PROPER VIII - A - 20 - Gen. 22.1-14, Rom 6. 12-23, Matthew 10. 40-42
In today’s short passage from St. Matthew; Jesus is concluding his instructions to the 12 prior to his sending them out on their first solo mission. His instructions have included dos and don’ts, as well as the challenges they will face. Not all they encounter will be receptive to their message. They can expect opposition.
However, his words to them also contain promises that only God can make. Jesus makes four such promises in his instructions to them in the tenth chapter of St. Matthew. Jesus chose these 12 for a purpose. They are to be true emissaries in the sense that Jesus and the Father are identified with them.
“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent me.”
The Apostles are to be ambassadors who represent the Lord. Their reward will be granted them through their faithfulness. Today’s short passage gives weight to their mission and a promise of reward to those who receive them as well.
In today’s first lesson from Genesis, we see that Isaac was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah. It was the hospitality of Abraham that resulted in the promise. God’s covenant with Abraham was established in Isaac, because his birth was based on a promise of God. It was not based on physical lineage, for Abraham and Sarah were past the age of childbearing at the time.
In today’s lesson God put Abraham’s faith to the ultimate test. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. Isaac meant everything to Abraham, yet Abraham seems to be willing to do what God asks of him. He was obedient from the heart.
Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain and prepared to sacrifice him as the Lord had directed him. At the last moment, having proved his faithfulness, and his willingness to be obedient to God, the promise is returned to him. God spared his son.
Salvation is based on the promise of the Word of God. Abraham was willing to make a total offering of his only son, the one thing that meant the most to him in life. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of invitation to a total offering of self to God.
This invitation is given not merely to the individual disciple but also to the Church as a whole, to that community of disciples who profess to live out the dying and rising of Jesus, the Christ, in a definitive way.
The Church is a credible symbol insofar as it incarnates the very message it proclaims. However, the Church, as an institution is not perfect. It too needs to die to those things that are not of God, to adjust its priorities so that its mission is clearly focused, to let go of all that distracts it from its one true purpose. This is never been truer, than in the present environment.
The same goes for each of us. We must remember that individually and corporately we are ambassadors for Christ. The world looks to us, as Christians, to see who Jesus really is what he is all about.
Isaac was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah. God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son as a test of his faith. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all God’s promises to mankind.
God did not spare his only son, but sacrificed him on the hardwood of the cross that all might come to know him, and love him. In Jesus, we are called to sacrifice self, to die to self, in order to live to God.
As we lift up our hearts to God in our worship, we are reminded of God’s gift of new life in and through His Son, Jesus, as we hear the Word of God proclaimed in Holy Scripture.
Moreover, in our receiving the sacrament of Christ’ most sacred Body and Blood we are reminded of the price that was paid for our salvation. Today’s celebration of the Holy Eucharist should bring us to a renewed awareness of the meaning of our call to discipleship.
However, as Jesus told the 12, to follow him will not be easy. There will be times of rejection and disappointment, division and unrest. There will be times when our faith and our allegiance is tested to the limits, when we have to decide whether those persons or things in this life we consider most important, are more so than our life lived to God.
To follow Jesus requires a steadfast faith. One must be willing to sacrifice whatever stands in the way of one’s taking up his or her cross and following Him. Nowhere along the road to God will we be told we can put it down.
However, the challenge of Jesus’ sayings is marked by the promise he makes in today’s gospel to those who accept them and live by them. “He who endures to the end will be saved…whoever acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven…he who loses his life for my sake will find it…”
And at the end of his sayings in Matthew’s tenth chapter, we find the remarkable chain reaction, if you will, of those who serve their fellow human beings out of love for Christ, out of obedience of the heart.
“And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward”
When we do, we are serving Jesus and whatever we do for Jesus, we are doing for God. If we could relearn this simple but profound lesson, and put it into practice, what a different world we would live in.
For it is not only a message that would challenge, but also one that would change people’s hearts. AMEN+
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