Monday 28 June 2021
St Irenaeus
Genesis 18:16-33. The Lord is kind and merciful – Ps 102(103):1-4, 8-11. Matthew 8:18-22.
The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head
There’s an intimacy in the way that Abraham speaks with the Lord that is breathtaking. God listens, engages, responds. If we sit with openness to conversation, we might recognise that we are invited to the same intimacy.
Jesus reminds us that such intimacy is not necessarily easy. He ‘has nowhere to lay his head’, and those who intend to follow will have to be open to the same radical freedom. This freedom is available to those who cultivate chastity. Not chastity as prurience but rather as freedom from possessiveness, from the need to subjugate creation, others, God.
Jesus’ language sounds harsh, ‘leave the dead to bury their dead’, but the emphasis might be best placed on the preceding, ‘Follow me’. That invitation calls us to reorientation, because an intimate relationship with Jesus gives the context and value to all else in our lives.
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