23RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) Wis 9: 13-18b/Ps 89/Philemon 1: 9-10.12-17/Lk 14: 25-33
My Dear Friends in Christ,
The words of Jesus in today’s gospel suggest that it is difficult to Jesus’ follower. Jesus’ call is radical, and we cannot even think about offering half measures. Jesus calls us to give him our 100% and even more if possible, and we cannot prefer anything to our commitment to Jesus.
Yes it is difficult to be a Christian in these terms, but indeed we cannot be Christians in any other terms. We become Christians, followers of Christ the God-man, with the sacrament of baptism. In a sense, the day we are baptized is the day we tell the whole world that we have fallen in love with God. The thing about falling in love with God, is that we have actually fallen in love with love, because God is Love. (1 John: 4:6)
As most of us know, when we love on the horizontal, human plane, we expect the love to be total and complete. The beloved expects the Lover to love whole heartedly, without any reservations whatsoever. Indeed, reserving any space in the heart for someone or something else, is opening the door to infidelity.
With God, the commitment is much greater, because we cannot but try our utmost to reciprocate the overwhelming, all-encompassing love of God, which made God give the Only-begotten Son Jesus for our good (John 3: 16), and which continues to sustain us in our earthly existence, since it is in Love (which is God), that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). No matter how hard we try, we cannot even begin to match the tinniest fraction of the intensity of God’s love for us. But we will get full marks if we love with the entirety of our being.
Interestingly, loving Jesus wholeheartedly, and following Him thus, does not mean we love these our loved ones less. Because, how can we love the God we do not see, without loving our brothers and sisters, created in the image and likeness of God, whom we can see. So, if there are situations where it appears we need to make a choice between doing God’s will and satisfying our loved ones that Jesus mentions in today’s gospel, the apparent dislocation is because we are not at that moment doing our utmost to fulfill our part of the relationship. If there is 100% effort in loving God, then everyone will understand the necessity of doing God’s will. Then there will be question pf choosing between God and others.
This is the ideal that we are challenged to reach. This is the ideal that we need to pray for the grace to realize.
24TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) Ex 32: 7-11. 13-14/Ps 50/1 Tim 1: 12-17/Lk 15: 1-32
My Dear Friends in Christ,
Today’s readings are replete with instances of God’s mercy and forgiveness, culminating in the story of the prodigal son and the prodigal father in today’s gospel. The story of the prodigal son is one of the most popular gospel stories, and is filled with many elements that resonate with most if not all of us. It is not unusual for the majority of us to identify with the second son, the prodigal son, especially in terms of our relationship with God. But there are moments when we act like the first son, even though we would prefer to hide from the reality.
The first Son was really upset with his younger brother for asking for his share of the inheritance that will accrue to him when the father is no longer alive. Such matters are only meant to be discussed at the appropriate time, that is, in the event of the death of the Father. For the young chap to anticipate the issue was bad enough. For him to then squander the fortune on a life of debauchery only made matters worse. It is only fair for a full blooded human being to be angry at this.
He, on the contrary, did not make this same mistake. He stayed with the father, and continued to serve him and do all the things that would make the old man happy. He did his duty, while keeping tabs on the shenanigans of his brother. He could not help wondering why the old man kept sitting outside every day, as if he was expecting a visitor. He would see how the man eyes would struggle to focus on distant silhouettes, only to be disappointed when the images become clearer. This Old man could not be expecting his profligate son to return, surely!!!
Unfortunately for him, yes the Old man was indeed waiting for his son to return, and to make things worse, his brother actually returned. You can imagine his anger on that day, anger that he could not hide from his father. He felt that he had been treated unjustly, but his father tried to make him see things from the God perspective, a perspective that he had not considered up till that point.
At those moments when we feel that our anger is justified against someone who has offended us like the prodigal son, and when we feel we are right to at least, procrastinate showing mercy, so the person learns a lesson for the future, think of today’s gospel. Is that what God would want us to do? As Pope Francis puts in Misericordiae Vultus (21); “mercy is not opposed to justice but rather expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert, and believe… If God limited himself to only justice, he would cease to be God, and would instead be like human beings who ask merely that the law be respected. But mere justice is not enough. Experience shows that an appeal to justice alone will result in its destruction. This is why God goes beyond justice with his mercy and forgiveness”. For those moments when we feel like the first son, we have to act like the prodigal father.
25TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) Amos 8: 4-7/Ps 112/1 Tim 2:1-8/Lk 16: 1-13
My Dear Friends in Christ,
I wonder how honest pensioners in Nigeria feel any time they encounter today’s gospel reading, particularly after returning from another bout of screening, an exercise designed to certify that they are to collect their benefits that are in most cases, already overdue. Perhaps some of them would be questioning their modus operandi while in active service, and asking themselves in hindsight, whether it would not have been better to have done things differently.
But it is good we understand the story a wee bit, to better evaluate the actions of this servant. The servant’s reputation for wastefulness led to his being dismissed from his Master’s service. The accounts that his Master calls for is actually the last task he is to perform in his present employment, and he uses this opportunity to win friends for himself by removing the interest rate charge on the debts (see Deut 15: 7-8; Ex 22:25) as well as his own commission. (Scripture scholars are not in unanimity about this, but quite a good number agree with this). The original offence was wastefulness, but his latter actions were commended by his Master, because they assured him of some solace in the future, when he returns to the labour market. The Master is commending his foresight and astuteness…not his cunning in trying to make so much commission in the first instance.
We cannot accuse our pensioners of lack of foresight. They believed in the project Nigeria, and worked tirelessly for the realization of the dreams of our National heroes past. They believed that once Nigeria assumes her rightful place in the comity of Nations, owing of course to their hard work, then they would sit back, relax, enjoy the fruits of the labours, and tell the younger generations of the good ole days.
Well, it has not turned out so, and distasteful as it is, some of the generations of Nigerians that these pensioners trained, taught, fought for and worked for their future, have no qualms about making capital out of delaying or denying them their benefits in retirement. Seeing these suffering pensioners now, the prophets of social justice of the Old Testament would practically somersault in their graves in righteous anger.
But all hope is not lost. You and me can contribute our quota with the help of God, to change this unfortunate narrative. It is a matter of urgency for us to change the story of the typical Nigerian pensioner, otherwise, we would be building an extremely corrupt workforce, whose justification for their actions would be two fold; a misunderstanding of the praise of the dishonest steward in this gospel, and a strong desire not to end up like the pensioners of today.
26TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (YEAR C) Amos 6:1, 4-7/Ps 145/1 Tim 6:11-16/Lk16: 19-31
My Dear Friends in Christ,
For years, I have been bothered by two things from the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Firstly, how come the Rich man was so insensitive to the plight of Lazarus, who was so close to him that he could not help seeing him daily? Could it be that Lazarus reminded him of his past, and he wanted to be as distant from that past as possible, that he refused to engage with Lazarus? It is said that some rich persons, who hail from very humble backgrounds, find their greatest motivation in their pursuit of wealth stemming from a refusal to be poor again, which could lead to avoiding any vestige of poverty that remains. Could it be the scenario here?
Or was somebody assigned to cater for the needs of Lazarus, and failed to do his/her duty? This is difficult to argue, as even if this were to be the case, we cannot explain the irresponsible abandonment of such a duty on a regular basis. Was Lazarus a relative that he felt did not deserve to benefit from his largesse? Did Lazarus offend him? So many questions. Which explain how difficult it is to come to terms with the fact that such a rich man could have such a poor man at the entrance to his house, for such a long time, and the rich man could not lift a finger to help.
Secondly, why did the Rich Man think Lazarus would have done him the favour of assuaging his thirst? Why would he expect Lazarus to show him the sort of mercy he never demonstrated to the same person? Why even ask Abraham? Why not talk directly to Lazarus? Did he feel it was beneath him to talk to the ‘poor’ man, even in the present circumstances? Did he still see Lazarus as that poor beggar? So many questions once again.
The lesson behind this parable as given by Jesus, is quite clear, especially when we read the gospel together with today’s first reading. The rich have to be mindful of the poor and use their material things to help them.
The above questions however are to get us reflecting on those opportunities God has given us to be in a position to assist our neighbours, who in that particular circumstance, may not be as endowed as we are. It may be material endowment or otherwise, but there are certainly persons who in relation to us, are in need of our assistance. We sometimes summon a myriad of reasons as to why we cannot help them, some of which resemble the questions above. We need to remind ourselves that these reasons do not ‘hold water’, and for all it is worth, any time we fail to assist these Lazaruses in our midst, we are opening ourselves up to a difficult judgment from Him who gave us those endowments in the first instance.
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