Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 386

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

Any reflection on this verse from the Gospel of Saint Matthew must begin with a contemplation of the "cost you have received." If my spirit is willing and God's Spirit moves within my willingness I should come out with a decision that is practical, desirable and satisfying.

History plays its part. I remember a visiting priest at Saint Denis Church (Louisville, Kentucky) when I was a boy. He urged the congregation to "Give till it hurts!" I remember my parents deciding to do so. I can't say they did so with any apparent glee, but glee wasn't their manner in most respects. It was more like a privilege which they willingly undertook. And they didn't mind telling us it was the right thing to do.

I realize that if I give without cost, I am simply taking up a tradition much older than myself. Many generations of generous people have taught me the faith I enjoy today.

That tradition of many generations begins with that "ur-gift" which God could not afford to give. I am thinking of my homily blog of Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter. Abraham's "Sacrifice of Isaac" would make no sense if it were not a "type" which foreshadowed the sacrifice of God's only beloved son.

The Christian life anchored in John 3:16 -- "For God so loved the world..." -- is a life of sacrifice. But it is also a way in which the saints run with ever increasing enthusiasm. What feels like ought, should and have-to to the Pharisee is greeted with delight by the one who has contemplated -- that is to say, fully experienced -- the superabundant mercy of God.

This instruction -- "without cost you are to give" -- accompanies the way of life Jesus describes for his missionaries. As they travel to foreign countries by foot and galley, their provisions will be spent before they arrive. They will rely on the natives for sustenance; eating their food, sleeping in their homes, and accommodating themselves to very different cultures. They will "freely receive" from their hosts even as they freely give the Good News of Jesus Christ. If there is hardship at first, it will pass as their gospel is welcomed. If their gospel is welcomed. 

Some of that welcome will depend upon how well they honor and respect their hosts. If the missionaries believes their own culture is superior to to this strange one, the welcome might wear thin pretty soon. If they delight in the kindness of their hosts and forget their familiar homeland, their welcome will be prolonged. That ability to enter another culture and discover its charm without reluctance or nostalgia for the past, without counting the cost, is the missionary's "death to self." 

Living with future shock in a culture that is less and less familiar, many Christians find themselves already living in a foreign land. The Lord has sent many of us to this new time and this same place, with the careful instruction, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."