Homily Against Toxic Masculinity

 Formally a Homily for the Sunday of all Saints

Matthew (10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30)

 

Today is the Feast of all the Saints and in the gospel our Lord Jesus teaches us about what it takes to be a Saint. He said that we should be confessing him before others. He said that we are to love him above everything else. He also ends his teachings by saying something very peculiar. He says, “The last will be first and the first will be last”.

If you look through the gospels, our Lord repeats this peculiar saying, this saying that’s necessary for becoming a Saint. You will find that he does so at times in order to contradict the worldview that people had.  The worldview at that time for many people was to basically “be like Hercules or you were good for nothing”. Hercules was a mythical figure that represented power and success and that was where people found their value and worth  For example, if you were disabled or unsuccessful in your endeavors you had no value to your tribe or society. In fact, depending on the circumstances, people in these categories were normally considered cursed by God

Unfortunately, this worldview continues today and like some of the god-fearing people that our Lord preached to, we are not immune from having this view. Thankfully, it’s really easy to recognize.  The moment that we start believing that we are better than another individual because of something we have accomplished or something we are successful in: we are guilty. There is nothing wrong with success or accomplishing things but when we start thinking or teaching that other people need to be like us to have value, we need to recall that the “last will be first”.

What our Lord was teaching against becomes even more destructive for religious people. If you recall our Lord, spoke about this directly when he taught us about the publican and the pharisee going into the temple. The pharisee was doing everything right and as he said he was not like the sinful publican, but the publican just sat in the temple saying, “Lord have mercy”. I’m sure God was very happy at the pharisee for doing all the good things that he was doing but it became sinful when he started thinking he had more value to God than the sinful publican.

There is a good story that I heard, its about how God considers our worth and value. There was this man who was a successful athlete. He made a lot of money and had a big family. However, one day he got in a horrible accident and became a paraplegic. Eventually, he ended up trying to take his own life. After his attempt, his family priest came to visit him in the hospital. He ended up telling his priest that he did not want to live because he no longer felt like a man due to the fact that his wife ended up going to work to take care of his family. The priest then said something shocking, he said to him that he wouldn’t want to live either with that understanding of manhood. He then went on to tell him that being a man is in how you love and serve someone and making money is not the only way to do that. It’s in how you choose to be like God to your family, he then said, “you might not ever be able to take care of your family financially but that doesn’t mean that you can’t love them like God loves them, that’s what going to make you a real man”. As the priest said, it's in being like God,  that is where we find our value.

In the world that we live in there are people that we will meet that will never be like Hercules. They will never be powerful, they will never be successful, and in some way, they will never measure up to whatever social standards that be. Nevertheless, the last will be first as the Lord says. These people who are considered “last” will be first because their worth and value are based on the fact that they are made in God’s image and likeness. This is the value that our saints recognized in people, a value that made them saints.  As people who are becoming saints, this is the value that the gospel teaches us today to see in ourselves and in others.