Homily for Sunday Ordinary 23 C

In 2020, I saw the Sundance Documentary Film, “Crip Camp.” The title comes from a 1970’s summer camp for handicapped teens, which in those days were called crippled children, hence the name, "Crip Camp." (The movie is showing on Netflix.)

I have Mass on Sunday, September 7 

at St. Isidore @ 7:30/9:30 am.

at St. Andrew @ 5:00 pm

The 7:30 am Mass will be live-streamed https://stisidore.church/worship-online/

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. 

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them. "If anyone 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. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 

Which of you, wishing to construct a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work, the onlookers should laugh at him and say, 'This one began to build, but did not have the resources to finish.' "Or what king, marching into battle, will not first sit down and decide whether, with ten thousand troops, he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, any one of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple. 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

In 2020, I saw the Sundance documentary film, "Crip Camp." The title comes from a 1970s summer camp for handicapped teens, which in those days were called Crippled Children, hence the name "Crip Camp." You can watch the movie on Netflix. The story begins with original footage from the 1970s. The teens arrive at camp, settle into their cabins, make decisions about meals, set up sports teams, you know, all the usual things that happen at summer camp. 

When I was in college, I worked at a summer camp for handicapped children. Ours was a day camp, with an occasional week of overnight camp. Our children were mostly grade school age. But I recognized my kids in this film. All of these kids were loved and cared for by their parents, but at the same time, they were inhibited by their parents' understandable worry for them. At camp, for a brief moment, they were freed from those constraints. For the first time in their lives, these campers experienced themselves as a human person instead of a handicapped person. 

This experience was so empowering that several of the campers as the movie documents went on to campaign and fight for passage of the Americans with Disability Act, ADA, which became law in 1990. As important as family is for our growth and development, if we hold on to our children too tightly, we limit their ability to become the person God calls them to be. 

In Genesis 12, God called Abraham, "lech lacha" in Hebrew, "go forth from your country, your kin, and your parents' house to a land I will show you." If this were merely a physical journey, the Bible would have said, "go forth from your parents' house, your kin, and your country" rather than the other way around. Reversing the order makes this a spiritual journey, letting go of the limitations, biases, and conditioning that defines you, whether it be nationalism, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, or the conditioning of your parents. Only then are you ready to see the land God wants you to see. 

"You cannot be my disciple," Jesus insists, "if you do not renounce all your possessions." The original Greek could also be translated "all your possessing." None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessing. 

We see this wonderfully detailed in Paul's letter to Philemon. This is the only letter we have from Paul that is written not to the church but to an individual, Philemon, the head of a house church, probably in Ephesus. Philemon had a slave named Onesimus who'd run away and found his way to Paul. Paul is using the language of kinship, which we share by virtue of our baptism. Onesimus is my child, fathered by Paul during his imprisonment. 

Paul stretches out one hand and embraces Onesimus. Here he is, he's my child, my very heart. I've become a father to him in my imprisonment. I'd much rather have him with me, but I really have to send him back. Next, he stretches out the other hand and embraces Philemon. You are my partner, my fellow worker. We're in this together. By the way, remember, you owe me everything. Then standing there with outstretched arms, he says to Philemon, "If he owes you anything, put it down on my account." 

In this letter, Paul does not mention the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but it is the cross of Jesus Christ exemplified and embodied in Paul's ministry that is bringing the master and the slave together. Paul is doing the unthinkable, bringing about what he says in Galatians 3, up close and personal. "In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male and female." This is what it means in practice. The cross is the place where the irreconcilable can be reconciled. 

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to take up his cross and give his life away in love. If we want to follow him, it will mean giving our lives away in ways that we cannot imagine or anticipate. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." This kind of language upends our dominant image of Jesus as a nice human being, but it expresses the core of the gospel message, which is the revelation of Jesus' own self as the Son of God. 

The Son of God comes forth from the Father because the Father is love without constraint. The Son comes among us, born in a stable, arms stretched wide on the cross because of who God is, gracious gift, unmerited largess. Those who survive in the world look out for themselves and for their own. Yet Christ calls us to look to those who did not belong to us, to be unrestrained in our loving. When we deny ourselves for others, when we take up Christ's cross, we do more than engage in self-denial. We participate in the very nature of God. In God – to be, to have, and to give – are one and the same.