You Can’t Be Neutral About Jesus - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

You Can’t Be Neutral About Jesus - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

You Can’t Be Neutral About Jesus

Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon 

Friends, there is no religious figure anywhere in the religions or philosophies of the world who is stranger, more demanding, more relentless, and more unnerving than Jesus. And therefore the religion attached to Jesus is the strangest of them all. Exhibit A is our Gospel from Matthew 10. What Jesus says to his Apostles about himself, no other spiritual teacher would say. And you can’t be neutral about it: you have make a decision about Jesus. 

July 1,2023 

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Gospel: Mt 10:37-42

 

Jesus said to his apostles: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple— amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward." 

*United States Conference of Catholic 

Bishop Robert Barron

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus lays down the condition for discipleship: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. . . . Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Well, let’s perform a little thought experiment. Could you imagine any other religious leader or religious founder saying such a thing? 

Could you honestly imagine Mohammed saying it? No! He might say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than the Quran . . .” Could you honestly imagine the Buddha saying it? No! He might say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than my teaching . . .” Could you imagine Moses saying it? No! Perhaps he would say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than the Lord . . .” 

But they wouldn’t say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” This is precisely what Jesus says, which makes all the difference. For he is not one religious founder among many, not one prophet of the truth in a long line of prophets. He is the one to whom all religions, directly or indirectly, point; he is, in person, the truth to which all prophets testify.