The Cost of Love
by Fr. Rich Jasper
Dearest Woman of Shunem,
How beautiful your soul for welcoming the stranger, Elisha, into your home, caring for him and providing for him.
You knew he was a holy man because you yourself certainly had a space for God in your life and heart. How else would you know that Elisha was a prophet?
You never offered the food and lodging to him expecting something in return. There’s a lesson in that for all of us, I think. If I were honest, I am sure that so many of my interactions are an unconscious (and, truthfully, sometimes a very-much-aware) embracing of the old adage: “I’ll scratch your back; you scratch mine.”
Not you, though. You gave from the heart, never once expecting anything from the holy man Elisha.
Fascinating, too, that your own wealth and influence did not blind you to the needs of others. It was never about your own power or prestige or comfort.
Could it be that you learned to see others – really see them – because underneath it all you had carried a heavy cross of your own? Could it be that your life-long infertility made you see and feel things differently?
I’m learning, dear woman of Shunem, that it’s often in the crosses we carry where we learn how to love. Really love – the way that God does.
Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel: “Whoever does not take up his or her cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”
It sounds harsh, I know. It almost sounds cruel. Why would Christ our Savior tell us that we aren’t worthy of Him if we don’t walk the same road of Calvary as he does?
It isn’t because He wants to see us suffer. And it isn’t even because He needs us to suffer with him. He doesn’t need our suffering at all. We are not the saviors of the world, as much as we often take on the role ourselves.
Christ alone saves. Period. End of story.
And yet, Jesus does invite us to a deeper relationship with him and with others. He invites us to be transformed and changed. The only way I can put it is like this: If we really want to be a Christian disciple, then we must live like him in every way: letting the cross we carry empty us so that He alone can fill us.
You know, dear lady of Shunem, how quickly we try to fill ourselves with “things” so that we can avoid doing the hard work of cross-carrying and emptying ourselves of selfish sin. We’d rather live comfortably numb so that we don’t have to go deeper into letting the pain be healed. Walls are so easy to put up, but not tear down, right?
But, when we embrace the cross daily and follow after Him, then bricks slowly start falling from the protection around the hearts that have grown callous and cold. And when our hearts are set free through the Cross, then and only then does the grace of God coming flooding in.
Your broken heart changed you because you let God in to that space. You let Him use it.
I find it so beautiful that your cross of not being able to bear children – as truly crushing as that must have been for you – did not make you bitter. It made you better, because God transformed it in grace through your willingness to offer it back to Him. He used it to make you see and love as he does.
Ultimately, it was this which made you worthy of Him. It gave you a hospitable heart: receiving God in the others who came into your life, and you became God’s instrument for the world.
You, too, became a prophet, Woman of Shunem, because your life now is used to inspire us and call us to a new beginning. Your life and trust – your willingness to carry the cross – now challenges us with the following powerful thoughts:
Imagine living as a community of fellow travelers who open their own lives to others who are in pain and seeking mercy …
Imagine living as neighbors who are always willing to see the other person – especially when they are different from us – and truly allowing our transformed crosses help others to carry theirs.
So many people are walking their own personal Calvary today, knowing neither that God will take their crosses and transform them nor that there really are other people who are willing to step-up and say: “I’m here. Let me help you.”
Yes, doing so will cost us. Carrying a cross always does. But it will never leave us the same, if we offer it back to Him.
Perhaps the question our Lord is asking us through the Scriptures – and especially the Lady of Shunem -- this weekend is this: What Cross can you offer Him today, right now? What part of your life that hurts so deeply do you still need to let Him take and transform, just as He does bread for our Eucharist?
Not to shame you. Not to overwhelm you with feelings of doubt or guilt or inadequacy. None of these are why Jesus tells us to take up our cross.
He does it because it is the only way to love authentically and to live authentically. It is the only way to put God first and receive the grace that He longs to pour into our lives. It is the way to discipleship, and the way He uses us to reveal Him to the world. Elisha and the Woman of Shunem aren’t the only ones called to be prophets.
We are, too. But we can’t be unless we are also willing to offer Him our Cross, be changed for the better by it, and then help others carry theirs.
The Cross and Love are one-in-the-same.
Both cost much … but it is truly the only way to live with hearts that are no longer surrounded by walls of division, anger, fear and hate.
Like the woman at Shunem, wait until you see the blessings that will come …