Mass readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
2 Kings 4.8-12a, 14-16 Psalm 89.1-2, 15-18 Romans 6.3-4, 8-11 Matthew 10.37-42
At a first, and perhaps not close, hearing or reading, the gospel passage today might be taken as a teaching on the radical hospitality to which Christians are called. Indeed, we are to be welcoming of everyone, for Christ is for everyone. However, the nature of that welcome and the inclusivity that it expresses has some limitations. The Church cannot be the Church if it cannot define what is allowed within it, and what must be excluded because it is contrary to the teachings of Christ.
As much as we are welcoming, what is far more important is that we are Apostolic – we welcome sound teaching, what has come down to us from the Lord, through the Apostles, and their successors. And why? Because for all that we might offer in our hospitality, the best thing we can give to people is the true teaching of Jesus Christ.
When we hear Jesus speaking in the gospel today, when he says that in welcoming someone, we are welcoming him; this is not an instance of us “seeing Christ in everyone.” He’s speaking specifically about how the community is to receive an apostle; in this instance one of the twelve he has recently appointed. He’s clarifying their role for the community of disciples he has gathered at that time because Apostles are something new. Today we take that as direction for how we are to receive the successors of the Apostles, that is the bishops, and most eminently among the bishops, His Holiness, the Pope who is often referred to as the “Vicar of Christ” – that is, he is Christ’s stand-in. That’s what a “vicar” is – the vicarious presence of someone through another. We receive the vicar as we would the person he represents.
To a lesser degree this also refers to priests and deacons, our holy orders are derivative of the bishop. I suppose, we’re more like apostolic assistants, but still trace what authority we have to this command of Jesus.
A code of hospitality does flow from this: who welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet receives the reward of a prophet, a righteous person in the name of a righteous person, all the way down to the least, “these little ones” who present themselves in the name of a mere disciple –that person’s recommendation is an important reference when receiving someone sent to us.
Simply translated, if someone comes to me or you because they’ve been referred by a fellow parishioner, who is a disciple, then we know to greet them with all the hospitality we can manage. In essence, this is someone being vouched for; and in knowing that a fellow believer has recommended they see us, we know that the likely reason is at least in part, of a spiritual nature. And what is being either brought to us or sought from us, is the teaching of the Apostles.
Next week we will have a speaker from a Franciscan missionary community, Sr. Felicia Matola. She is will speak to us because she has been vouched for by the diocese through its mission co-op program. We will welcome her to our masses, listening to her story as one that is recommended to us by the Church. In this instance, we are the ones who receiving the spiritual gift most obviously in hearing her witness to the faith that animates her order’s missionary activity. I hope we will reciprocate in being of some benefit to her and her colleagues in their work. Clearly, there is a relationship, through Christ with her, and that has been affirmed by our bishop. So, we trust our welcome to be something of benefit to all.
We don’t invite imams or rabbis to address us when we gather in worship. And the reasons for that are obvious. There is not enough substantially shared in our understanding of God, but especially Christ – such interreligious dialogue, as important as it is, would be for a different time and place. We might then ask why a pastor from a Protestant Christian community may not then speak to us about the faith; but we know there are significant differences in teaching even as we all claim Christ as our Saviour.
But the principal reason we don’t welcome such as we would Christ is because these communities do not derive from the apostolic heritage. They do not have an Apostle as their founder, and so, that source for their ministry. Eastern Catholics, our Ukrainian and Greek Catholic brothers and sisters are not just in communion with us because of their recognition of the Pope’s authority, but their churches too can point to an Apostle as their founder: Andrew, Thomas and Thaddeus being examples.
What can be difficult for us is we live in larger culture that would view this as closed-mindedness. I speak of this post-Second World War liberal world order at times. It is steeped in great fear of religious and racial prejudice because of the horrors of the 20th century, especially the programs of extermination we saw in Nazi Germany. The liberal ethic of tolerance and diversity of opinion, the emphasis on material progress as a means of transcending the spiritual differences that exist, and so, ensure peace, was and is an understandable impulse.
However, we can’t forget that the “liberalism” that became the organizing principle of our society, that openness to outside opinion and invitation to debate presupposes an ostensibly Christian culture. That is, while there was a divide between Catholics and Protestants, and within Protestantism a constant fracturing into smaller and smaller sects, liberalism facilitated a deal among all western Christians that meant a setting aside of Christian theological differences while affirming their agreement on morality. And some may know that in essentials, moral teaching was pretty uniform across the Christian denominations until the middle of the 20th century.
Ironically, the liberalism that tamed internal conflicts in the English-speaking world beginning in the 18th century and developing into the 20th century, was adopted by the victors of the Second World War and applied as a global solution just as liberalism was reaching the very limit of its ability to reconcile differences within the societies that practiced it. Applied to a world situation in which the conditions for its success simply weren’t there, it was bound to fail. Indeed, the conditions that support it in the English-speaking democracies were deteriorating within a generation of the war’s end.
Today we struggle as a civil society to reconcile the irreconcilable; and not just in terms of religious systems that do not agree on so many key issues – the status of women being one of outstanding concern – but also in the secular ideologies that have arisen that don’t participate in the Christian moral consensus at all.
Now, I’d love to say that someone presenting Catholic credentials would be assurance enough of sound teaching and preaching, but we really need to lean into the concept of apostolicity in an even broader sense – that is, we need always to check what is being preached, taught, advocated, is in keeping with the Apostolic faith – what was handed down by Christ through his Apostles. We as Christ’s family of faith share in the responsibility of maintain a healthy sensus fidelium – sense of the faith, to help the Church suss out whether or not we are hearing Christ in his representatives.
So, that principle of welcoming the Apostle, means also welcoming what is truly apostolic. The proof of that is more than a professed love of Jesus, it’s more than a priest’s robes, more than credentials from a Catholic institution – it’s a true faithfulness to the generations of the Apostles’ successors, the bishops, but also the people who’ve journeyed under their guidance, in keeping the faith in face of persecutions, wars, heresies and schisms. We know that faithful support of the Apostolic faith has meant continuing life for the Church – as the support of Elisha by the woman of Shunem resulted in the prophet’s blessing that gave her a son to support her, and to carry on her family. Insofar as we don’t do this, we see life drain away. So, for the person in sincere search of God we have welcome, and the warmest of greetings we give to the faithful preacher and teacher. By this, we cannot lose, but rather gain our reward.
Amen.