TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C

[cappie]

Today we learn about discipleship   Jesus is clear in his address  to the crowd, that one must voluntarily sacrifice relationships between parents, spouses and children to follow Christ. In addition,  we are commanded to pick up our own cross and follow Christ. Discipleship is not easy. There are costs and rewards to discipleship.  

Many of us  were baptized in a time before  we were aware of our own being before we could speak the name of Jesus Christ.  . In the presence of parents and Godparents promises were made to God, on your behalf, about your life and spiritual development. At baptism, we became connected to Christ and the family of God. We were baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and we died to sin when the water was poured over our heads. We received new life in Christ when we were sealed with the chrism. This covenant does not change as we age.

Although many things change in life as we age, our Baptismal Covenant with God remains unchanged. We may marry, have children, get old and some of us may even expand our waistlines as the year's progress. But the Baptismal Covenant between the baptised and God remains firm throughout eternity. Therefore, we are loved and are expected to love others in the Name of Jesus Christ because of our baptismal covenant. We are the Baptized! We are the breathing, living example of the love and the gift of God in an unloving world. It is through Baptism that we are the disciples of Christ.

 During the time Paul served his term in prison, he wrote a letter to Philemon and the worshipping community who met at Philemon's house. In his letter, Paul describes a new family member in Christ named Onesimus, a runaway slave. In the spirit of adoption, Paul has claimed Onesimus as his son and asks that Philemon and the community receive Onesimus not as a slave, but as a "beloved brother", an equal partner and friend in the community of Christ. 

To emphasize the importance of this matter, Paul personally writes the letter to Philemon and calls the disciples to a higher standard of love, one of forgiveness. Through the love of Jesus Christ, Paul asks that Philemon and the church create a new system of equality, rather than live in the secular system of oppression and superiority.  

As disciples we are responsible for each other and for loving each other in Christ. Our actions must illustrate the love in Christ, Disciples are responsible for preaching, teaching and manifesting the word of God and loving all people regardless. We are commanded to love. That is the responsibility of a discipleship of God.

 We are disciples by baptism. We are called to love all people as disciples, and we fulfil our baptismal vows performing selfless acts of love in Christ's name.  

As disciples, we cannot stand by idly and not protest the social ills of our communities. We cannot be bystanders as homeless, uneducated and abused children grow into illiterate, unemployed adults. We cannot stand by silently and accept institutional racism, social economic injustice and secular changes that threaten the unborn and the elderly. We, the disciples of God, cannot stand by and quietly accept the hateful, political slurs against the poor, women and ethnic people. As disciples, we are called to experience costly grace by being God's prophetic voice in a world unplugged to God's love.  That is what Saint Paul challenged Philemon to do, and that is what he challenges us to do as well. Paul would tell us, “See the people around you as fellow children of God and treat them as your brothers and sisters. Change your vision!”

Pick up your cross and follow me, are words that ring through the Christian experience. It is in carrying our own cross and sacrificing ourselves to God that we become disciples of God. We must love;  we must love those who are different from ourselves. We must love, even when we do not want to love; we can love in the name of Christ. But we must also act. While laws can help to improve our society, perhaps true improvement only happens when people begin to see one another in a new way, as fellow children of God.
 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, cappie said:

some of us may even expand our waistlines as the year's progress

It can be difficult to let go of one's active years in the later part of life with much gratitude for what was.  To accept what is, free of guilt, and with thankfulness and move on with what is with trust and confidence..........difficult but not impossible since "what is impossible to man is possible to God" (Matthew Ch19) Like much in our spirituality, the mind alone cannot understand fully what actual experience will understand.

Thank you very much, Father, for another thought provoking homily.