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13th Sunday A
2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16
The account tells of Elisha’s relationship with a bold woman from northern Israel, though unnamed. She is resourceful and proactive. The story covers Elisha promising her a son, her mourning when he dies, and his resurrection, focusing here on the first part. The woman, from Shunem near Mount Carmel, shows kindness by providing food and lodging to Elisha. Her strong personality makes her the chapter’s focus, and Elisha asks his servant Gehazi how he can help her. The woman’s resistance to Gehazi’s attempts to intervene is notable. The biblical motif of divine promise of a child underscores her thoughtful hospitality.
Rom 6:3-4, 8-11
The reading illustrates that, just as Christ experienced death to live anew, Christians must also undergo baptism, symbolizing their death and rebirth with Christ. Baptism involves passing through death to overcome sin, leading to new life free from sin and death’s control. Christ’s resurrection affirms believers’ own resurrection, marking a definitive victory over death. Christians are empowered to live for God through this spiritual incorporation, which must be reflected in conscious thought and action, embodying a death to sin and a new life, rooted in Paul’s ethical and ontological teachings.
Mt 10:37-42
The reading concludes Jesus’ missionary discourse, where he underlines the conditions of discipleship (vv37f), and their corresponding reward (vv40f). Christian discipleship creates new relational bonds in the Spirit, prioritizing spiritual kinship over biological ties (12:46 – 50). Jesus emphasizes true love for family must be subordinate to love for Him (v37), contrasting Matthew’s milder wording with Luke’s ‘hatred.’ Cross-bearing signifies dedication, with its literal and figurative meanings linked to sacrifice and devotion (v38). Encounters with the apostles, prophets, righteous, and vulnerable—like giving water—are acts of faith that bring reward; receiving these figures equates to accepting Christ and God.
(from: s1#144 Receive 7/2/23):
It must be shocking for Jesus’ audience to hear the first verse of the gospel today (Mt 10:37-42): ‘Anyone who loves father or mother, son or daughter more than him is not worthy of him’. For in the ancient Mediterranean world, the family is considered the central social institution. It consists not only of the father and all his children but includes his married sons with their entire families, living together in one place. And considering the first cousin as an ideal marriage partner binds the already close-knit family together all the more with tighter bonds. With this kind of “our-family-against-everyone-else-mentality”, to sever all family ties, (as did the “prodigal son”, Lk 15), would mean a serious and life-threatening loss- loss of all of the family’s economic, religious, educational, and social connections.
But what does Jesus mean about this seemingly counter-culture statement? He does not forbid loving the family. Rather, he gave his followers more reason to love them beyond the call of blood relationship. He has set up what can be said as a “replacement” family, a new and much bigger gathering of people not linked by blood ties alone but by bonds of commitment to Jesus. And in exhorting further his disciples to follow him despite the consequences of leaving one’s own family, he reminded them about another basic social institution in their culture, namely, hospitality, (cf 1st reading).
The verb “dechomai” (δέχομαι) is translated as “receive” in the sense of the courtesy of welcoming people as guests. In the Bible, such hospitality provides safe passages for families (like Abraham’s, Gen 12), or groups (like Lot’s visitors, Gen 19; the Israelite spies in Rahab’s home, cf Heb 11:31, where the Greek verb is specifically used), through regions where they have no kinfolk. Jesus counts on this Middle East culture as well, a hospitality that is extended almost exclusively to total strangers. Thus, he exhorts new communities of followers to practice this toward each other to make up for the loss of family advantage. Whereas in their culture the reward for hospitality was largely the honor that accrued to one who extended it, Jesus connects this practice of welcoming among nonrelated believers to a reward that God himself will give (v 40). He even assures them that anyone who refuses to “receive” the members of the apostolic band would incur divine displeasure (Mk 6:11; Mt 10:14; Lk 9:5).
We are now all truly received, welcomed, and part of this universal family of followers of Jesus, whom we can rely on even more than our own nuclear family—God as our Father and Jesus, our brother, whom we should love more than anyone else. Let us welcome everyone and discriminate against no one, for ‘we will surely not lose our reward,’ as the Lord promised. Amen.
