September 17th - Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflection by Deacon Kevin Barron

Isn’t Email the best? Thank goodness for email! No, seriously, can we just take a moment and as a group acknowledge how grateful we are for email? I realize that some of you work in a corporate setting, and I can sympathize. I was director of sales for a large corporation (I averaged 100-200 emails per day).  I was not a fan of having to manage all those emails, but you have to admit it. Email is so effective. When you need to deliver a message to a large group of people, it is so effective. You can put things in bold type…effective. Underline them, Italics them, Put little creative emojis in it to accent your point and drive it home…effective!  
So why am I so grateful for email? Because email gives me a glimpse at how far we have evolved as a society of people when it comes to communicating to a large group of people. You see, back in Jesus' day, they did not have email.  But if you were  a Roman Centurion, and you wanted to drive a point out quickly and effectively, you nailed someone to a cross and you crucified them! It was quick and effective, and EVERYONE got the message. You see the cross was such an effective way for the Romans to intimidate and humiliate and torture and ultimately execute someone very publicly. 
In our society today, we read about crucifixions. Back then, they walked by them. They smelled them. It was real to the people in Jerusalem. It wasn’t a story. So imagine the thoughts that must have been going through the disciples head when Jesus said a few weeks back in Matthew’s Gospel, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
This is the first time Jesus mentions the cross to his disciples. Jesus was laying out for them, the type of radical commitment he was looking for. He needed all of them to know that what they were undertaking was going to be extremely difficult. And in fact, many of Jesus‘s earliest followers ended up exactly there; hanging on a Roman Cross. Jesus was bringing radical transformation with him. The road was not going to be easy.
Just one example of the transformation that Jesus brought with him, was the cross itself. The cross used to represent crucifixion in general. Now the cross represents one crucifixion in particular, to one person. Jesus of Nazareth. 
In the 1st century the cross represented the cruelty of an Empire and by the 5th century it represented the love of God. Imagine trying to go back in time and convince a 1st century Christian that one day, the cross would come to represent life, not death. Love, not hate. Salvation, not suffering. Imagine the look on their faces when you tell them that the Empire that crucified their Lord; would one day embrace him, as Lord. 
Can that type of cultural change happen again? In our world? In our society? I believe it can, but it's up to us…and it won't be in an email. I’ll see you in the Eucharist…