Catholic 754 : Twenty-third Sunday of the Year C - Sunday, September 8, 2019

Homily Twenty-third Sunday of the Year C  - Sunday, September 8, 2019

First reading. Wisdom 9:13-18

Responsorial Psalm. 89:3-6,12-14,17. "In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge."

Second reading. Philemon 1:9-10,12-17

Gospel. Luke 14:25-33

Image credit: By Renata Sedmakova. ID: 595127756. Shutterstock licenses.  St. Paul the Apostle in Herz Jesus church by Friedrich Stummel and Karl Wenzel from the end of 19. and begin of 20. cent. BERLIN, GERMANY, FEBRUARY - 14, 2017: The fresco.   

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Please listen to my audio recordings of the readings, prayers and reflections for the Twenty-third Sunday of the Year C  - Sunday, September 8, 2019, by clicking this link here:   https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/23c-faith-hope-and-love-ep-176/s-Ccumh  (EPISODE: 176)
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Prologue:   To become a full disciple of Christ, comes at considerable cost.  Being a  fully-fledged follower of Christ means accepting a value system that is often at odds with other values.  This can lead to us being ridiculed and ostracised, - throughout history, it has led to people losing their friends, family members, their reputation, their position in society and even their lives...   The cost is worth it, but our Lord wants us to know that the values of The Kingdom of God will turn on its head, many values of the world...   Those benefitting from keeping things the way they always were are not going to surrender their position and privilege. Divisions aren't desired by Our Lord, but he warns us that there are no fence-sitters in the Kingdom of God.    We have to jump in wholeheartedly and be prepared for the opposition. which will not fight fair.   Sadly, those who oppose Christ's values are opposing his vision of true justice,  compassion, inclusion, love, and peace.  

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Why would Jesus counsel his followers to "hate" their families or their own lives? Again, it seems contrary to the consistent message of love, inclusion, mercy and graciousness that Our Lord has been proclaiming throughout his whole ministry.

(Barclay)….   "When Jesus made this declaration, he was on the road to Jerusalem. He knew that he was on his way to surrender everything for us all... / to suffer and die on the cross; the crowds who were with him thought that he was on his way to an empire. No wonder he turned around and spoke so clearly and bluntly to them, in this way.....// 

In the most vivid way possible, he told them that anyone who wanted to follow him was definitely not on the road to worldly power and glory, but rather: they must be ready for a loyalty which would sacrifice the dearest things in life, and ready for suffering which would be like the agony of a man upon a cross (and for Christ himself - and some of his closest disciples it was literally to be such agony). 

But it is important that we understand his words as intended ...  and with all the nuance of the Eastern language with which it was spoken...which is always as vivid as the human mind can make it. When Jesus tells us to "hate" our nearest and dearest, he does not mean that literally. He means that no love in life can compare with the love we must bear to GOD. Christ knew if anyone who followed him had him in second priority, or lower, then when the first of many challenges, threats and suffering came along, these people would fall away swiftly...   

So, this passage teaches us that : 

(i) It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to follow the army (so to speak) wherever it went, without being a soldier of the Monarch; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one's weight. 

There is a modern-day story a person was talking to a great scholar about another person who was name-dropping his connection with that scholar.  "So-and-so tells me that he was one of your students." The great scholar replied devastatingly, "He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students." It is the same with the Christian church --- there are so many distant followers of Jesus but how many are actually real disciples.

(ii) It is a Christian's first duty to count the cost of following Christ.

But if we are daunted by the high demands of Christ, let us remember that we are not left to fulfil this task alone. Christ who called us to this steep path will walk with us every step of the way and be there at the end to meet us."##

Our Lord's constant practical example and his wider teachings show us that we must love and cherish our family and loyally keep our commitments and our duties that we owe to our parents and family… / Our Lord saved one of his most stinging criticisms for people who used religious excuses to justify neglecting their duty to their parents and family. / So, when Our Lord says in the Gospel that we should 'hate our lives or families"…. The actual point of Jesus' message today is not to reject or abandon the bonds of the family...  the ties of blood...  but actually to WIDEN our vision of FAMILY…  ( ……)…. SO, Jesus is is telling his disciples that HIS definition of "family" includes not only our traditional ties of "blood relations"…… but also to include all who follow Jesus and act on his word/ all who hold the values of the Kingdom, and in fact all people…….. (which he means to be taken absolutely seriously)..

Also, we DO know that Jesus had a deep respect and love for his family, both his earthly family and His Heavenly Father. So, faithfulness to Christ and love and respect for our family need not be any kind of contradiction. Hopefully, our faith and values and our relationship to our family and friends will be mutually consistent and supportive. But, if there has to be a choice made between following God and remaining a part of our loving family, then something must have gone horribly awry in that family. What Jesus is asking here is that "You've got to be in this 'discipleship thing' 100 per cent! Half measures will never do. ………. Being the Body of Christ makes us complete sharers in the life of Jesus! And Jesus was never known to do things half measures.

There may very well be a bit of "hating" going on at the time of Christ's ministry, though, the hating was not by Jesus or his followers… Rather.. some people clearly hated Jesus' message; wanted to destroy him and his message, and persecute his disciples - precisely because they are seen to be welcoming outsiders and strangers into the "family-fold" whom they think should not be there… // Unintended (but very real) conflict and loss will be suffered because of choosing to follow Jesus; because people are included in Jesus' plan who others think should be left out…….. Hatred and persecution will come from those who are very comfortable with things as they are. Because they are doing very well, thanks very much, while others are doing very badly. A change in this situation will be detrimental to them and helpful to everyone else. And they will not stand for it. 

The plain truth is: Our goal is not merely to be a good person and avoid doing wrong. …… Being a disciple of Jesus is the goal. Discipleship is an expensive proposition. It costs everything we have. (Jesus needs us to give all we have in energy and time). Why is the price so high? Because the stakes are just as high. And his Kingdom is filled with the wonderful values and virtues that are worth fighting for and are life-giving and lasting. 

Christ is asking us to put our lives, our energy and our resources into the service of his plan for building up the Kingdom of God and its radically transforming values.

Jesus knows that following him will lead to tensions and pain…. Not because he wants us to reject family but because his message INCLUDES more people into the family than others (under the old system) can cope with…. IN Our Lord's Kingdom… water is thicker than blood….. (the water of baptism, that is)…. In the Kingdom…the waters of Baptism bind us more closely and are infinitely more important than even the utterly-deep ties of family …. And so this turns the whole system on its head….//. If people everywhere extended to all those we meet, that same love, loyalty and unconditional bond of generosity that we share with people who are related to us, … what a different world it would be… and it would be a world ever-closer to the Vision of Christ's Kingdom. 

We see an example of this transformation perfectly illustrated.  Saint Paul… a true and inspiring disciple of Christ… speaks about a fellow Christian.. a runaway slave … who has now become like a son to him because he is a fellow disciple in Christ….. Paul writes to another disciple and begs him to accept his runaway slave but not as a slave anymore but as a brother….. this is consistent with Jesus' gospel….. there is a considerable change to our lives and our relationships when we become a true disciple of Christ…. Things change quite dramatically… old values and old ways of doing things.. END…… and old advantages and arrangements are changed forever… the owner of that slave has paid a big price for becoming a Christian… he has lost his slave.. who is now a free person… because in Christ there is no distinction between slave and free.. we are all free…  

Whatever happened to Onesimus...  was he freed as Paul requested?...  Let us move on about fifty years. Saint Ignatius, one of the great Christian martyrs, is being taken to execution from Antioch to Rome. As he goes, he writes letters--which still survive--to the Churches of Asia Minor. He stops at Smyrna and writes to the Church at Ephesus, and in the first chapter of that letter, he has much to say about their wonderful bishop. And what is the bishop's name? It is Onesimus; and Ignatius makes exactly the same pun as Paul made--he is Onesimus by name and Onesimus by nature, (a word which means "profitable" -  he is the "profitable or useful" one to Christ. It may well be that the runaway slave had become with the passing years the great bishop of Ephesus.^^  

How wonderful are God's ways...   well worth staying on this difficult path. 

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References:

## Barclay, William. 1975. The Daily Study Bible – Luke's Gospel. Edinburgh: St Andrew Press.

^^Barclay, William. 1975. The Letters Of Timothy, Titus And Philemon. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press..

SHARING THE WORD THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR. GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ

Fr Paul W. Kelly

Image credit: By Renata Sedmakova. ID: 595127756. Shutterstock licenses.  St. Paul the Apostle in Herz Jesus church by Friedrich Stummel and Karl Wenzel from the end of 19. and begin of 20. cent. BERLIN, GERMANY, FEBRUARY - 14, 2017: The fresco.  

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May God bless and keep you.

Twenty-third Sunday of the Year C
(Sunday, September 8, 2019)

(EPISODE: 176)

The Lord be with you.
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{{Hello}}

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.
option two on the cards/ Have mercy on us, O Lord./ For we have sinned against you./ Show us, O Lord, your mercy. And grant us your salvation.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation

2. When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.

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Sundays Ordinary IV

Euch Prayer Three

Communion side.  pwk:  LH
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{Bless you all and May God's grace guide you each and every day.}

Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.