14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen/Prince of Peace
July 8/9, 2023
The Myth of Self-Sufficiency
From time to time, every organization has a bottleneck, a co-worker who slows things down, a co-worker whose desk is the graveyard of projects and plans. Often (though not always), such colleagues are neither lazy nor apathetic. In fact, they may be hard workers who take on too much responsibility, who don’t delegate or collaborate or seek advice and help from others. And they pin their self-worth and value as an employee on being self-sufficient.
In American culture, self-sufficiency is often touted as a virtue. We admire people who are “self-made”, people who “have their act together”. But most successful people are anything but self-sufficient. They’re smart enough to know their own shortcomings, and where to turn for advice and help. Nor do they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Sharing their successes and burdens with others, they remain upbeat and optimistic.
My point here is not to offer tips for worldly success, but only to say that, in today’s Gospel, Jesus explodes the myth of spiritual self-sufficiency: the false notion that we can be spiritually self-made; that we make ourselves virtuous and happy without anyone’s help; and that we can bear the burdens of life on our own – as if we were more like the mythical god, Atlas, than like Jesus! Aware of our need, let’s take a second look at the Gospel we just heard.
“The Little Ones”
Listening to today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel is like eavesdropping on Jesus’ conversation with his heavenly Father. In his prayer, Jesus thanks his Father for revealing his love not to the self-righteous, nor to the self-sufficient, nor to the sophisticated, but rather to “the little ones”, to those who are “poor in spirit”, “meek and mild,” to those who are not full of themselves and stuck on their own ideas, projects, and plans. To these little ones, the Father the sends the Holy Spirit who opens their eyes to Jesus, and to the love he came to reveal and unleash in a world laid low by sin.
What’s more, the very fact of Jesus’ prayer tells us that God’s Son in the flesh did not regard himself as self-sufficient. Meek and humble of heart, Jesus prayed to his Father with a perfectly receptive heart. In turn, the Father shared everything with his Incarnate Son. Without the Father, the Son would not exist. Without the Father’s wisdom and love, the Incarnate Son could not have accomplished his mission to save the world. So we find Jesus, God’s Son in the flesh, praying to his Father in the Holy Spirit, praying in the bond of love he shared with his Father from all eternity.
It is his eternal relationship of love with the Father that Jesus reveals and invites us to share in – provided that we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit. After all, it is the Spirit who cleanses our hearts from every illusion of self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, and pseudo-sophistication. Only those who are repentant and receptive can share in the peace, love, goodness, and joy in the heart of God, and reflect that love in their relationships, attitudes, and decisions.
“Come to Me!”
From the depths of his prayer, Jesus addresses us. He says: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus offers this invitation to us with all the compassion and authority of his Father. He invites us to lay aside our illusions and to embrace the reality of his love. He invites us to decide definitively against the myth of self-sufficiency, and to turn instead to him, “the Shepherd and guardian of our souls” (1 Pet 2:25), who day by day bears our burdens (cf. Ps 68:20).
In last week’s Gospel, Jesus invited us to take up our Cross and follow him. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulder, to exchange the heavy burden of our sins and our illusions of self-sufficiency for the yoke of his Cross, the true source of our salvation and joy … … and right about now you might be having second thoughts. You may find yourself saying that the Cross of Christ is heavy indeed as you think of all the burdens laid upon your shoulders, burdens which the Lord has asked you to bear as our share in his Cross. … If so, you are not alone. Even St. Theresa of Avila, in a moment of frustration, said to her beloved Lord: “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!”
When we think that life’s burdens are too heavy to bear, then let us hear Jesus say to us “…learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Jesus’ Cross was the heaviest, yet he did not complain or shrink from it, nor did he attempt to bear his Cross apart from the Father or even without us. No, Jesus bore his Cross with humility and love and now he invites us to do the same, whether our crosses are self-imposed or imposed upon us by others. But as St. Paul teaches, if we remain “in the flesh”, if all our desires and hopes are confined to the pleasures of this world, then the burdens that come our way will be very heavy indeed. But if we live “in the Spirit” – as Jesus most assuredly did – then the burdens, the crosses, the yoke that we are asked to bear will seem light. We’ll see them as a sharing in the Lord’s death and resurrection by which we are saved. And once we have encountered Christ and experienced his love for us, then we, like the first disciples, we may even find ourselves rejoicing in our sufferings, rejoicing that we can suffer for the Name above every other name.
Journeying Together
Dear friends, I don’t mind telling you that in these past months, as the burdens of my office have grown heavier, today’s Gospel is one of those Scripture passages that I have taken to heart. My hope is that you will also find our Savior’s teaching consoling and life-giving in the crosses and burdens you have been called to bear. United in the Lord, we may help one another bear the burdens of life as we journey towards the Kingdom of God. And may God bless you and keep you always in his love.