02 September 2023 – 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Fabian Dicom

I might have told you this story. It has been a while since I have known this story so being here off and on but bear with me if you have heard it. It is a story about a pastor and his wife. Now this pastor was working with the poor in a rural part, in a certain part in the world and he dedicated his whole life to the poor. He lived a very frugal life as well. Now his wife, let me remind you he is a pastor, his wife came home one day with a dress. And she put it on. It was a beautiful dress.

And he said: “O wow! Such a beautiful dress.”
She said: “Yes, my darling, I just bought it.”
Then the pastor said: “How much did it cost?”
Then she said: “A thousand dollars.”
He said: “How could you do such a thing? How could you, a pastor’s wife, when we are working with the poor afford to do this? How can we witness this kind when you have this expensive dress.”
Then she said: “Darling, the devil tempted me.”
“You of all people! When the devil tempts you, you are the pastor’s wife. Don’t you know what to do?”
She said: “Yes. I said ‘Get behind me, Satan!‘ And the devil told me ‘You look even better from behind.‘”

No need to delve on that, okay.

Now Peter knew that Jesus was the Messiah, awaited, expected by God’s people but he did not understand that Jesus would be a suffering Messiah. But that is what happened to Jesus. And it happens to those who follow Him. I am sure you have heard of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sister Ita Ford, the Ameircan sister who was working in Latin America, was raped and shot because the forces did not like her championing the rights of the people. Of course, Martin Luther King and many others.

“If a man wishes to come after me, he must deny his very self and take up his cross.” The main idea of the Gospel today.

Jesus was very aware that He was to be faithful to the Father’s call to proclaim the Gospel. It would entail for Him the way of the cross, the way of rejection, the way of suffering and death. Given the way the world was organised, there was no other option. Having resisted the temptation of Peter in such strong terms, Jesus immediately applied His own predicament, what was going to happen, to that of the followers, including Peter when he says:

If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself, deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

This is one of the more challenging sayings of Jesus in the whole of the Gospels.

Now what does the ultimate cross bearer, Jesus, mean by “take up his cross“, since Jesus’s cross and our cross cannot accomplish the same thing? And why does He use such a harsh metaphor to describe discipleship? Ironically, many in the church throughout history and still continuing have been supplying our own very definitions of this saying, on what it mean to take up our cross.

Now it is a saying of Jesus that has sometimes been misunderstood. The call to take up our cross has been heard as a call to passively accept whatever suffering comes our way. We’ve heard that. We’ve heard “Oh we have all our crosses to bear.” And this phrase is applied to a variety of difficulties from even being used in jest, “Ah thy cross is the BEC. Every month I have to go.” Said in jest, okay.

Or to express frustration over minor inconveniences such as an attitude of a family member “Oh my son is my cross.” I am sure you have heard that.

Or to describe truly difficult situations like temptations. “My cross is my addiction to drinking or gambling.” “My longterm sickness is my cross to carry.“

Or a difficult relationship.

And it is even terrible when someone tells you when you have lost a loved one “This is your cross to carry.” How terribly insensitive we are. 

We’ve heard this many times when people come to us. We’ve heard people saying “Oh your illness is your cross.” I don’t want to hear that.

Or if I am abused in a relationship, in a spousal relationship “This is your cross to carry.” For heaven’s sake! Seriously!

Imagine equating the cross to domestic violence and our own addictions. This is not right. Totally wrong. And believers tend to symbolise any unpleasantness as a cross and then spiritualised it as a part of discipleship.

Or even more extreme, cross bearing becomes relevance or a reference to how discipleship is tantamount to pain. If you are a disciple of the Lord, you are definitely in pain. Of course, being a disciple includes suffering but it is not equal to suffering. I used to say that even in the church we have the glorious agony club.

These ways of reading, these ways of interpreting the text are dangerous because they are based on partial truths. Of course the Christian life is one that involves suffering. As i said earlier. But each of these misinterpretations misses what Christ is asking for. Jesus could not have meant this.

So the basic fact is Jesus was killed. This is one of those facts that everybody knows but whose significance is often overlooked. He didn’t simply died. He was executed. Let’s face it. We as Christians participate in the only major religious tradition whose founder was executed by established authority.

And if we ask the historical question: “Why was he killed?”
The historical answer was because he was a social prophet, a movement initiator, a passionate advocate of God’s justice and a radical critic of the domination system who had attracted a following.

If Jesus was only a mystic, if Jesus was only a healer, or a wisdom teacher, or a leader in the praise and worship program, or even a priest like me, He would have been spared. Nobody would be interested. We don’t rock the boat.

Rather He was killed because of His principles. The way of life He advocated. His ‘politics’. Because of His passion, His passion for God’s justice. He was fiercely critical of those whose self-centred attitudes and behaviour brought suffering down upon others, especially on the weak and powerless. He insisted that those who had the resources should relieve the sufferings of others, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, the rich help the poor, the strong help the weak. Basically that is what He said. His call to take up our cross is a call to be faithful in His way of life. Even if it brings us into conflict with others who are advocating a very different way. Even if it means painful conflict and great loss.

He assures us in the Gospel Reading that any loss we may experience in our struggle to be faithful to His call will be small in comparison to the gain we will receive. And when we are in it, we will understand the gain. We will understand it and it will come naturally. And it will only inspire us to be even more faithful.

This evening’s Second Reading suggests that Saint Paul was of one mind with Jesus in this matter. He says: “Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you but let your behaviour change, model by your new mind.“

He understood that if we try to live out the mind of Christ, it will bring us into conflict with the behaviour of the world around us and this will mean the way of the cross. That is it.

Jesus said to Peter: “The way you think is not God’s way but man’s.“

Peter did not understand this principle at first, thinking that liberation could come without the need for suffering. Jesus had to correct him and teach him God’s standard which is the Christian life of justice, of peace and love. That amounts to carrying one’s cross in the footsteps of Jesus.

The struggle for justice, for peace and love is not party, is no party. Peter had to learn to grow into the mind of Christ. Our own baptismal calling is to grow into the mind of Jesus Christ. And to remain steadfast I guarantee you will be tough. And you know that. It will be scary even at times. But to embolden us today, this evening, is Prophet Jeremiah in the First Reading who has endured so much, so much suffering. In the midst of his suffering, Jeremiah remained true to what he called the fire burning in our hearts, imprisoned in his bones. When he was tempted to turn his back on the Lord because of his suffering, he still felt the fire of the Lord’s presence burning deep within him.

So my dear brothers and sisters, we pray today that as we receive Jesus in the Eucharist:-
~ that He will reignite the fire of our hearts;
~ that He will reignite the fire of the church, allowing us to embrace the cross totally as the revelation of ~ the way or path of transformation in our lives;
~ as the revelation of the depth of God’s love for each and everyone of us. His total and unconditional love.
~ as the proclamation of radical grace given to us without condition and the liberation for all peoples.

Let us pause for a few moments in silence.

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