Bishop Barron preaches on detachment from worldly goods and attachment to God alone
A Sunday sermon by Bishop Barron on Matthew Chapter 10, exploring the spiritual principle of detachment.
Summary
Drawing from Matthew Chapter 10 and continuing a theme from the previous week, this Sunday sermon argues that Jesus's teaching is consistently astonishing and unlike any other spiritual tradition, and that failing to recognize this means one has not truly grasped it. The central claim is that the spiritual life requires complete detachment from even the greatest worldly goods — including family love — so that God alone occupies the place of the highest good, the summum bonum. The sermon connects this to the story of Abraham and Isaac, the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy, and Augustine's insight that mistaking a creature for the Creator is the root of all spiritual trouble.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Taking Jesus's Teaching Seriously
Bishop Barron: Peace be with you. Friends, we are reading this week, as last week, from the tenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. I mentioned last week that, though the primary stress in the Gospels is on who Jesus is — look at our great creeds, we don't talk about his teaching at all, we talk about who he is — it doesn't mean we ignore his teaching. On the contrary, it's because of who he is that we take his teaching with such seriousness.
And his teaching is, as always, astonishing. To say, "Oh, he just echoes what all the great spiritual teachers say" — well, there are points of contact, of course, points of overlap, but Jesus's teaching is strange to everybody. And if we don't get that, if we say, "Oh, Jesus's teaching is nice — be nice to people, love your neighbor" — well, that's pretty superficial. Unless his teaching takes your breath away, you're probably not really getting it.
Last Week's Theme: Fear Nobody
So last week we heard him say to his disciples, "Fear nobody." And I suggested — who would take that seriously? How would you possibly go through life not fearing anybody? Fear is a big part of human life, and people use our fears to manipulate us. Well, I can say that if I've made a conversion, a metanoia, a transition from the body — the relatively superficial dimension of my life — to the soul, the depth dimension, standing there, I mentioned last week, you could say like Martin Luther King at the end of his life: "I'm not fearing anybody. I've been to the mountaintop." You could be in Teresa of Ávila's interior castle, the place of safety, even as havoc is being wreaked all around you, but you're in the interior castle.
So that was last week's teaching. Something I wanted to mention then — I'll do it now. Look how much of our culture is predicated upon safety: being safe, safe spaces, feeling threatened, not having anybody challenge us, retreating into our safe place. "Fear nobody," Jesus says. To live in this sort of constant fear is an anti-spiritual attitude. It means that we are preoccupied with the goods of the body that we might lose. Metanoia means you move to a deeper place.
This Week's Theme: Detachment
That's really what I said last week. I bring it up again because in many ways the teaching today is making the same point but using a different approach, a different image. Last week was fear — things I'm afraid of losing. This week it's detachment. What is my relationship to the goods of the world to which I have perhaps become inordinately attached?
Now, I want to be really careful as I commence this, because as I've said to you many times, Christianity — authentic Christianity — is not puritanical. It doesn't set soul and body in stark opposition. It doesn't put the spiritual and the material in stark opposition. No. Everything God made is good. The ensemble of what he made is very good. And that means the trees, the water, the mountains, the sky, the planets, the sun. It means the body. Yes, indeed. It means even insects that crawl upon the earth. Genesis goes out of its way to say all these things are good.
Why? Because many spiritual systems and religions play the dualistic game of: yes, these material things — including my body — are real, but they're bad, they're just a source of temptation, and the idea is to escape from them. That's not biblical. So I'm not arguing for that at all.
Rather, think in terms of dimensions. The soul is a kind of depth dimension of the person that includes the body. Thomas Aquinas in fact said that the soul is in the body not as contained by it, but rather as containing it. That's the depth dimension of the self we call the soul. Conversion is moving from the superficial dimension — the body — to this deeper place. So we're not anti-matter. We're not against the body, not against the world.
The Summum Bonum: The Highest Good
What are we against, then? Turning anything in the world into the summum bonum — Latin for the highest good. Is the world good? Yes. Is it very good? Yes. Is it the summum bonum? No. So there's the tension at the heart of Genesis, right? All these things that come forth in this beautiful — I would call it liturgical — procession from God are indeed good. But watch: they are creatures.
All these things mentioned in Genesis, from the moon and stars and planets to the earth, to mountains, to animals, were all worshiped as gods in different cultures at that time, weren't they? Genesis keeps saying, "No, no, no, no, no. These things are not God. Beautiful, good, very good — not summum bonum."
So what's the problem? Here's how St. Augustine put it with typical pith: when I mistake a creature for the Creator, trouble ensues. And look — I've been at this for a long time as a preacher, as a counselor, as a spiritual director. That is one of the most basic insights you can find when you're working with someone and they're suffering, they're struggling. Find the place where they have turned something creaturely into the Creator. They've taken something good from the world and made it the summum bonum. See that? That's where the trouble always is, spiritually speaking.
Jesus's Radical Teaching on Family
How does Jesus make this point? Now listen to his teaching and prepare to have your breath taken away.
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."
Now again, I would say: put this up against the great religious teachings of the world. There is nothing like this. See what he's choosing on purpose — the great goods of the world. He's choosing the highest and the best. Think of a child's love for his parents. Think of a parent's love for his or her children. Those are like the most intense connections you can find among the goods of the world. They're the highest good. You say, "Okay, I'll lose everything — I don't care. Take the house, take the clothes, take my job — but leave my family, and I'll be okay." We recognize them as among the highest goods of the world.
Think of how often we celebrate this in films and stories and legends. Look at a movie like Life is Beautiful — it's all about a father's incredible and intense love for a child. It's a Wonderful Life, or even a movie like Parenthood — a strange, quirky movie, but in some ways it's about these intense loves that obtain between parents and kids. Think of a book like To Kill a Mockingbird — I hope people still read that, it hasn't been cancelled yet. Everybody read that book. And it's about a father and a child. Go to a higher level: think of Cordelia's love for her father in King Lear. These intense connections between parents and children — there's nothing stronger.
Okay, so revisit it: whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. What is he saying? There is a summum bonum, a highest good, that goes beyond any of the goods of the world — even the greatest, even the highest. And the spiritual life is all about making the transition to that love of the Lord.
The Shema and the Jealousy of God
Deuteronomy 6, the Shema prayer: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone. Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. One God. We talk about the monotheism of Judaism — we affirm it every time we recite the Creed: credo in unum Deum. You see, everybody, how spiritually important that is. The operative word there is one. There's only one summum bonum, one highest good. Lots of goods in the world, and the highest worldly goods are like my love for my parents and my kids — but there's a good beyond all of those, and that must be the focus of my soul. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.
How about from Exodus: I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. It doesn't mean God is falling into an emotional snit. It's making this point: there's no rivalry possible. I mean, but — I love my family more than I love God? No. Unless you love me more than your mother and father, more than your children, you're not worthy of me. See how extraordinary that is?
Abraham and Isaac: The Test Case
In light of this, revisit that awful story from the book of Genesis about the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham: "Yes, Lord. Here I am." You know Isaac, your son, your beloved, the child of your old age, who will bear the promise. You know Isaac. "Yeah." "I'd like you to sacrifice Isaac to me."
Now, as we know, the Lord sends the angel to stop the sacrifice. But what is he doing there? He's testing. Does Abraham love the Lord more even than he loves his child? And you say, "Terrible. What a terrible dilemma." Yes, it is. But that story is a test case. It's pressing us into that space where we have to make that decision.
Unless you love me more than your mother and father, more than your children, more than your very life, you're not worthy of me.
Detachment in the Spiritual Tradition
And this is the whole idea, everybody. You see it in the great spiritual traditions of Christianity — detachment. It doesn't mean we hate the things of the world. No. It doesn't mean we hate our family. Of course not. But it means we are sufficiently detached from those relatively lower goods that we might be completely attached to the summum bonum, to what God wants.
Hard lesson? You bet. And look, I've been at this for a long time, and it's the heart of the spiritual challenge. It's what every one of us sinners has to wrestle with. Have we turned creatures into the Creator? When you do that, major mischief follows. That is absolutely basic in the spiritual life. And so, how do we cleanse and purify our souls so that the love of the summum bonum might truly be first? Everything hinges upon that.
Bringing the Two Weeks Together
Now bring these two teachings from these two weeks together. Fear nobody — don't be afraid of those paper tigers that can only affect the goods of the body. Rather, you've moved to a deeper level. Fear indeed the one who can kill both body and soul. Again: fear of the Lord. Same thing here. Don't be attached to even the best goods of the world. Rather, be attached to God alone.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. That's the greatest commandment, and that's the most purifying and cleansing insight in the spiritual life.
And God bless you.