What is one thing you have had to give up for a grater good? For your faith? Several things might can come to mind. People give up their singlehood in order to commit to just one person and get married in the Church, with the fruits of that being a family and lifelong partnership. When I think of that for myself, to become a priest I had to give up a promising career as a research biologist. I was young, just starting college, getting internships with the Seattle Aquarium and field studies with National Geographic, was building relationships with organizations that would have helped pay for my career, when all the sudden Jesus said: I need you for something else. Saying no to those organizations, giving up that lifelong dream, was incredibly difficult.

When it comes to faith, Jesus demands some form of detachment, there is a cost to being a committed Christian.

Maybe that is why some people might find it easy to leave the Church. Over the past decades we’ve been hearing about decreasing church attendance (which is now finally changing). Fewer people coming to Church means fewer people discovering their gifts for the good of the community, which means less discernment of our particular mission in life, fewer marriages, fewer people serving the Church, fewer vocations to religious life, and fewer priests. Many explanations have been given as to why people leave the Church today. Some point to scandals. Others cite the advances of science. Others blame the influence of social media.

But the deeper question is: What would make someone want to come to Church?

A professor of mine used to say there is really only one reason anybody comes to church: you must see something compelling about church life that you cannot find anywhere else in spite of the failures of people in the Church to live the Christian life with integrity, in spite of the failures of Church leaders to represent the Gospel with integrity.

We come to Church because we are convinced God’s power is at work through the Church for the good of the world. I believe that because of the difference the Church has made in my life, and because of the example of faith that others have witnessed before me and how they have helped me. To be a witness of faith sometimes means being willing to suffer or enter into the suffering of others.

That is the theme of taking up the cross that Jesus returns to time and time again: Whoever does not carry their cross cannot be my disciple. The movement from cross to resurrection is the basic pattern of the Christian life.

This has been true at all times and places in human history. And still today, the thing that will attract people to Christianity is witnessing how the power of God is manifested in the midst of suffering.

Sadly, many times the reason people have given up on the Church is that the Church has caused suffering instead of manifesting the power of God in the midst of suffering. And that is a fundamental betrayal of the Gospel. I often find myself apologizing on behalf of the Church to those who tell me they were hurt—whether by a fellow Christian or by a leader.

Just this week I received an email from a man who had found me on social media. He told me his story: at 16, he came to Christian faith; at 19, he made a mistake. When he sought support from his Christian community, they shunned him for having committed that sin. The place he expected to heal him wounded him even more. Many years later, he married a Catholic woman and is now on a journey of giving Christianity a second chance, this time through the Catholic Church. He was seeking counsel and advice. The first thing I did was apologize on behalf of that community, saying: If a member of the Body of Christ hurt you, that was not Jesus, that was that individual’s own brokenness.

The Book of Wisdom today speaks about the universal human struggle: The corruptible body burdens the soul, and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind. Everywhere, people feel burdened and weighed down in some way. The aspirations of their souls and the dreams of their imaginations are frustrated.

So, what do people need to see? A power of fulfillment that cannot be found anywhere else.

The purpose of the Church is to be a visible sign of God’s presence. That means the essence of being a missionary disciple of Jesus is making this evident to people, and yes, that comes at a cost. The question posed to us today is:  What does the cross look like for me?

Carrying your cross involves two questions:

1. What is it going to cost me to be a public witness to Jesus that others can see?
2. What is it going to cost me to put my spiritual gifts into action for somebody else?

As to the first question: today, Jesus gives three metaphors for the cost of discipleship: the cost of separation from family, the cost of a major building project, and the cost of engaging in battle and war. These are all metaphors that refer to the Roman Empire at the time the Gospel was first being preached.

 Jesus is proposing that the Church is an alternative to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire promised to bring the world together (like the United Nations or Apple promise today). The greatest benefit for a family in Jesus’ time was Roman citizenship. Being a Roman citizen brought status found nowhere else in the world.

But Jesus says: the Church is the sacrament of unity, not Rome.

Jesus says: it will cost you something to be a public witness of me rather than to Roman emperor, you have to choose, it cannot be both. Then he says something interesting: Anyone who does not hate his own family cannot be my disciple. 

Jesus is using the word “hate” not the way we use it today in terms of a negative feeling, rather the way it’s used in the Old Testament to describe how God chooses people. Back in Genesis, God says: Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. God did not personally hate Esau; rather, God chose the family of Jacob to serve a special role in salvation history.

In the same way, God has chosen the Church, the new People of God, not the Empire, and so your decision to belong to the Church should be obvious just as it is obvious what family you belong to.

In the second reading, Paul is calling Philemon to be a public witness to the Christian faith. He says: I pray that your partnership in the faith may become effective in making known every good there is that leads us to Christ.

What happened? Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, ran away from the household. The reaction of a typical Roman master would have been: I paid good money for you. You ran away. You will be punished so you never disobey me again.

But in the meantime, Onesimus had met the apostle Paul, who shared the Gospel with him and showed him how the power of God works in suffering. Paul listened to his struggles as a slave, as a man who wanted more from life but was being sold from master to master. Paul understood why he ran away. And as the love of God became known to him in the midst of his struggle, Onesimus became a Christian.

So, Paul asks Philemon, the master, to offer him his freedom as a brother in Christ. If he did that, many people would think Philemon was weak, or even crazy. It was going to cost him something to do something so radical, so that out of the suffering of a runaway slave, the power of God would be seen.

Now, as to the second question: What is it going to cost us to put our gifts into action for the benefit of someone else?

Jesus compares taking up the cross to planning a building or preparing for war. The most important thing to a king is his reputation for power. A king will go into battle only if he thinks he’s going to win.

Jesus says that we, as his disciples, should be just as concerned to be witnesses to God’s power. The way God’s power is made visible, brought into action, is through our spiritual gifts.

A builder calculates how many laborers he needs. A commander calculates how many troops he needs. Jesus needs every disciple to take some active part in the expansion of the Gospel. That means every one of us must discern our gifts and ask how we are called to use them for the benefit of others.

I am grateful that slowly we are starting to regain ownership of our faith, to live it out intentionally, and to share it. When I arrived at Holy Spirit as we were coming out of the pandemic, we had very few volunteers, few ministries, and people where now hesitant to step up and do something. But now, slowly, we are seeing new life: more men joining the Knights of Columbus, choirs rebuilding with new voices, new Eucharistic ministers, more staff, and more people returning to Mass. More and more of you are coming to me with ideas for ministries you want to start. People are taking the initiative to share their gifts, instead of waiting for “Father” to do it all.

But I also understand the hesitation to get more involved. To live your faith costs something because faith is not personal, it is communal, that means we must be willing to enter into the messiness of each other’s lives. Those of you who have been involved in ministry, whether with youth, marriages, prayer ministry, or anything else, know there is no shortage of human conflict.

To this Pope Francis says: You cannot serve in pastoral ministry without taking on the smell of the sheep. Paul writes to the Galatians:  Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ. Paul assumes that Christian disciples will become so immersed in the lives of those they serve that they must be careful not to be affected by it in the wrong way.

Just a few days ago, we celebrated the memorial of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A reporter once asked her: How can I know if I am doing enough for God? She answered: Give until it hurts. You have to give until it hurts. Today the Church canonized Carlo Acutis and Piere Giorgio Frassati, two young men who gave without measure, and it wasn’t until after their death that people realized just how much they gave.

Family, today we are invited to renew our commitment to the Church as active disciples, witnesses that being here is important, that it matter, that it makes a difference.

What has it cost you? For those who have not yet taken a greater step in missionary discipleship, what is it going to cost you to put your spiritual gifts into action, so that the power of God can be manifested in the midst of the struggles of others?

The answer will make you an instrument of the power of God, the power that always leads from cross to resurrection.