(Homily for June 17-18, 2023, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings are Exodus 19:2-6, Psalm 100, Romans 5:6-11, and Matthew 9:36-10:8.)

Happy Father’s Day, all you fellow fathers, godfathers, grandfathers, fathers-in-law, father figures, and mothers who are doing the work of a father too. Thank God for all of our fathers, and thank God for the people who look up to us fathers. Glad we have you.

When I started reading the scripture selections, preparing for my turn up here, I could not help seeing images of a father’s love in there. In the first reading, God says to the people of Israel, you’re special to me; I’m glad I have you. I took care of you; I got you out of trouble in Egypt. I treasure you. You are dearer to me than all the other people.

It sounds like the way I feel about my kids. They are a treasure to me.

The psalm response after the first reading celebrates the relationship of God to the people. We belong to him and he takes care of us. We’d be in trouble if we did not have him taking care of us. This sounds like how I felt about my father, growing up. I needed him. He took care of me, my brothers and sisters, and our mother. We had a family, a happy home, because of him and Mom. We all turned into people who continue to take care of each other.

The second reading reminds us that Jesus laid down his life for the people he loved. St. Paul suggests we think about that from this perspective: It’s hard, he says, to sacrifice your own life for a good person. “Only with difficulty,” he says, can someone do that, die for a just person. That’s a harder thing than most of us are up for. Paul reminds us that Christ died for us sinners.

It’s challenging, he says, to make that sacrifice even for someone who is admirable. It’s never easy, but think how hard it must be to make the ultimate sacrifice for someone who is being a jerk. Christ gave his life for someone who was being a jerk. For someone who didn’t appreciate what he was doing.

This again reminds me of my father, who made sacrifices for me, even when I was being a jerk and didn’t appreciate what he was doing. I think he is the biggest reason I am less of a jerk today than I was back in the day.

That also seems to be Paul’s point about reconciliation in the second reading. Because of the death and resurrection of Christ we sinners are reconciled to God, the loving father who always wants us back. Because of Christ’s love shared with us, he says, we can boast now of God through Jesus. Put another way, Christ died for us even while we were being jerks, and because of him, we can live like him; we can stop being jerks.

Now I know the Fathers’ Day we celebrate is a secular American thing, not a church thing, and I know these readings have been around for centuries and that they weren’t chosen because they go nicely with Fathers’ Day.

Some Christians in America have a tendency to forget that there was Christ before there was America, and that our love for Christ, our devotion to him, is something different from our love of country. Something different in depth, richness and importance. Christ is more important to who we are than America is. Everybody who gets that is nodding along and thinking, well, of course; everybody knows that. But there are people who don’t get the distinction between God and country, and who would not appreciate me pointing it out. Pray for them.

A lot of men have a rocky relationship with their fathers. I certainly did, some of the time, not all of the time. In the long run, the relationship returned to where it began: he loved me and I loved him.

What we are all about here is the relationship we have with the loving Father who created us in his own image and likeness. Sometimes that relationship can get rocky, but we know how it began – we see it in a father’s awestruck love for a new baby. The gospel today is about mission, and we’re all on a mission too.

Our mission is about working on that relationship with our loving Father, and returning it to how it began: God loving us (which is always going on) and us loving him. All our lives, we have received that love. All of our lives, we are invited to return that love, and to figure out how. Which leads me to the end of today’s gospel: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

The mission sends us toward each other. In this gospel, Matthew names the 12 apostles whom Jesus sent to tell the people that the kingdom of God is at hand. The life you’ve been hoping for and waiting for is within your reach. Get out there among the people, Jesus tells them, and take their hurts away. “Without cost you have received;” he tells them. “Without cost you are to give.”

We listen to those words, and I think what we hear is “give without counting the cost.” Is it just me, or does it sound like that to everybody? Maybe it’s the Jesuit education: St. Ignatius of Loyola had a prayer,

Jesus, teach me to be generous;
teach me to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to seek reward,
except that of knowing that I do your will.

Because of St. Ignatius and the Jesuits, I hear, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give,” and I think, okay, that must mean give, and do not count the cost.

But what if Jesus is trying to tell us that giving is not going to cost you anything?
It doesn’t cost you anything to be good to other people.
It doesn’t cost anything to treat people the way you would want them to treat you.

Sounds like something a good father would say, doesn’t it?