith and they experience the challenge of nurturing and protecting their marriage and honouring their spouse, while at the same time being faithful to Christ.

You may yourselves be able to think of other similar situations, but on the whole, our human bonds and relationships, especially those within families, serve to enhance our faithfulness to Christ, rather than be an obstacle. Jesus is emphasising the close bond we ought to have with him.

Like those first apostles, we too have a mission to proclaim the Gospel to the world, and in some cases we need to start at home, with the very family members Jesus speaks about. What then would be the incentive to be a disciple? The love of Christ! As St Paul writes in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, “The love of Christ urges us on”. Our love for Christ and his love for us is the basis of our discipleship and mission.

Whoever does not take up his cross

Jesus’s next saying is about us needing to take up our cross and follow in his footsteps, and being willing to spend our lives for his sake. The reference to the familiar image of a prisoner carrying the crossbar to his own crucifixion would have been deeply shocking to the disciples.

What Jesus is referring to includes the crosses we meet in our daily lives. Not only do we need to die to selfishness, each day brings its own challenges and difficulties, its own crosses. Many people, some listening now, endure long and hard suffering in the form of illness, financial problems, lack of employment, personal weaknesses, and many other forms. This does not mean that we sit back and do nothing about our situations. Rather it means accepting those things we cannot change, and changing those things we can, and in all this, being faithful in prayer and trust.

The reward of charity

Jesus then turns to how we treat one another. He speaks of the reward of charity to those who belong to him. This is the focus of the first reading we heard from the second book of Kings. In that reading we heard how a woman offered hospitality to the prophet Elisha. She recognised him as a holy man of God and she participated in God’s work by assisting Elisha as he went about his ministry.

Elisha asked his servant: “What can be done for them?” And we hear that despite being wealthy, she and her husband were childless. And yet their own need did not prevent them being generous to Elisha. Isn’t it true that everyone is needy in some way or another, and our need should not prevent us from reaching out to others in need, in whatever way possible.

In the story of the woman and the prophet Elisha, she received the reward of her goodness and hospitality. Reward should not be the motivation for charity. Rather, love is its own reward. We don’t act in love so as to get a reward from God, even though this will happen anyway; but the act of charity changes us and makes us whole and happy human beings. We become human beings in the likeness of the God who is generous to all.

Jesus sends us out on mission. Once more, we are challenged to consider what impact each of us is making in our particular mission field, our family, workplace, school, university, and community. Because we have died with Christ and now are alive to God in Christ, we are urged on by the love of Christ for us. Like Bonhoeffer we are prepared to face the cost of discipleship.

Franz Jägerstätter’s choice illuminates the teaching of Jesus: the priority of Christ in his life, and his embrace of the cross. His wife’s support of his conscience was in its own way, the cost of her discipleship and her love of Christ above all.