Roc Homily #2 – Twenty-Third Sunday Ordinary Time 2016

Punchline for Homily – 23rd Sunday Ordinary Time:  Surrender everything that you rely on for security so as to find security in following Christ.

Here are two key words I dealt with in my homily:  “Hate” mother and father, etc. means to reject and separate, which leaves a person in a very vulnerable spot.

To hate; reject (aversion with a sense of separation) = miseo

Luke 14:26 (NRSV) — 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Luke 16:12f (NRSV) — 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise [katafroneo] the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

and… “Build a tower” which looks like the common human project of becoming each our own gods.

Tower = turgos

Luke 14:28 (NRSV) — 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?

Genesis 11:8f (NRSV) — 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city [and the tower]. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Isaiah 2:12–15 (NRSV) — 12 For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high; 13 against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan; 14 against all the high mountains, and against all the lofty hills; 15 against every high tower, and against every fortified wall;