HOMILY, 23RD SUNDAY, YEAR C The Opportunity Cost of Being a Christian This Sunday’s liturgy of the word teaches us to learn to pray for wisdom and to sacrifice for the sake of love of God and neighbor. The readings of this Sunday, therefore, remind me of something I learnt in secondary school called the Opportunity Cost. Opportunity Cost is the forgone alternative. An example may help. Assuming your only shirt is old and worn-out and you also feel like taking a bottle of chilled beer but the amount of money you have is sufficient to buy either a shirt or a bottle of chilled beer, what would you do? Would you buy beer or a shirt? I think many of us, if not all, would buy a shirt. In this case, the bottle of beer is the opportunity cost of the shirt; the beer is forgone to have the shirt. In the gospel reading, we are told that there is a cost for being a disciple; there is opportunity cost, if you like, for being a Christian. There are certain things we must lose if we want to be true Christians. If you are a Christian and you have not lost something for it, then you have not loved Christ enough. This explains why in the gospel passage, Christ tells us that at times being a true disciple may consist in ‘hating’ our fathers, mothers, spouses, children, brothers and sisters and even our very life (Lk 14:26). It is very important to know that in Hebrew the phrase ‘to hate’ means to love less. So what Jesus means is that for us to truly show that we love Him, we have to love our fathers, mothers, husbands, children, brothers, sisters, friends and even our own life less than him. This has to happen especially when we realize that their thoughts, words and deeds which they want us to follow are incongruent or incompatible with the teaching of the gospel. In the second reading, St Paul shows us what it means to sacrifice for love of God and neighbor. We are told St Paul is imprisoned in Rome around A.D. 61-63. As a prisoner, he needs someone to be helping him. Suddenly he gets a young man called Onesimus who is not a Christian. He is a slave to Philemon but has escaped. Eventually, Onesimus becomes a convert to Christianity. He is of immense help to Paul in solving Paul’s personal and pastoral problems. Paul loves Onesimus very much and calls him his heart. Yet Paul releases Onesimus to go back to his master, Philemon, out of love and consideration for Philemon. In this connection, it is like saying Onesimus becomes the opportunity cost or forgone alternative for Philemon. Paul loves Onesimus. But for the sake of Philemon he allows Onesimus to go. Christianity has to always make us to ‘hate’( love less) some people and things that we love much for the sake of Christ. Over and over again, Christ tells his disciples that anyone who wants to come after him must deny himself, take up his cross and follow him. As Christians, we are not called to be always comfortable but we are called to be always faithful. As the African proverb goes, a woman who wants to get a child does not always sleep in her clothes at night; she sacrifices her sleep and comfort because she wants to get a child. Like a woman looking for the fruit of the womb, Christians are called to forgo much for the sake of the kingdom. Today’s first reading (Wisdom 9:13) is a beautiful and inspiring prayer asking for wisdom from God. We pray that guided by the wisdom or light from above, we may learn to forego any thing for the sake of Christ and His kingdom. Amen.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:04:30 +0000
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