Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary
Lk 14:25-33
September 4, 2022

You may never be as wise as an owl… But you will always be a hoot to me!

Pretty corny, right?

But considering how severe the Gospel is…it seemed like a good idea to begin with a laugh…or at least a groan. The Church did something similar.

The passage from Luke is “softened” somewhat by the First Reading from the Book of Wisdom. There, we are reminded that God’s ways are not our ways…and the mind and will of our Creator are way, way, way too much for us to wrap our fragile minds around. There is some comfort in that, especially when we find a Scripture passage particularly challenging.

Still, we were created in the image and likeness of God. Accordingly, we are not totally without wisdom. And maybe wisdom grows, develops, and matures with age. The Roman philosopher Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is quoted as saying: “For there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.”

I think that this little slice of “secular wisdom” is especially true in terms of our spiritual lives. In other words, “the wisdom of age” has a way of lifting the fog that prevents us from enjoying a clearer vision of what awaits us when we are finally free of…that is to say…no longer a slave to…time…or the demands of our flesh and bones.

Think of it this way. Even as cataracts begin to cloud our vision of things around us, our spirits begin to see ever more clearly what God intends for those who love…and serve…and yearn to know…yearn for wisdom. The more we are liberated from our earthly bodies, the more our spiritual selves are freed to explore what “while in the flesh” seems so far above and beyond us.

All this to suggest that as we grow older, the notion of hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters…becomes a bit less daunting. Simply put, with the passage of time, our worldly relationships, desires, passions, goals, and objectives begin to slowly lose their hold on us. Our world gets smaller and smaller with age. At the same time, however, our relationship with God and our desire for things “other worldly” begins to dominate all else.

Certainly, there are younger people who enjoy this kind of profound wisdom before they need the support of a walker. They are called saints…disciples…seekers…servers! It is a wonderful gift to walk through this life with the freedom that comes from mature wisdom. On the other hand, whatever our age might be…although few are as wise as an owl…God takes enormous delight in each and every one of us…and waits patiently for us to “wise up!”