Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: MATTHEW 10: 37-42
Today’s readings challenge us: True Christian discipleship demands total commitment to the will of God and putting God first in our lives. It is easy to follow Jesus when everything is going great! Jesus said to the disciples, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” How many were following Jesus at the end? When Jesus was hanging on the cross, how many were at the foot of the cross? Only a handful of people were at the foot of the cross.
Today’s gospel challenges us and reminds us to count the cost of discipleship and following Jesus, because the cost is high: true discipleship requires one to “renounce” both earthly possessions and possessions of the heart. This means to renounce the possessions that we have too much attachment to in our lives and giving priority to God and the willingness to share our blessings with others.
Jesus refers to “hating our own lives,” which means that our lives are not to be manipulated by attachments, fears, and anxieties. Jesus wants our lives to be lived in total truth and love. We are to live in total freedom. To experience such freedom, we have to cut off the things that hinder our relationships with Jesus and our brothers.
At the conclusion of Jesus’s teaching, Jesus said: “Take up your cross and follow me.” For those people who followed Jesus, the cross meant death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. When we think of the cross in a religious sense, it is very precious; we keep crosses on the walls of our special rooms, and we experience the real presence and image of Christ on the cross. “Take up your cross and follow me:” Jesus is saying, “Crucify your own egos, selfishness, and pride; otherwise, you cannot be my disciples.”
Recently, I heard a very meaningful story about reaching heaven. An angel appeared to a group of people and asked them, “Do you want to reach heaven? “In the group, everybody wanted to go to heaven. So, the angel suggested making a heavy wooden cross to carry up to heaven. Each one made a very heavy wooden cross and started to walk. After a few days of carrying this heavy cross, the people found it was difficult to move on. But some were halfway and wanted to complete their journeys to reach heaven. In the group, there was a very smart person who had the idea of cutting off the ends of his cross to make it lighter. So, it was very easy for him to carry the cross, and he walked in front of the others.
He almost reached heaven, but there was a river that he had to pass with no bridge across. He was a smart man, but had no idea how to walk across the river. Slowly, the other people came to the river with their own heavy wooden crosses. They put their own wooden cross over the river and walked across and reached heaven. The intelligent man could not put his cross over the river because his cross was too short and could not reach heaven. This is a very simple story, but it conveys a meaningful message.
In our lives, too, we all have very heavy burdens and crosses to carry. Sometimes, like the intelligent man, we try to cut off the corner of the cross, and we want to carry the lighter and smoother cross, but God has given each of us the cross according to the shape of our shoulders. Therefore, we have to carry our own crosses without blaming or complaining, and they come in different shapes and sizes. Today, let us take a few moments to pray for someone who carries a bigger cross than we do. Let’s ask ourselves: What is the cross speaking to us? Does it speak of the suffering and death of Jesus? Is it giving me any consolation and hope in my life? Let us listen to the words of Saint Mother Teresa, “Crosses and the sufferings are nothing by themselves. Our sufferings and crosses share with the passion of Christ as a wonderful gift, the most beautiful gift, a token of Love.”