God gives us everything: himself

13th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: 2 Kgs 4:8-12a, 14-17
Second Reading: Rom 6:3-4, 8-11
 Gospel Reading: Mt 10:37-42 

God is never outdone in generosity.

In the First Reading, a wealthy woman feeds and houses Elisha. In gratitude Elisha, in God’s name, promises her a son.

In the Second Reading, we hear that if we die to sin, God will raise us from the dead to live with his own life.

In the Gospel Reading, Jesus promises to reward us if we give even a cup of cold water to the least of his brothers and sisters.

People who tithe their incomes, giving one tenth to charity or the Church, confirm that God is generous. At first they were afraid they would have nothing left, they all say, but in fact they manage beautifully.

“I met a group of people who tithed and seemed very joyous about it,” one said. When he suggested that he and his wife do the same thing, his wife was concerned. “We had two young children and a mortgage.”

However, “after much discussion, we started tithing,” he said. “To our surprise, we managed to keep the house, keep our kids clothed and fed, and still go on vacations.”

The late Father Donald Neumann used to preach a homily once a year encouraging parishioners to be generous enough to have another child. He reported similar findings: that no couples ever found themselves in want because they had children. It was people who refused, out of fear that there would not be enough for themselves, who were always worried about finances, he said.

Mother Teresa would never let her sisters solicit funds; she always trusted God for what they needed, and God always provided.

All these examples, however, make it look as though we must give a little first before God will give back.

No; love “consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us,” St. John said. “We, for our part, love because he first loved us.” Even our small impulses of generosity are his gifts to us.

The truth is not that we must give before God will give back, but that we must divest ourselves of anything we prefer to him before we can accept what he wants to give us: himself.

We must not be like Annie in the old musical Annie Get Your Gun. Frank Butler wanted to give her his choicest possessions – his silver medals for shooting – but Annie had nowhere to put them, for her own chest was already covered with gold medals.

Accordingly, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus warns us against putting anything ahead of him: even father, mother, son, or daughter. Those who put this world ahead of the next will lose everything, while those who “make no provision for the desires of the flesh” will gain God, and, with him, 100 times what they think they have lost; that is, everything worth desiring.

We should not be imprudent, giving away our worldly goods and expecting other people to provide for us. However, we should be ready to give them up when love of them conflicts with love of God.

“The right to private property, whether acquired by work or received from others by inheritance or gift, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We should regard our goods not as exclusive to ourselves, but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as ourselves.

Before we can accept God’s generosity, we must make room for his gifts. If we submit to death in our ambitions, goods, and wishes, and, eventually, our bodies, we will find eternal life.

“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay,” said C.S. Lewis. “But look for Christ and you will find him, and with him everything else thrown in.”