13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

1. This is a homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2. The second reading is from the letter of St Paul to the Romans, chapter 6, verses 3
and 4, and verses 8 to 11. The gospel is from the Gospel of St Matthew, Chapter
10, verses 37-42.

3. Today’s gospel again comes from the second of the ve major discourses of Jesus
in Matthew’s gospel. Keep in mind that this second major discourse is directed
more speci cally to the Twelve disciples, empowering and instructing them for
mission.

4. We have some the hard sayings of Jesus in today’s gospel. He tells the Twelve,
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

5. And then, “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

6. This brings us to a fundamental question: “Who or what do I worship?” Keep in

7. But, in reality, where do we invest our love, time, talents, money, energy, emotions
and enthusiasm? What, in reality, does our heart cling to and rely upon. That, in
reality, is what we worship.

8. If we worship anything or anyone else apart from God, we are guilty of idolatry. That
includes placing something as sacred as our family ahead of God. So Jesus is
saying that the call to discipleship is preeminent; it must come before every other
commitment in our lives, even the love that we have for our parents and our
children.

9. Jesus then says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy
of me.”

10. He continues: “Those who nd their life will lose it.”

11. “Those who lose their life for my sake will nd it.”
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12. Jesus is using images of death and resurrection. The cross is an instrument of
execution. And death means loss of life. However, Jesus assures the Twelve that
death is not the end of life, but rather the means of nding life.

13. The second reading from St Paul’s letter to the Romans also deals with the theme
of death and new life.

14. Paul tells the Christians living in Rome: “Do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have
been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

15. So Paul is telling the Romans that in baptism we die to an old way of being and are
born into a new way of being. Baptism is a death and resurrection.

16. New Testament scholar Marcus Borg explains: “Death and resurrection - being
born again - as a metaphor for personal transformation is the foundation for Paul’s
shorthand phrase for naming the new life. It is life “in Christ.” Paul uses “in Christ”
165 times in his letters and the virtually synonymous phrase “in the Spirit” about 20
times.
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17. “The result of being “in Christ,” “in the Spirit,” is a new way of being and a new
identity, a new creation. To the Christian community in Corinth, Paul wrote: ‘So if
anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:17).

18. Pope Benedict explains what being “in Christ” meant to Paul: The
relationship between Paul and the Risen One became so deep as to induce him to
maintain that Christ was no longer solely his life but also his very purpose in living,
to the point that to be able to reach him death became a gain. (cf. Phil 1:21).

19. “This is not to say he despised life, but that he realized that for him at this point
there was no other purpose in life, and thus he had no other desire than to reach
Christ as in an athletics competition to remain with him forever. The Risen Christ
had become the beginning and the end of his existence, the cause and the goal of
his race.”

20. Writing in the 50s, well before any of the gospels, Paul refers to himself as having
undergone an internal cruci xion. The old Paul is dead; a new Paul has been born,
one in whom Christ lives: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been cruci ed to me, and I to the world.”

21. Let’s now consider Paul’s image of dying and rising in baptism.

22. Paul is writing this letter to the Romans while he’s staying in Cenchrea.

23. Cenchrea is a port-city to the east of Corinth. Paul hasn’t been to Rome before, so
there are a few reasons why he’s writing this letter.

24. Firstly, he’s writing to introduce himself before he arrives in Rome, and he also
wants to explain his understanding of the gospel.

25. After spending some time in Rome, he then hopes to proceed further west onto
Spain. So, what is Paul saying about baptism?
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 26. Let me respond to that question by telling you about an archaeological tour I
went on in 1997. The tour was led by Fr Anthony Axe, a Dominican friar at the
Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. Fr Anthony was the Professor of Archaeology at
the Ecole Biblique between 1993 and 1997.

27. The tour included a visit to archaeological sites on the island of Cyprus.

28. We visited the ruins of the ancient city of Salamis. St Paul visited Salamis on
his rst missionary journey, and he was accompanied by Barnabas, who was a
native of Cyprus.

29. On this tour we spent a good deal of time examining the ruins of one of the
earliest Christian basilicas to be built, the basilica of St Epiphianios.

30. It was built around the end of the 4th century.

31. As you can see, the basilica is now in ruins, ..

32. … but I came upon what remained of the the ancient baptistry. As I looked at
the baptistry, now in ruins and lled with weeds, I wondered how many
thousands of people had been baptised right here. Just look at the baptistry for
a moment.

33. Firstly, you’ll notice that it was built in the form of a cross. That is a reminder
that in baptism we join Christ in his death.

34. And there are three steps down into the baptistry. The rst step …

35. … the second step, and …

36. … the third step. The number three calls to mind that a person is baptised in
the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It also calls
to mind that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.

37. It would have been lled with water, so, it would have looked something like
this.
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38. The priest presiding over the baptisms would have stood in one arm of the cross,
with the water coming up to his waist.

39. The person to be baptised walked down the three steps, into the water, …

40. … and stood alongside the priest.

41. The priest then immersed the person three times in the waters of the font as he
said: “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.”

42. Remember that the English word “baptism” comes from the Greek verb βαπτίζω
(baptizō), which means to plunge or immerse.

43. The baptistry is a symbol of both the tomb and the womb. Going down into the
waters is joining the Lord in his death, entering the tomb with him. Emerging from
the waters we are rising with Christ to a new life. Or, to change the metaphor, we
are emerging from the womb; we have been born again. Let’s re ect upon the
imagery of dying and rising to new life.

44. Two weeks ago I was talking about Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a
Thousand Faces. The signi cance of the title is the realisation that the heroic gure
in many of the great stories of humanity embarks upon what is essentially the same
journey of discovery.

45. Whether the story be Homer’s Illiad or Odyssey, or the story of King Arthur in
Camelot, Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, Hopalong Cassidy in the American
West, Tarzan in the jungles of Africa, Luke Skywalker in a distant galaxy, Jason and
the Argonauts on the quest for the golden eece, or even Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit
deep in the Lonely Mountain - we are essentially hearing the same story. Only the
“face” of the hero and the setting of the story change. And why would we be
interested in the hero’s journey? We’re interested in the hero’s journey, because the
story of the hero is our own story writ large!

46. Campbell outlines a number of key stages in the journey of the hero, beginning with
what he calls the Call to Adventure.

47. This involves crossing a threshold, and here we encounter what Campbell calls the
Guardian of the Threshold. The Guardian symbolises those intimidating forces,
from both within and without, that discourage us from embarking upon the
Adventure.
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48. In Tolkien’s modern classic The Hobbit there is an amusing scene in which
Gandalf tells Bilbo Baggins that he is looking for someone to share in an
adventure that he’s arranging, but he’s nding it very di cult to nd anyone.

49. “I should think so - in these parts!” Replies Bilbo. “We are plain quiet folk and
have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you
late for dinner! I can’t see what anybody sees in them.”

50. But once the hero embarks upon the journey, he or she must enter the belly of
the whale. The name for this stage of the journey comes from the story of Jonah.

51. God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance.

52. Nineveh is located 965 kms to the north east. It is the capital of the Assyrian
empire. It was Assyria that entirely destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in
the 8th century, and later seriously threatened the southern kingdom of Judah as
well. Jonah obviously has no love for the Assyrians. If he obeys God’s command
and goes to Nineveh to preach repentance, they might heed his preaching and
repent. That means that God will not destroy them. But Jonah wants God to
destroy Nineveh, so what does he do?

53. He makes his way to the port city of Ja a, more or less on the site of present-day
Tel Aviv, and boards a ship sailing to Tarshish, which is in modern day Spain. He
is embarking upon a journey of some 3540 kms in the opposite direction to
Nineveh. He is eeing to the other end of the known world. How many times
have we all been guilty of doing exactly the same thing? God calls us to go one
way, and we ee as far as we can in the opposite direction!
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 54. And so Jonah is taught a lesson. The ship on which he is travelling is suddenly
overwhelmed by a terrifying storm, and the captain of the vessel becomes
suspicious. He suspects that a violent storm like this, seemingly coming from
nowhere and becoming more intense, obviously means that someone aboard the
ship has done something to o end their god. This storm is the god’s punishment.
As the sea grows rougher and rougher, the sailors decide to draw lots to see who
might be responsible. Jonah comes clean and admits that he is responsible. He
tells the sailors to toss him overboard and the storm will subside.

55. And so they toss him overboard and the storm subsides. But Jonah is devoured by
a large sh. This could conceivably be a whale, as traditional understandings of the
story imagine, but the Hebrew text uses the word ‫( ּדָגָה‬dagah), an unspeci c and
generic term for a sea creature.

56. And Jonah remains in the belly of the sh for three days and three nights.

57. Later in Matthew’s gospel Jesus identi es himself with Jonah: “Just as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and
three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.” (12:40).

58. What in this story does the belly of the whale signify? It is a death experience. And
who or what in the story of Jonah must die? The answer is, of course, Jonah’s own
wilfulness and de ance; his rebellion against God.

59. The sh is obviously su ers indigestion and spews Jonah forth onto dry land. A
second time God tells him: Go to Nineveh and preach repentance, and so, in
obedience to God, he goes.

60. The Belly of the Whale is part of our human journey. Journeys usually involve
leaving behind a world that we know so well and launching out into the unknown.
But that is the inescapable and unavoidable rhythm of life.

61. Judith Viorst has written about this in her book Necessary Losses. She says this:

62. Losses are a part of life - universal, unavoidable, inexorable. And these losses are
necessary because we grow by losing and leaving and letting go.
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63. Passionate investment leaves us vulnerable to loss. And sometimes, ho matter
how clever we are, we must lose. But it is only through our losses that we become
fully developed human beings.”

64. Our journey through life involves losing, leaving and letting go. These are all death
experiences. We must let something die so that something new can begin.
Ironically, our rst death experience is birth.

65. If a baby in the womb were able to express its thoughts and feelings, the child may
well say something like this: “Mum, I’m quite comfortable here in the womb. If it’s
alright with you I’ll stay here.” I doubt that any mother would relish that prospect.
The child must die to all that it has known for nine months, life in the womb.

66. The child must then begin primary school, but that soon comes to an end …

67. … as we begin our secondary education.

68. After leaving school we begin tertiary study or begin an apprenticeship.

69. At some stage we y the nest, we leave the family home and launch out on our
own.

70. We enter the workforce, and it’s almost certain these days that we will change jobs
several times during our lives.

71. We marry.

72. We have children, and eventually become grandparents.

73. And then we retire.

74. Every stage of life’s journey is marked by a death experience. Something must die
so that something new can begin, but we grow by losing and leaving and letting
go. Like the grain of wheat, we must fall into the ground, we must die to our life as
a seed, so that we can yield a rich and abundant harvest.
75. Linus and his blanket is a recurring motif in the Peanuts cartoons. The blanket is a
symbol of things that we cling to, things that we feel we can’t live without.

76. “My blanket! I can’t live with without my blanket.” Linus’ grandmother has tried,
unsuccessfully, to get him to give up his blanket. One one occasion Linus thinks
he’s outwitted his grandmother, and he tells Charlie Brown:
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77. Boy, I really put it over on Gramma this time. She was bugging me again about
giving up my blanket so I put it to her straight.

78. “Okay, Gramma,” I said, “I’ll give up my blanket if you’ll give up smoking!”
Suddenly, Linus’s sister Lucy appears on the scene:

79. And she’s going to do it, too! Oh, No. Now it’s Linus who has been outwitted,
and true to his word he gives up his blanket. After Linus has survived for two
weeks without his blanket, Lucy thinks he no longer needs it, and it should
therefore be thrown into the incinerator.

80. “The ‘Blanket Burning’ has begun. As I toss your blanket into the trash burner,
your insecurities are symbolically destroyed forever!

81. There! You are now free from the terrible hold it once had on you. You are a
new person!

82. Aaughh!! Linus reminds us that losing, and leaving and letting go is very
seldom easy and painless.

83. The Ladder of Divine Ascent was written by St John Climacus in the 7th
century.

84. In 600 AD, at the age of 75, John Climacus was persuaded by the monks of
St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai desert to become their abbot. As abbot
he wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a work that led to his being known as
John of the Ladder which is what the word Κλίμακος (Klimakos) means. It’s
the most popular work in all of Eastern Christendom, and it’s read in all
Orthodox monasteries throughout the world every Lent. St Catherine’s
Monastery is located at the foot of Mt Sinai, in Egypt. It was constructed by
order of the emperor Justinian between 527 and 565 AD.

85. John likens the Christian life to ascending a ladder with thirty rungs, one rung
for each of the thirty years of Jesus life before he began his public ministry.
 Here you can see a 12th century icon at St Catherine’s which is inspired by John’s
book. It shows monks ascending - and falling from the ladder to heaven. Winged
demons armed with bows and arrows make the ascent di cult, but Jesus, with
outstretched arms, welcomes those who reach the top of the ladder.

86. Now John almost certainly borrowed the image of a ladder between heaven and
earth from a story that’s found in the book of Genesis, a story about the patriarch
Jacob. Jacob is travelling from Beersheba in the south to Haran in the north, but
at sunset he stops to rest for the night. As he sleeps, he dreams of a ladder
reaching from earth to heaven, and angels of God are ascending and descending
on it! He then hears the voice of the Lord saying, ‘I am the LORD, the God of
Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to
you and to your descendants.”

87. John adapts this image of a ladder between heaven and earth as a prop for his
re ections on the spiritual life. His ladder has 30 rungs. Sixteen represent vices
that we must overcome; fourteen are virtues that we must acquire.

88. The rst two rungs of the ladder are renunciation and detachment. In Peanuts’
parlance, that means that we must burn our blanket.
89. This is precisely what Jesus means in today’s gospel when he says “Whoever
does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

90. We’re talking here about the cost of discipleship. In the words of Dietrich
Bonhoe er, “And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What
decisions and partings will it demand?

91. The Belly of the Whale, Blanket burning, Decisions and Partings; and
Renunciation and Detachment are never easy, but they are liberating and life-
giving.

92. Those who lose their life for my sake will nd it.
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