Discipleship: What does it entail?
Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR
Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
St. Gerard Majella Church
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
Sunday, September 16, 2012
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us what it entails to be his disciples: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he (she) must deny himself (herself) and take up his (her) cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his (her) life will loose it, but whoever looses his (her) life for my sake will save it.”
But what does it mean to deny oneself? Let’s recall the denial of Peter. When Peter denied Jesus, he had said: “I do not know the man.” To deny oneself therefore is to say “I do not know myself.” To deny oneself is to migrate from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness and to other-centeredness. To deny oneself is to say “It’s all about Jesus!” It is this kind of denial that prompted St. Paul to declare in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Jesus enjoins his disciples to take up their cross daily and follow him. To take up our cross means to be prepared to face and confront the difficulty associated with being loyal and obedient to Jesus. To take up our cross means being ready to endure the worst that people can do to us for the sake of being true to the Lord. It means being ready to refuse to be intimidated by those who persecute us because we belong to Jesus. It means saying no even when it is most difficult to say so to those who want us to betray him. Being true to Jesus will bring some rejection and castigation. Those who hate your simplicity, your honesty, your faithfulness and your tidy moral life will come to paint you bad. It is usually said “If you cannot beat them, join them.” But if you refuse to join the bandwagon, they will come after you. But refusing to join the bandwagon of immorality instead prefer the castigation and hatred is part of the cross.
“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it…” God has given us life, not to horde it or to keep it for ourselves. We are given life to spend for others. Therefore the question is no longer “How much can I get”, but “How much can I give?” It is no longer “What is the safe thing to do? but “What is the right thing to do?” If we are true to Jesus in time, he will be true to us in eternity. If we follow him in this life, in the next, he will count us among the elect. But if we disown him here on earth by the way we live, even when we confess him with our lips, he will disown us before the heavenly Father.
The good news is this: God will not let us carry a cross that is too heavy for us; and even the right weight of the cross we are allowed to carry has sufficient grace attached to it. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
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Good homily. I love it! Keep up with the work of God Father. God bless you!
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