From the Lectionary for 30 July 2023 (Proper 12A)

Matthew 13:44-52 (NRSV Updated Edition)

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

~

"The first thing of course is that the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. So someone has hidden it there's a little hint there that there's something slightly more mysterious going on. ... We must assume that it was hidden in the field and that the owner of the field didn't know about it, and that very very carefully the person who finds it does exactly what a good Jewish contemporary of Jesus would have done when finding such a treasure, which is not lifted it out. You hide it over of course to make sure that no one else saw it, but also you've glimpsed it - if you lift it out then there's a whole new legal ball game and you have to start discussing it with other people. But by hiding it over, you know it's there, you know something about the field the owner doesn't know - it's not his - and in your joy you go and sell all that you have and you buy that field. In other words, the treasure is something which you know about, that's there, which is not visible to anybody else, is not known about, something that has been hidden and it's worth your while to give everything in order to explore. ...

"Remember, in this first parable the kingdom of heaven is shown to be like the hidden treasure, the treasure hidden in the field. In other words, someone hiding something somewhere unknown is what sets off the process by which you can discover and then get yourself into a position of giving yourself completely away to the digging it up and finding out what it's about.

"In the second parable, which at first sight seems very like the first, it says, again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls... That one sounds a bit like the person with the treasure in the field - goes and sells all that he hasn't bought it - except that here the kingdom of heaven is not related to the treasure, it's related to the merchant: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant.” This kingdom isn't about [the] fine pearls. ... Here is this merchant in search of fine pearls on finding one pearl of great value he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.

"Well please notice that if you're a merchant and you go and sell everything that you have and buy something, you cease to be a merchant! You're not able to take part in any more give and take... And here's the bizarre thing: it's got you! If you've sold everything you had in order to get this, this is not your property, you are its property, that's the bizarre feature. You cease to be able to be a merchant, ... the moment you get rid of absolutely everything in exchange for this, you can't partake in trade anymore. It's got you. You become, if you like, the setting which shows it off, that's all.

"And that's the really interesting thing about this, is that here, rather than us being, if you like, the people who are taken inside a process of working out ourselves what the kingdom of heaven is, here we're shown that the kingdom of heaven is looking for us. And this is the remarkable thing: in this [parable] the kingdom of heaven finds a pearl, gives everything he has away completely for the sake of the pearl, and then actually becomes identified with the pearl - he can't get rid of it without getting rid of himself. It's everything he's got, there's this complete identification with the pearl.

"The suggestion being that that's what the kingdom of heaven looked like, it's God completely identifying with us and giving us a value that we had no idea that we had the value. The value is discovering ourselves in the regard of this 'merchant' who gave everything up in order to become completely associated with us, such that he actually ceased to be a merchant, ceased to be able to be a a bargain hunter looking for better things. He's where he's found us, and that's it, that's who he is to be hereafter. So being on the inside of the process here is discovering what it is to be a pearl who has been found, rather than discover the process of being the finder of the pearl.

"Then we have, “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea,” and in the translation we have, it says, “and caught fish of every kind.” It's actually not what it says in Greek at all. In the [Greek] it says, “Again the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet,“  so not any net - a dragnet, that's the kind of thing you draw drag along the bottom of the sea - “that was thrown into the sea and caught or gathered together every kind.” So the word fish does not appear in the Greek. ... Well here's the interesting thing: because of the word fish we're very inclined to miss I think what's going on here, which is that if you put a dragnet it brings things of every kind.

"If you were a fisherman in Galilee or in Israel at the time, in Palestine at the time, you would be very aware that there are many sorts of things that you can bring out of the waters, especially with the dragnet, some of which are inert, inanimate objects, but there will be, of the living things that you might find, there would be three quite distinct sorts: things that were edible, things that were inedible and things that were, although edible, in principle impure, for instance, any shrimps lobsters, crabs that you might come across, the crustaceans - these are all impure. ... But this dragnet mysteriously is quite unbothered by all that, this dragnet goes along the bottom brings up everything, it gathers things of every sort.

"“And when it was full they drew it ashore sat down,“ so there's a nice notion of this slow process, “and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.” And it's quite interesting that the words here for good and bad are the same words which Jesus uses earlier in Matthew's Gospel to refer to a tree which produces good fruit and the tree which produces bad fruit, those are the terms that are being used. In other words, it's something to do with a form of growth into goodness and the form of failure, to grow into badness. And then we get at the end of the age the angels will come and do all the separating. In other words, as we heard in the parable of the wheat and the [weeds] last week, here we have the notion that the separation is only to be done by angels, and at the end of the age. We are not to be involved in that, we are part of everything that is being gathered together - without the usual forms of discrimination, that's the surprising thing, you know. Where's the category of impure fish, impure crustaceans? No, it's not here, everything is being gathered in here. And then the badness will be nothing to do with their previous status. ... Process is all: the gathering of everything and the refusing to discriminate before time.

"Then Jesus turns to them, “Have you understood all this?“ They answered, “yes.“ And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who's been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.“ Well the phrase, “who has been trained for the kingdom“ literally means “who is being discipled to the kingdom.“ It's a passive, and it suggests that it's the kingdom that is doing the 'dragging' into the process of learning to make proper discernments as we go through whatever situation [in which] we find ourselves.

"This process of being dragged into the middle of the things - the scribe who is being trained to the kingdom - is one who finds himself in the middle of these processes - the process of finding something hidden, covering it over with joy; the process of discovering yourself valued above everything by one who has given everything up in order to become identified with you; the process of being brought in along with everything else without discrimination long before there's any kind of separation. Finding ourselves on the inside of that is what we hope and we pray [teaches] us to be capable of bringing out of our treasure house things old and things new."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 17 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S4fIzOS2rM)

[For analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper12a/]

From the Lectionary for 23 July 2023 (Proper 11A)

Romans 8:18-25 (NRSV Updated Edition)

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labour, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (NRSV Updated Edition)

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field, but while everybody was asleep an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

...

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!”

~

"For me this is one of the wonderful parables where Jesus shows that he has what I call 'the intelligence of the victim'. That's to say he knows exactly how victimary thinking works, how it traps us, and how the Kingdom is getting us out of victimization and victimary thinking. First of all, as the tale is told, it describes [that] an enemy comes and sows these things which look just like the real thing. Now, first people's reaction is, 'Oh, I wonder who the enemy is. What should we do, how should we deal with the enemy?' The parable pays no attention to that at all. ... What is it that the enemy has done? The enemy has created a place where things that look like each other are potentially dangerous to each other.

"In other words, if you can create a situation where each of us thinks of ourselves as different from the other, and is on the watch out for how bad that other is, we will constantly be struggling with them. We will know that we are the good and the other bad, and we'll be out to fight them. [But] the more similar we are, the more we'll be inclined to be very careful lest we are destroying ourselves [as we are] destroying the others. In other words, Jesus is saying, “Yep, I can see exactly how fights work and quickly build up rivalry over against each other. This always leads to good versus bad, and you always pre-empt the real thing. The real thing is: be aware that you're all very very similar to each other. You've much much more in common than seems to be the case. Any clever enemy can cause you to fight amongst yourselves and therefore destroy all of you. But what it will look like to be the good fruit will be: the people who didn't judge the difference of the others, but saw themselves as the same as the others, will take time to work out what's going on, will start to bear good fruit over time and will be quite content for any verdict that needs to be made to be left in the hands of someone else.” This is the reverse of victimary thinking it takes a long time for us to stop being worried about who is casting the rivalry amongst us, and actually to get out of being rivals.

...

"[W]hat matters [is] that every single one of the points is a way of distracting us from seeking resolution, meaning, who's good and who's bad. Now leave [them in] the hands of another who will do things in his own time in his own way. ... At the very end of Jesus's rather beautiful words, he says the Son of Man will send his angels and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin - that's all 'scandala', all stumbling blocks - and all evildoers. In other words, we have to watch out for 'scandala', the ways in which we obsessively depend on enemies, obstacles, in order to give ourselves identity. It's scandala which turn us into evildoers. And as we watch out for those, let our Lord weed out, as it were, the 'scandala' at the end. 'Now thrown in with the furnace of fire where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth' - that's all that is scandal is, it's locking yourself constantly into weeping and gnashing of teeth, it's something that goes on and on and on. That's what's terrible about obsessive things, you can't get rid of it.

"'But the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father' is the quote from the prophet Daniel. These are people who will have been through the grind, who have allowed themselves to have their scandals undone. And as I hope and pray all of us are learning to become sons and daughters, seeing our similarity in our sisters and brothers who 'apparently' are so unlike us but who share with us all the senses of shame and flight from which our Lord came to set us free."

- James Alison, from video "Homily: Sunday 16 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tlm3-ZwzjM)

~

"It is very difficult for us to imagine the huge change of perception underway here, but it could be described as the change from a perception of a god in which the deity has a double face, saying “yes, but…” or “yes, and no”, or “yes, if…”, to the perception according to which God only and unconditionally says “yes”. Another way of putting it is as a change from a god who is both good and bad, who loves and who punishes, to a perception of God who is only love, in whom there is no darkness at all. Jesus had begun to teach this to his disciples, but it had been incomprehensible to them until after the resurrection.

"Consider Jesus’ teaching that God makes the sun to shine on good and bad alike, and causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. This has the effect of removing God completely from the sphere of reference of our human morality, excluding him from any participation in judging and condemning humans. The same thing happens in the parables: we are not to separate the wheat from the tares (Matt 13:24-30) in this life, because we cannot judge adequately, and God’s judgement has nothing to do with our own."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 42-43

~

"When we talk about what Jesus came to do, did and is doing in our midst, we are talking about what comes upon us as an alteration of the axis of Creation rather than as a resolution of a moral problem. Our being brought close into the life of God by Jesus living out being a forgiving victim in our midst has this as its effect: that we perceive simultaneously where we used to be heading, into an ever-shrinking world run by revenge, envy and death; and where we are instead finding ourselves drawn: into being forgiven, forgiving, and thus being opened up into true, insider knowledge of creation as it unfolds dynamically."

"I hope you can see the sense of living on the cusp of two realities: creation is referred to as something which has been opened up and which is drawing us in to it with great zest. And at the same time as something which turns out to have been spinning round and turning in on itself in futility, unaware of what it was destined to become. The axis-turning moment, which is the present moment, in which we are living, feels like an upheaval full of suffering, which is in fact an act of childbirth. Through it, the Creator, “I AM” is bringing into being secondary I AMs, sons and daughters, the “gods” we were promised we would be, as our very bodies are drawn into being insider sharers of the life of God."

- James Alison, Jesus the Forgiving Victim, pgs. 493, 502

[Source of quotes from James Alison's Raising Abel and Jesus the Forgiving Victim, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper11a/]

From the Lectionary for 16 July 2023 (Proper 10A)

Isaiah 55:10-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Matthew 13:1-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear!”

Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen but never understand,

    and you will indeed look but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
    and their ears are hard of hearing,
        and they have shut their eyes,
        so that they might not look with their eyes,
    and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and turn—
    and I would heal them.’

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

~

"Jesus was indeed teaching about the arrival of something which is, for his listeners, very weird. That’s why he has to teach in parables. And please note the justification which he gives for teaching in parables. He quotes Isaiah, when he says:

“Listen as you will and you will not understand; look as you will and you will not see, because this people’s heart has waxed gross. They are dull of hearing and have closed their eyes against seeing and their ears against hearing lest they be turned to me that I may heal them.” (Mt 13:14-15 quoting Is 6:9-10; cf. Mk 4:12 and Lk 8:9-10)

"That is, there is no direct understanding of the kingdom: it is a strange thing, and people’s minds are dulled, which is exactly what we would expect as a result of what we’ve seen about the human condition, our own included, shot-through with death.

"It’s worth our while to stop a little to see what this teaching in parables consists in. The parables are highly creative little stories sprung from Jesus’ imagination and have as their aim helping people to overcome their being blocked-up with respect to God and his project. However, behold, they are two edged weapons, capable of different interpretations. It is perfectly possible to interpret the greater part in terms of a violent God. In that case the parables only serve to reinforce what people already think anyway, and they move on no further. What I’m suggesting is that this would be the ‘dull-hearted’ reading of the parables.

"At the same time it is perfectly possible to read the same parables as obliging us to overcome this vision. This means that there is an interpretation for those who understand, and that what they understand will increase exponentially, and there is another interpretation for those who do not understand, so that what little they do understand is in the process of being lost, for they will get into an ever more tied-up and painful understanding of the things of God."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 83-84

~

"Please notice that one of the key things that has been assumed here, silently, is the work of the ploughing [which in 1st century Palestine was done not before but after the seeds were scattered on the soil]. The ploughing is going to go on.

"So what's Jesus talking about here? He's asking people to listen to an image with which they'd be very familiar, but it's also an image which, if they have ears to hear, they'll understand perfectly well is an image that comes from [Isaiah 55].

"So supposing you start listen to this parable, a simple description of agricultural reality, but actually here there is a promise - this is the promise that God's Word will produce fruit, and it will produce fruit absolutely abundantly... So behind this there is the image of someone who is speaking, and whose word will produce fruit, and the question is: how involved in it are we going to be? How are we going to be involved in it?

"Now, when Jesus was finished [speaking to the people], the disciples come up and said, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered, “To you it's been given to know the mystery.” I think that the mystery is this transfiguration from within of all the signs that are natural to us into signs of the incoming King, the new Temple, the crucified Lamb, the Lamb standing as one standing on the throne, who is coming in and who is in fact going to be the new sower [who] makes everything come alive. It's a transfiguration of all that. So something of that, he's saying, “you're on the inside of that process, that's what I've been preparing you for.”

...

"And so Jesus then says, incidentally what I'm telling you is what's been known ever since the great Isaiahan vision, because the passage he quotes, ... he's quoting from what happened immediately after Isaiah had his wonderful Temple vision in Isaiah 6, where he sees the Lord high and lifted up on the throne, and he hears the voice of the Lord, who tells him to go and preach ... but warns him that he's sending him out to preach to a people who “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” That's us.

"So strangely enough what Jesus is doing is saying, “I am the fulfillment of that promise, and I am speaking precisely into the midst of these people who are bound [to not know], and the whole question is to what extent are [the disciples], you, me, ... going to allow ourselves to be sucked into the ploughing over of the earth until we find ourselves able to take part in the rediscovery of the signs that are pointing in a completely different direction, things we take for granted as part of our systems of security undone, and thus finding ourselves born into belonging to a completely new way of being together, sharing together, loving together. ...

"So for me this is the greater challenge: at what depth are we prepared to allow ourselves to be ploughed into the earth, so as to become part of the bearers of the sign of the kingdom?"

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 15 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVj6YKeWEU)

[Source of quote from James Alison's book Raising Abel, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper10a/]

From the Lectionary for 9 July 2023 (Proper 9A)

Zechariah 9:9 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Matthew 11:25-30 (NRSV Updated Edition)

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

~

In his homily for "Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time Year A" (as this week is called in the Roman Catholic lectionary), James Alison points out the apparent contradiction in the Zechariah verse above: at least the way we normally see things, one who is "triumphant and victorious" is not one who is "humble and riding on a donkey," the two images don't fit together in our concepts.  He also highlights that the Matthew passage above comes right after the story of John the Baptist sending messengers to Jesus to ask him if he is indeed the Messiah, because Jesus is not acting in the "triumphant and victorious" way that John expects the Messiah should act.

This story in Matthew 11 is followed by Jesus comparing certain contemporary towns with ancient cities which had 'mythical' destruction stories, saying that if "the deeds of power" done by Jesus had been done in those ancient cities the people would have repented. Jesus is trying to convey to them that the way of the Father is not violence and destruction of the wicked, but a meek and humble man displaying true divine "power" which is entirely non-violent, gentle and life-giving.

I also think that the link between the two paragraphs of the Matthew text is significant: it is in Jesus knowing the Father that he is the one who can give rest to the weary and heavy laden. The way of Jesus, the 'yoke' of Jesus, is the way of coming to discover the utter gentleness and unconditional love of the Father, in whom there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), from whom we need fear no condemnation or punishment, in whom we can find true and complete rest for our souls, free of any threat, or any need to perform or hide who we really are.

~

"“At that time Jesus declared, 'I thank thee Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.” He's saying, “Do you know, actually I realize that no one is gonna get who I am. People seriously are expecting something to come with violence. It would make sense to them if I were to go all 'Sodom and Gomorrah' on them. They seem to be unable to understand that it's tiny, little, gentle, peaceful bringing things in being. That completely breaks their oppositional bindings because it shows them to be completely moot. Those are the things that show that I am the Creator. ... Not even John the Baptist [gets it], not the people among whom I was doing all these works. Tiny little babies get it, they haven't yet reached adult complication, but everyone else is stuck in notions of good and bad and violence. It's difficult for them to see that I am bringing things into being for them on their behalf and that this is what the Father looks like. He is showing people, through me, what He's like. It's only if I share with those people what I am doing that they will get a glimpse of who the Father really is.”

"It's this astounding gentleness that we find so hard to get. So then he says, “Come to me all who labour and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” He's saying  all of us tied up in our complexities are fighting about things, including our desperate keenness to be good. He says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” ... 'Lowly' is the same word which is used both of the humble one coming on the donkey and of meek Moses - Moses was the meekest. Jesus is saying, “You want to know what the real meekness behind Moses' meekness looks like? This is it. I'm not here to put demands on you. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You're not going to be ridden by a foreign invader, you're not going to find yourselves forced into becoming someone you are not by having to obey things that are extrinsic to you. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. You will be ... indwelt by my Spirit, which will enable you to become even more who you are than you were able to think of. And this will be done so gently that even you will find it difficult to imagine the sign of work in you, bringing you to life - such is the gentleness of my Father."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 14 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEbhfOP8Efw)

From the Lectionary for 2 July 2023 (Proper 8A)

Matthew 10:37-42 (NRSV Updated Edition)

“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, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

~

"This is a text which at least some of us will have heard in a very nasty binary way in the past and I'm hoping to do something with that with you today. ... You will perhaps know people whose extremely religious parents have completely rejected their daughters or sons on discovering that they are gay or lesbian simply on the grounds that they are convinced that they need to do that to follow Jesus and that Jesus is ordering them to. And then you have this line, “Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow it in my footsteps is not worthy of me.” Again this is a phrase that has been used to say to gay people: homosexuality is your cross you must take it up and follow my footsteps, meaning don't be who you are for Jesus sake. And then, even more tragically perhaps, “Anyone who finds his life will lose it anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it,” and unfortunately there are many high-ranking ecclesiastics who at some stage rather have decided that they were prepared to sacrifice who they really are on the altar of approval from other ecclesiastical higher-ups who'd done the same thing, and so they end up as people ... who have lost who they are...

"So, just to point out that the binary reading of this passage has had terrible consequences. So let's try to have a slightly less harmful look at it, and the first thing I want to point out is that what we have here is three lines concerning if you prefer someone over and above me, and then if you receive someone. So there are three 'if you prefer' and 'if you receive' and what I want to bring out is, I think, how all of these circle around the question of shame and dangerousness. ... [T]hese [are] instructions to the Twelve, to the Apostles, who are about to embark upon a life of extreme dangerousness which will lead to the martyrdom of most of them eventually. Jesus is preparing them for a life of dangerousness where they must be prepared to occupy the place of shame.

"So I would suggest that it's something more or less like this that is going on: preferring mother or father, or preferring son or daughter, means grasping onto the safe identity that is given by family structure, rather than realizing that every generation - particularly now in the modern world where the speed of the changing of the patterns of desire between generations is so much faster than in the ancient world - but that negotiating the change with the criterion other than holding on to the values of the previous generation or being eager simply to protect those of the younger generation, that the constant working through of what is really going on, what it really is to follow Jesus is going to work require constant working out of the in-between: how do I both love my intergenerational siblings - my parents - and my intergenerational siblings - my children - and what does it mean to run the risk of finding myself in a place of shame, disgrace and in actual physical danger by walking in [Jesus'] footsteps.

"This is not a question of cutting yourself off, this is a question of working through what it means, constantly working through what it means, always knowing that actually the more you grasp on something thinking that that's giving you a security, a goodness, the more dangerous that is, the more you are at risk of winning your life but actually losing yourself. Who we become is always through negotiating the in-betweens of what life in the Spirit looks like, finding ourselves being converted at every possible interstice of relationships. Very difficult, very painful, quite humiliating, and that which brings us to life.

"And then the flip side of that are the three 'anyone who welcomes' ... suggesting that here the positive side of this is going on. In the midst of what is apparently a very dangerous and shame-inspiring world, actually the one who is the fullness of glory, the one who opens us up to reality, will be received as we receive his representative Jesus in our midst. And those who receive us because they recognize that despite everything we are the bearers of something truthful, we are the bearers of something to do with life in the midst of all the closed-down, frightened, shame-rejecting structures of this world, in that degree they are receiving God through receiving us who have received Jesus. But that this is reality that is breaking through in the midst of that breakdown.

...

"In other words, Jesus is saying, "I am the in-between. As you renegotiate your in-between generationally you will come to me and the criteria will be: are you prepared to go to the place of dangerousness and follow me in what seems to be a shameful walk of abandonment and loss? In which case you will have life. Or are you going to hold on to the security and the rejection of all that? In which case you will hold on to your life and security and will never become who you really are.”

"And then he's also saying, “Receive me in the others and these are the signs that you're already on the inside. I am the in-between you and all those realities. I am the in-between.” It seems to me to be the definition of the Holy Spirit: the in-between. Jesus is preparing his disciples for when, through life in the Spirit, they will start to receive the in-between that comes from the company of prophets, just persons and disciples. Which means the enlivenment of being prepared to live in a place of shame and danger without being dominated by its fear, and so being brought to life in Christ.

"This is Jesus' instructions to his disciples, to his apostles, [and] this is his instruction to us. And I hope that we can learn to live this in-between with joy, without too much fear."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Sunday 13 in Ordinary Time Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MA6cNLQ7CE)