Changing Our Relationships – with Things, with People, with God
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time – September 7, 2025
Wow, wow, wow! Jesus is not serious, surely? Let’s start with the most challenging point:
“So, in the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his possessions.”
Then, “If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”
The key is in the First Reading which praises the Wisdom of God, and seeking to receive it. This helps us understand more deeply, why Jesus is telling us those difficult teachings above.
Jesus doesn’t say “sell” all his possessions but, “give up”, and that can be taken in two ways: we give away, or, we loosen out grip on those possessions (change from owner to custodian).
Sharing our excess goods is helpful. We see families doing this all the time when the last child leaves home: many baby “things” are given away to other families or charity stores. That is Wisdom! We unclutter our home, and we assist those who need the goods we no longer need.
The trouble is, we are often reluctant to give many things away, despite the fact that they are stressing us out on where to store them: I might need it next month/ year, or, we make unrealistic plans to make use of them when we are already too busy.
There is a great freedom in disposing of things we no longer need or use very often: physically, we have more space; emotionally, one less thing to worry about; and psychologically, we feel good about empowering someone else. And, anyway, have we never been assisted by others?
The Second Reading identifies an important element in our lives that many of us probably don’t realise: we can become a slave to our possessions, or keeping up appearances to “impress others”, or a slave to “saving ourselves in the future” instead of trusting that our care for others, today, and, with God’s help, all will be well in the future.
The “owner” of Onesimus, presumably Mr Philemon, was being urged to give up ownership of Onesimus. We don’t know what happened: more than likely, Onesimus continued working for Philemon but, hopefully, their relationship changed: did Onesimus became a brother rather than a low level slave? We must understand that slavery was not all bad at that time: the economic order in Society was built around the use of slaves. One cannot change such a system overnight or it will cause chaos and suffering for all those who have nothing.
It’s unlike any of the rich people 2,000 years ago would have given up their power and wealth without a fight. We only have to look at our national attitudes to immigrants and refugees: they are exploited by some businesses, and treated with suspicion by many people.
Many also get upset when our Government spends too much money on them because it means my “quality of life” reduces as Government services reduce. But that’s another complex story with many complicating factors such as security, housing, clashing of moral values, etc.
What we can do, first of all, is to change the relationships we have with people who work for us. In our religious communities, or businesses, do we pay people what is fair?, or do we pay people what everyone else is paying? We can easily become slave-masters. Which is why the Social Teaching of the Church is so important: everyone should receive a liveable wage (Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII, 1891).
And this is precisely what Jesus is calling us to today: please, let us not take the easy way out by looking at the instructions simplistically and thinking: ‘Jesus is asking too much’. Jesus wants us to change our relationships with people, and our relationship with material things, in order that we can find greater freedom and peace in our lives.
The more we share, the more we invest in a happy future. The more we include and respect other people, the more we invest in a happy future. It’s as simple, and complex, as that.
Every day, we have to deal with our own brokenness, as well as the brokenness of others. This is why so many of us are stressed up. Our expectations of others can be too demanding, and this leads to disappointment and quarrels. What Jesus is inviting us to, today, is to learn from Jesus, first, before we try to build our relationships with family and friends.
Through Jesus we will find healing for ourselves, thereby enabling us to build peaceful, respectful and, ultimately, productive relationships, rather than difficult relationships where we have many demands and expectations. Brian Tracy, a Canadian motivational speaker, says:
“Successful people are always looking for ways to help others, unsuccessful people are always asking: ‘What’s in it for me?’“. Let’s be successful people by imitating Jesus first, through a continuing transformation to greater sensitivity for the sufferings and needs of others: starting with, but also reaching out beyond, “my mother, my brother and my sister.”
By Gerard Conlan, OMI
