Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, 2022

The Cross And The New Creation

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, July 3, 2022

St. Paul is not always an easy biblical author to understand. He is a densely complex writer. He is almost like a poet who packs a lot of meaning into a few short lines. Nevertheless, Paul’s writings help us understand what Christianity is all about. He is the first great theologian of our tradition, and in some ways, all Christian theologies are sort of footnotes to Paul. In our today’s second reading (Galatians 6:14-18), Paul says: “Brothers and sisters: May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” To be frank with you, no first century Jew would have found Paul’s declaration appealing. In fact, nothing could be stranger and crazier than that for a first century person. I bet many of us upon hearing those lines read to us today thought that Paul is boasting with the cross. But when you hear those words, don’t think of the cross on top of a church’s steeple. Don’t think of the cross on the wall of your room. Don’t think of this cross that hangs above the space between the altar and the tabernacle. In Paul’s time, the cross was something unspeakable, the most excruciating instrument of torture ever invented by the minds of cruel people. For Jews and Gentiles, to die on the cross was entirely shameful. The most despicable thing to say to a person in Paul’s time was a curse to end their life on the cross. The cross was the last thing anyone in Paul’s day would boast about. If someone tells you today that you will be rejected by Church and state, that the legal establishment of the country will condemn you to death, that you will undergo a public ridicule, and thereafter you will be shot or electrocuted publicly, will you be in the mood of boasting about it? I certainly don’t think so. But Paul says, I boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

But what gave Paul this crazy idea of boasting with the cross? Resurrection! As Saul, he was part of the world of hatred, oppression, division, violence and injustice that killed Jesus. As Saul, he thought hatred, oppression, repression, violence, threat of violence and injustice were the supreme good. He persecuted the Body of Christ. He masterminded the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. He oversaw the seizure and confiscation of Christians lands, houses and other properties. He did not want to merely contain Christianity or to drive it out of Jerusalem; he wanted to rid the earth of Christianity and its followers. Having obtained letters from the high priest authorizing him to arrest any followers of Jesus in the city of Damascus, he and his companions proceeded to Damascus. On the road, the Risen Jesus appeared to him in his glorified Body and called him out, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ (Acts 9:4) At the end of that encounter, Saul realized two things: one, the crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been raised up by God; two, his resurrection can only mean everything that contributed to the death of Jesus is under God’s judgement. So when Paul later says “I have been crucified to the world and the world to me;” he is basically saying that the world of cruelty, of libido dominandi, of oppression, of violence, of hatred is not it. That world is passing away; that world means nothing; that world is under judgement. That world is finally powerless. Paul’s encounter with the Risen Jesus changed everything. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is so important to Paul, and we must never ignore or disregard it.  In the Risen Jesus, Paul saw that the world of division and stupidity is not absolute or final. All the negativity of sin, Jesus took it on and through the power of Resurrection, he took it away. That is why at every Mass, we say, “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” That is why John says “This faith of us conquered the world.”

The next shocking thing that Paul said is, “For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation.” Those are breathtaking words almost like the first declaration about boasting with the cross. For a Jew in Paul’s time, that’s an unnerving and problem seeking utterance. It is a crazy talk! How come? Circumcision is always important because it is what identified a person to be a Jew. It is the mark of the covenant that a person belong to this chosen people of God, this special tribe. What separated Jews from Gentiles, the circumcised and the uncircumcised was centrally crucial to any good Jew like Paul. So for him to say that circumcision and uncircumcision do not mean anything means that something radical happened to him that turned his world upside down. That which turned his world upside down is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. 

What did Paul see in his life? He saw that the fallen world is marked by division, separation, stratification. He saw that we sinners are intensely interested in who is up and who is down, who is included and who is excluded, who is in and who is out. But Paul tells us that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians  3:28). Paul saw that the world of division, gratification, separation, oppression, racism, tribalism, the inside versus the outside, who is loved and who is not loved is under the judgement of God. He saw the meaninglessness of holding on to that world. Those things that divide us, that separate us from one another, Paul says belong to the world, the old universe of sin and death. Circumcision or uncircumcision does not matter. Only a new creation matters. So, Paul is urging us to stop living in that world that is under judgement, and to start living in this new world, this new creation, which is nothing other than the mystical body of Jesus. Finally, Paul says, “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God.” What is Israel of God? Christ Body, the Church. Peace and mercy will come not to those who live stubbornly in that old world that is passing away, rather to those who live in this Israel of God, Christ the New Creation.