Our Sunday Reflection

It is better for you to lose.
 

What situations in your life have brought you to the clear conclusion that it is better for you to lose?

At the last presbyteral assembly, I ran into a senior now retired priest.  Father was not the person I knew; in fact I could not even recognize him. He was always jovial and upbeat, always making jokes and getting people to laugh, but not this time. Cancer had changed all this. He had undergone a major surgery on his lower face where they had to remove the lower jaw. The doctors had recommended this way, as the only option, if he was to have a chance to live.

The seriousness of a medical diagnosis or a life situation could bring one to conclude that it is better to lose this to gain that, and one has to make the “hard” choice often times.

If you and I take following Jesus seriously, it is going to always ask of us more and, yes, to also say more than often “it is better to lose.”   The symbol of our faith is the Cross.  On it,  Jesus says it is better to lose than to turn one’s back to God’s will and one’s neighbor.

Decision making can be very hard.  Many ask themselves today in a culture where everything seems to be grey, ”What is the right thing to do?”  The writer Ben Sirach, in the first readings, counsels his listeners that God has given to us a hidden grace that will enable us not to fall into sin.  We, of course, are free to say yes or no, but there are consequences to our choices.  The best option is God’s choice, but with it comes the hard decision to lose in the eyes of worldly thinking.  

Saint Paul is okay with not being counted among the elite wise men (preachers) of this age, if this means to preach a Gospel empty of the Crucified Christ.  The elite preachers of his time did not want to preach a savior who loses (self-giving), yet the whole point of the message of Jesus is this.  Saint Paul chose to lose in order to do the right thing.

For Jesus, if following the law meant just a checklist of things that one had to fulfill, or a score of points of who is best at tracking all things or perfecting all the rules, then for him that law is useless. The pharisaic movement was all about legalism and this Jesus did not “buy.”  Jesus comes to preach a new law (the love of God above all things and one’s neighbor as one’s self) — anything short of this was no good.  The New Law requires of one to be “self-giving.”  The disciples will have to learn that it is better to lose.

The Christian life will always bring us to the attitude of self-giving, — be less self-seeking, less self-gratifying, less self-centered and more self-giving.  This is the lifestyle of Jesus we are challenged to adopt in our lives.  We cannot turn our back on God (values) and our neighbor.

A Blessed week in the Lord!
Fr, Anthony