A guy walks into an ice cream shop and really wants two scoops of Rocky Road.

But he's on a diet and he knows he can only have one. So in the name of personal health he orders one scoop.

Two women come in right behind him, one asked the other what she wants and she says she wants Rocky Road. The first woman says that's exactly what she wants! 

So when it's their turn to order the first woman orders Rocky Road and the server tells her she's lucky because there's only one scoop left.

So the first woman says "Oh don't worry about it, give me the mint chocolate chip, my friend wants the Rocky Road."

In both cases these customers denied themselves.

However one did it for himself, the other did so for someone else.

In Sunday's gospel Jesus talks about denial, and I have a feeling he's talking more about the second case then the first.

While there is no discounting the value of discipline, of denial, Jesus appears to prefer that we did so in a specific manner. It is denial centered not on self, but on others.

The challenge of following Jesus, what you and I deal with everyday, is thinking first about others before we think of ourselves. Our culture, our instincts, everything in and around us has forced our default setting to be on ourselves, when Jesus invites us to another way.

He invites us to look at our lives, at our calendars, at today, and question what we are doing in the light of love, in the light of whose day we are trying to make, who's load we are longing to lessen, how we might live our own lives, for the benefit of others.

The irony is that this denial for the sake of others doesn't simply benefit other people, but at the end of the day when we live lives of giving, we are the winners.