23rd Sunday of Year C, 2019

As you participate in today’s Eucharistic Celebration, may the Lord bestow you with graces to always choose Jesus and to remain his true and active disciple all the days of your life on Earth. Happy Sunday +John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH
(Wisdom 9,13-18b; Philemon 9-10,12-17; Luke 14,25-33;  23rd Sunday of Year C, 2019)

The passage of the first reading, Wisdom 9,13-18b, declares the limitations of human wisdom in various ways. It begins with two rhetorical questions in parallel construction: who can know the counsel of God; who can conceive the intentions of the Lord? The intended answer to both questions is, of course, no one. No one can fathom the mind of God; no one can know God's will. Yet we are required to live according to it. Therefore, somehow the will of God will have to be revealed to us. The Wisdom tradition of Israel, a treasury of insights and perceptions gained through the conscientious reflection on the experience of life is not adequate to give comprehensive directives to man. However, valuable this information may be, no bit of wisdom is universally applicable, nor can all of the wisdom put together answer the most fundamental and pressing questions of human existence. It is obvious that man is unable to discern the will of God. It is the realisation of human limitation that prompted the author to ex­claim that we will attain the wisdom we so sorely seek only if God bestows it upon us. The Holy Spirit of which the author speaks should not be understood as the Third Person of the Trinity. The sense of the spirit found here eventually may have been incorporated into Christianity's Trinitarian Theology, but here it probably only refers to the immateriality of the things of God.

Paul's letter to Philemon, 9-10.12-17, is a personal appeal to accept back with no recriminations a slave who had escaped Philemon's household and his control. While there is no direct teaching, Paul uses a pedagogical technique as he tries to persuade Philemon to acquiesce to his wishes in regard to this runaway slave. In doing this Paul is not using his authority in this matter. In this short appeal, Paul addresses the issue of slavery. He has been criticised by many for not condemning the practice. To expect him to do so would be anachronistic. However, he does suggest a mode of action that will eventually undermine the philosophy that undergirds slavery. It was a legal custom, and Paul recognised Philemon's rights within it. Nor would he use conversion to Christianity as a refuge from the difficulties of human existence. Although Paul would have liked to keep the man with him because of the service he could offer him, he still sent Onesimus back to Philemon. However, he now relies on Philemon's own understanding of mutual brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ to transform his attitude toward his slave. Paul had taught that in Christ there were no longer slaves or free persons but that all were children of God (d. Galatians 3,28; CoI 3,1l). Now he challenges Philemon to witness to his own belief in this teaching. He relies on his insistence that partnership in the Lord has broken down all barriers. He asks Philemon to treat Onesimus like the Christian brother he has now become rather than the slave he once was. Paul’s belief that God can work wonders in any circumstances can be seen in the way he reinterprets Onesimus' escape, seeing it as the occasion of significant changes. Though a criminal act in itself from the perspective of Onesimus, it transformed a pagan into a follower of Jesus Christ. From Philemon’s perspective, it turned a slave into a brother in Christ. Paul ends his request with a final plea: Welcome him as you would me. We do not know whether Paul means that he is a Christian brother as I am, or that he is a part of my very heart. Perhaps it makes no difference. Paul appeals both to Philemon's Christian conscience and to his indebtedness to Paul. The man in prison can do little else.

The cost of discipleship is the basis of Jesus’ teaching in this gospel passage, Luke 14,25-23. Three conditions for discipleship are given here: subordination of everything to commitment to Jesus, acceptance of the cross, and relinquishment of all possessions. Jesus holds that to be his disciple one has hat one's closest family members. Here the word, hate means loving less. Jesus insists that nothing, neither the closest family ties nor love of one's own life, can be placed in conflict with commitment to him. Whoever cannot make this sacrifice cannot be his disciple. The second condition for discipleship is willingness to carry one's cross. Jesus' total commitment to his mission resulted in his own suffering and death. The commitment of those who would follow him can be no less. The demands this will exact will differ from person to person, but the requirement is the same-wholehearted commitment. Finally, would-be disciples must be willing to relinquish all their possessions in order to possess and to be possessed by Christ. This is not a new or different requirement. In a sense it contains within itself the other two. Total commitment to Jesus requires the willingness to give up the comfort and security of a stable family life as well as the willingness to spend all one has on that venture. Whoever cannot make such a wholehearted commitment cannot be his disciple.
On this Sunday we are once again confronted with the need to make choices as disciples of Jesus. The Wisdom tradition, from which the first reading is taken, is rooted in the fact that life is a series of choices. The epistle and the gospel reading provide us with examples of the way Christians should choose. We do not simply make choices but should show our priorates in so doing. Life at various levels, offers us opportunities to choose from. We are even free to choose the values we would espouse to support our choices. There is so much from which to choose, and all of it is presented as acceptable by the world.

Discipleship demands that in the face of all these we keep our priorities straight. We must seek the counsel of wisdom so as to choose the right path. True wisdom is knowing where to put our energies, how to focus our attention, with whom to commit ourselves. In the gospel Jesus insists that we must be single-minded. We must cling to the one thing necessary, and that one thing is authentic discipleship. It may be demanding, but it is not impossible, for we are given the grace of God to sustain us and the community of other disciples as a support. All of the readings promise that if we make the right choices our lives will unfold in ways that will enrich us. The challenge is knowing which choices are right, and then having the courage to make them. In order to do this, we need the wisdom that comes from God, the wisdom sketched in the gospel reading. We must be willing to put our lives on the line for the choices we make. In choosing Jesus, we choose other things as well. We choose new relationships with the very people to whom we have already been committed. Those who were in other classes as we are: employees, or providers of service, are now regarded as sisters and brothers in Christ. They may continue performing the same service as before, but we now perceive them in a new way, and we now treat them as equals. Those who are related to us through blood are now considered also bound to us by the grace of God. Our former ties are not severed, they are augmented. In choosing Jesus, we also choose the cross. We choose to live in a way that calls us to travel the high road: to forgive offences committed against us; to live simply so others can simply live; to take responsibility for the moral character of society. This way of living is very demanding, yet not very rewarding in the rewards of this world. We might even lose the little we have. In choosing Jesus we willingly relinquish our hold on the people and the goods we cherish lest they rival our commitment to him. The fleeting nature of life as characterised in the psalm forces us to look at the meaning of life. When the day dawns for us to return to dust, what will we have gained from life? From our possessions? From the towers we construct? From the battles we have won? They will seem like the grass that wilts and fades, like the corruptible body we have been born with. What will it have been worth? The realisation of our finiteness and the transitory nature of life should help us set our priorities right and should give us the courage to remain faithful to them. Throughout the Wisdom tradition the sages all place the meaning of life within the context of its brevity and the suddenness of its ending. In the face of this, it becomes clear that living in right relationships, following the straight path, choosing the wisdom of a covenant with God, is the only way to spend the brief time we have here on earth. Nothing else is really worth it. May we be bestowed in today’s Eucharistic celebration the graces to always choose Jesus and to remain his true and active disciples all the days of this our short life on earth. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye