Homily for the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C) August 17, 2025
The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.
Transcript:
“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to set the earth on fire. From now on a household of five will be divided’ ‘for the sake of the joy that lay before.’” Words taken from our gospel reading according to Luke and our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews.
In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Everything is about “family” these days.
By this I mean a lot things can come with a veneer of “family.”
Yes, there is the proper stress and importance that needs to be placed true family relationships in our culture and society – and we naturally do this, and this is good.
And there is even things inspired by family and need to protect its formation such as “family friendly” content and “family values” – this is all well and good.
And then it kinda gets out of hand.
We got the language of family going on places we know full well aint’t really family in true sense but we call it that anyway from different motives.
Sometimes the motive is to get you to buy chicken alfredo at Olive Garden with slogans like: “When you’re here you’re family.”
Sometimes the motive is to keep you to subscribed to YouTube channel with influencers telling perfect strangers behind a screen that they “love you guys” and to “smash that subscribe button” because apparently we all part of the “fam.”
– In that case I am subscribed to 50-some-odd “families.”
And sometimes the motive is to get you to come to work because “we’re not just co-workers; we are a family” here at Wal-Mart.
So if the whole world is about “family”, then what is Jesus doing in this gospel this weekend:
- Talking ‘bout I going to turn the house into a boxing ring,
- And divide Homer Simpson from Bart Simpson,
- Opie Taylor from Andy Taylor
- Clair Huxtable against Ruby Huxtable
- Darlene against Rosanne
- And Marie Barone against Debra Barone (though they already be fighting – but you get the point).
Jesus is “supposed” unite all the nations, but He seems to want to bring division to the most basic unit of society – what’s up with that?
You know, the reason why different entities use family-language (or “fam-words”, if you will) is because in some shape or form they what you to make a commitment, and commitments means something even in the trivial things of life because:
- Commitments to the Big Mac keep McDonalds afloat, (we call that “customer loyalty”).
- Commitments to content keep YouTube channels from looking like MySpace (that’s joke for my fellow millennials out there) (we call that “viewer retention”)
- Commitments to our fellow man to seek the common good together keep everybody alive, (we call that the “social contract”)
- And commitments to the Body of Christ help get you and I to heaven, (we call that “the communion of the saints”)
And the most important Commitment kept in the right way means every other commitment can be truly fulfilled and that is what I believe is at least part of what Jesus is doing in this gospel this weekend.
Because Jesus reminds us that there a commitment higher than even family (and by extension friendships and everything else): that is our to commitment to God,
– Because this commitment is a covenant that covers our whole heart, our whole mind, our whole soul, our whole body – OUR WHOLE LIFE.
Part of Jesus’s overall claims for Himself throughout the four gospels is that commitment to Him and His way of life for us is more important that anything else.
And we see this when He says things like: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of Me” in Matthew 10: 37.
Through these sorts of statements Jesus is essentially claiming divinity because, as scholars have noted, in Judaism, both ancient and newer, family ties could only be morally withheld for the sake of God or His Law.
And in our gospel today Jesus us saying that loyalty to Him is even more important than family unity, especially if what marks for family unity, gets in the way of His way for all our lives.
When Jesus is talking about division – He is really saying that true peace and unity is only possible if we embrace Him in faith.
Jesus’s disciples must be willing to bear even with divisions that might result among family members (and friends and co-workers and subscribers – I might add) who do not share the same commitment to Law of Christ,
– Because it could happen.
But why is it like this?
Why does Jesus command such a strong commitment?
Why are stakes this high when it comes to Jesus?
Why is Jesus higher the family and friends?
That question answers itself – because the Most High is the most high.
It is this way because Jesus is God – ENOUGH SAID.
But since we gotta make this homily worth its money, let me go a little further.
Because with Jesus we wouldn’t have family or friends because God created us all and gave us the capacity for relationship and communion by making us all in the Image of God,
The God who is a Trinity of relationship and communion,
which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Because God is the source of all family relationships.
Because as long as there is sin and evil, especially the same and evil we voluntarily release into the world, all our relationships and families can be corrupted and fail and turn into estrangements of hurt and loneliness, which is impossible on a human level to heal and reconcile completely.
– only Jesus can fix and heal every broken relationship.
Because we have a broken relationship with God our Father in the family of creation,
Who are we to think any of our relationships can live to their fullest potential apart from God when our relationship with Him remains broken?But this is also because the number one priority in our lives should be Jesus.
And if any relationship or any commitment causes us to violate our commitment to Jesus then we should choose to serve God rather than man.
This is true for family, friends, or any other type of commitment.
Though we should still love the people in our relationships with the love of Jesus,
We need to be clear we reject violations of the Law of Christ, but we are not rejecting them personally.
Now what can these violations look like?
They come from peer pressure or the desire to fit in in family or friend groups to slack on religious commitments when others generally lean away from religion.
They come in the form of tension between the demands of the workplace verse what the Church may be asking us to do or stand up for.
Lastly they can even be found within the household of the human heart, and I want to draw focus on this to round out this homily.
Because sometimes in a spiritual life we can make family members out of our sins maintain ties with vices under the roof of our souls because we know them so well.
There is sister pride and brother lust.
Cousin vanity and uncle gluttony.
Grandpa anger and mother-in-law (I will let you fill in the blank).
For this is why Jesus came,
Not to bring peace, but a sword of righteousness to divide us from every sin that we have grown accustomed to like family.
And divide us from every earthly commitment in our lives that tears us away from Him.
And once Jesus does this with us,
He will unite us to God the Father and we shall have true peace.
In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Hendersonville, TN.