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Introduction: A New Family Being Born 
       
This Gospel is a continuation of last week’s Scripture reading and is a collection of discipleship sayings that round out Matthew’s discourse on mission. The conditions of discipleship outlined in this Sunday’s Gospel may appear pretty harsh. Yet they underline for us today a truth – choosing anything with one’s whole heart has consequences. For example, every married person knows that their commitment for life “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” has major consequences. Love is hard. Commitment can be harsh. 
  
Choosing life with Christ means that every relationship we have must be understood from an entirely new perspective. We see everything through the eyes of Christ. For many in Matthew’s community of the first century, this choice brought division to their family. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me …..” And for us today, family divisions may result from our allegiance to Jesus and His Way and His priorities. Family, friends, co-workers often may not understand or even appreciate where we stand on certain moral issues or values. This can be painful. However, Jesus’ purpose was not to create division for He supports and affirms marriages and families. But His coming certainly did provoke opposing responses in His time as well as in our own. 

Jesus ushered in a new family, a community of believers, a beloved family of all cultures and races, an extended family that would welcome all. The vocation of disciples necessarily relativizes all other relations and obligations in favor of the new family that is the community of disciples. When a child or an adult is baptized, he or she enters this beloved community with great joy – but with greater responsibilities to live in a way consistent with Jesus’ teachings. “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” This is a hard saying, but reflects the cost of discipleship.

I would invite you to take time to read and ponder the words from the Gospel of Matthew 10: 37-42.

What word of words caught your attention?
What in this passage comforted you?
What in this passage challenged you?

Further Reflections and Questions:

“This is the first time we find the word cross in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus’ words here are a shocking paradox that are meant to put one’s priorities in perspective. (Paradox comes from the Greek – meaning “against common opinion.”) For Jesus, discipleship is worth everything, worth more even than one’s family (in the ancient world, family was everything) or one’s life on earth. As Jesus says, what truly matters is not one’s literal life but one’s soul, life in God’s Divine Kingdom.” —Mahri Leonard-Fleckman 
 
“To be clear, there are versions of Christianity out there that deny the centrality of the cross in the life of faith. Versions that say: ‘You don’t have to do the hard thing. You don’t have to take this faith business so seriously. You don’t have to engage deeply or take any real risks. You don’t have to die to yourself to live.’”  —Debbie Thomas – St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

“Whoever does not take up his cross …”

Identify a cross in your own life. How are you responding to it? Your feelings?

When you gaze on the Crucified Jesus, what do you see? What is He saying to you?

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Where am I laying down my life for others?

Ponder: The Cross is not a historical artifact. The Cross is a way forward – our only way forward.

                  
Deacon David

Deacon David Suley
St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church
Silver Spring, Maryland

Published with Permission

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