Carrying our Cross makes God meet us Halfway
2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42
Anyone touched by God sees something good in everyone else. The touch of God makes us to desire whatever that is good for others as well. We feel deeply within us the pains of others, and we take steps to alleviate the sufferings and inconveniences of others. This is a common knowledge in our communities and families. We teach our children to say “thank you” for gifts received, we encourage them to be generous, respectful and humble. Why? because we want them to realize that whatever they possess is a gift from God, and the need to share with others; we teach them that the excesses we have of wealth, intelligence, beauty and resources must be shared with others and not for hoarding. This is the message of this Sunday—sharing with others, so that they can share their own gifts with us in return.
The Shunammite couple, in our first reading, was blessed with material wealth. That wealth could be as a result of their hard work or the deployment of their intelligence or business acumen. Whatever the case may be, what makes them exceptional is the pain they felt for the sufferings of others, and the initiative they took to alleviate the suffering of Elisha—they provided bed and board for Elisha, someone they did not really know, but they saw his humanity. The process was set in motion by the woman. Her husband must be a good man not to have suspected his wife of either having an affair or planning to do so, given that they had no children. Their generosity was matched and surpassed by God: “Elisha promised, ‘This time next year you will be fondling a baby son’” (2 Kings 4:16). God rewarded their generosity and alleviated the cross of childlessness they were carrying.
For those who know how to listen, like the Shunammite couple, they hear the voice of God inviting them to take action to right poverty. Despite the attendant dangers in doing good for others—peoples incomprehension—they trust that God sees their hearts and good intentions. Such people get surprised by God. The Shunammite couple couldn’t buy a child, in spite of their wealth; but they received a gift of a son, through the prayers of a poverty stricken prophet. After all, when God called Elisha, he cooked all his farm animals and fed his workers with their meat—his whole wealth and source of livelihood disappeared in a single day (1 Kings 19:19-21). How awesome our God is to those who trust in him completely: Elisha’s cross of poverty was attended to and he became a source of blessing for his benefactors! Carrying our Cross makes God meet us Halfway.
Our gospel presents hospitality and generosity done to four classes of people: apostles, prophets, righteous persons and “little ones”. Our society is stratified into these four groups, with the majority of us classed with the “little ones”. However, to demonstrate to us that charity or generosity with our gifts to others is not easy, three classes of excuses we usually give for refusing to be generous are presented to us: responsibilities to our parents, children and preservation of our wealth—“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37-38).
Everyone has got a cross to carry. Like Elisha who gave up everything and became poor—carrying his prophetic cross—for the sake of doing the will of God, the apostles and others gave up everything as well. The rich Shunammite couple carried the cross of childlessness. Yet, Elisha and the Shunamite couple served the Lord, despite their crosses. Instead of complaining and making excuses, it is the money saved up for taking care of one’s parents and children/family that must be used to take care of everybody living in poverty—carrying the cross of generosity to help others. To hoard our wealth is to delist ourselves from God’s other blessings to us besides material wealth. And to refuse to embrace poverty as the apostles, prophets, priests, religious and righteous persons is to reject the mission God gives to those called to serve God as his ministers—the rejection of the cross God invites us to carry.
Generosity does not require a great deal of wealth, for anyone to feel dispensed from it; a cup of water to a thirsty person suffices as generosity: “And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42). Everyone is rich enough to share something, no matter how little, with others. It is sin—especially greed and lack of faith—that prevents us from sharing with others. Our second reading suggests that we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive with God in Jesus Christ, if we must conquer poverty through generosity: “you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). It is the exercise of our Christianity that can transform us into generous people, following the example of Jesus Christ into whose death we were all baptized.
Do not look for the solution to poverty from others, do something yourself—give as much as a cup of water to a stranger. It is not the anger against rich people that matters; rather, your generosity towards them, especially with a joyful heart that your poverty and mine have not dehumanized us. We need to realize that the rich also cry and suffer a different kind of poverty—loneliness, ill-health, barrenness—wealth does not satisfy every human need! When you are happy in your poverty, in your barrenness, in carrying whatever cross you have to carry, the greedy person begins to see the worthlessness in material possession. Your greed and mine give importance to wealth. When we all invest in humanity and humanization, wealth will come, happiness and love will abide with us.
Let us conclude with a story: Once upon a time, a very rich barren couple was desperately looking for the gift of children. They prayed hard at their intention, but it was as if God was deaf to their prayers. Being rich, they went after medical solution to their desire to have children. In fact, they spent so much that they became poor, yet without having any children. One day, God promised to send them three parcels, and they could only choose one among them. The three parcels traveled to them in three forms: child, money and contentment. The couple reasoned between themselves about what their choice should be: the woman wanted to choose “child,” but her husband reminded her of their present poverty and the inability to raise a child without money. The man wanted to choose “money,” his wife protested because they were once rich and had tasted wealth before. Finally, they chose “contentment”. The other two parcels—child and money—departed to return to God. There was a river they crossed on their way to this couple, and “contentment” was the only swimmer among the three and helped the other two to swim across. At the bank of this river, unable to cross and return to God, “money” and “child” thought to each other: since we are unable to return to God, let us return to live with “contentment”. That was how this couple ended up with their wealth restored, a child given them and they found contentment!