Cycle C- 23rd Sunday – September 5, 2010- A call to be a Good News for others!
Mr. Joe was opening a new business and one of his friends decided to send flowers for the occasion. The flowers arrived and Joe read the card. It said, “Rest in Peace.” Joe, enraged, called the florist to complain. The florist replied, “Sir, I’m really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should imagine this: somewhere there is a funeral taking place today, and they have flowers with a note saying, “Congratulations on your new location.”
Congratulation on your new location here means congratulations on your new identity, new name, new nationality and new personality. What is it? God has given us Christian names. We are the children of God; we are the disciples of Jesus. We are called to be the people of good news today. How? Let us look at the readings. The invitation from Scripture is to rely on the wisdom of God according to the first reading, the friendship of Jesus according to the second reading and the gospel tell us, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple,”
How? Let us understand this.
1. What is the wisdom of God? The first reading stresses the need to be freed of the burdens of earthly concerns to know God’s will. The wisdom of God and the power of the Spirit are the sources of truth that will keep us from stumbling block. Knowing and living the will of God makes us the good news today.
2. When God is given the top most priority in life people became the good news for one another. From the name of the passage we know that it was not written to a community rather to a person named Philemon. Though it is a personal letter it contains an apostolic exhortation. The apostolic exhortation is that Paul though aging servant of the Gospel meets Philemon’s runaway slave of Onesimus in prison. Paul not only converts him with the good news of Christ and wants to share his experience of Good news with others. Paul however sends him back to his master with a letter in his hand pleading be received not as a slave but as a brother in need. By challenging Philemon to freely love and respect Onesimus and treat him as a brother, Paul transforms the relationship between master and slave, and in that culture that was a revolutionary challenge indeed.
3. God needs to be the top most priority in life. In using the word “hate,” of course, Jesus is using a hyperbole – an exaggerated statement not to be taken literally. In other words, Jesus is saying that unless a person loves God more than… much, much more than his “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even his own life,” such a person does not understand the implications of discipleship. Perhaps Jesus was more aptly understood in his times than he is understood today. Unlike our society, ancient societies like the Jewish society revolved around the Law and the Temple. In fact, this model of social living continued up until the Enlightenment and the French revolution. At the center of every village or town was the sanctuary. Social events revolved around the liturgical calendar. Society was set up in such a way that human life naturally revolved around religious concerns. But with the Enlightenment, society began to break away from the hub that held everything together. Human rational capabilities and their accomplishments became the new altar and the human person became the new god. Human being built new altars: Wall Street has become the altar of the world; the television and movie screen, sports, the quest for power, and even one’s nation vie for the ultimate human commitment. In other words, Jesus’ call of commitment is more difficult today than it ever was because of other competing powers. So the question arises in our mind again how can I become the Good News for others by knowing and doing the will of God, sharing our experience of God like Paul, Philemon and Onesimus and god becoming the first priority in life.
At that first Eucharist, Jesus sat with his disciples and he broke the bread. Soon he would break himself on the cross. He loved his Father more than his own life and offered it up for our salvation. This Jesus invites us to love God the way he did. In this Eucharist let us pray for the courage to be like Jesus. Amen.
