Misunderstanding God's Word : 14th Sunday In Ordinary Time Year B 08-07-12

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 08-07-12 Theme: Misunderstanding God’s Word 1st Reading Ezekiel:28b-2:2-5 God’s enduring love. 2nd Reading Cor. 12:7-10 Paul view is ‘in weakness we experience God’s enduring love’. Gospel Mark 6:1b-6 rejection of Jesus. We live in a country where religious affinity is important. People of our country have been following different religious beliefs for centuries. Majority of our citizens follow Hindu religion. All major religious beliefs are found in our country like Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism . Jainism, Sikhism, Zerostrianism, Zionist, Bhahais, Christianity, Jewish religion, etc. In spite of this multi-religious background, there is still religious intolarnce. Though our country is secular. There are many religious persecutions. The attacks on these religious groups becomes news within second thanks to the media. Majority communities feel justified in persecuting the minority community. So we have seen many indulging in religious persecutions. Even forcing people to change religion. Many religious symbols are being destroyed and people killed, places of worship demolished. The houses and hearths of the people are confiscated and appropriated without any qualms of conscience some governments even abet such activity. How can we Christians be able to live in such situation? We have Christ’s own example of being misunderstood by his own relatives. Let us reflect on our own religious and family existence. Then to know who we are, be able to live as dignified Christians. We know we belong to a certain family who possess certain religious belief. Our parents might be of exceptional importance in the village. Most of the Catholics and Christians from the southern Indian and Mumbai area have a place in the society. Till recently we were not facing any question about our identity. Now people challenge us saying be are not citizens of this country. Some political parties propagate, that only one type of people are citizens of this country. Sometimes there can be discrimination and rejection due to caste, creed, religion etc. A human being has to endure certain values which the society has instituted through long traditions and customs. With globalization these traditions and customs are crumbling day by day. With fanatic groups regrouping themselves with militant affiliation there is going to be surely confrontation. We have to be aware of this trend. But when we go back to the time of Jesus and the ideas of those people at his time, it was totally different. Jesus came with a strange teaching. Every one knew every one in the village. The village was like a small joint family. So when Jesus began his mission all his actions were critically viewed with the measure of the village mentality. Jesus belonged to an insignificant carpenter family, his relatives were known to all. So people questioned his wisdom. How could this man, who is no body, preach such principles which are against the tenets of their Jewish way. Their belief told them that, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. When Jesus was rejected by his own people surely it must have pained him. Being rejected by the people who know us is a very painful experience. Let us put ourselves in his shoes. In the first reading we see prophetic mission of Ezekiel as a person who would be sent to preach to the people of Israel. We see that how the people of Israel had been headstrong and went on sinning, not listening to God’s invitation. God had been sending prophets to remind them the reason for which they were chosen. Here prophet Ezekiel uses the political term rebel to describe them in this adjective ’rebel’. When a kingdom rebelled against the other it always had to suffer the wrath of the powerful king and face war. But God is not a revengeful God, he is generous, so chooses prophets to challenge them and bring them back to the fold. In the second reading Paul began his mission among the Corinthians. He found he was beset by some strange type of sickness which he could not explain. This hindered his missionary activity. Paul uses this as a medium to experience God’s power in using weakness, sickness, constraints, persecutions etc. These difficulties are a stepping stone to achieving his goal of preaching the Word of God to the people. In the Gospel we see Jesus coming during his public ministry to preach to his own relatives in Nazareth the place where we grew up as a boy. All must have known him as a growing child. They had found him in the temple lost as any knotty child and being found by the grieving parents. They found him doing odd jobs along with his father who was a village carpenter. When played with his cousins and friends and neighbors surely every one saw how normal and ordinary child he was. Now when he came there performing miracles and proclaiming a new sort of teaching different from the Pharisees and Sadducees they could not believe their ears to see how could an ordinary child be a teacher???? So when Jesus began to teach there they would think something was not ok with this man. They did not want to get into trouble due to this strange person who belonged to their village; they would prefer to drive him out of the village than tolerate him in their village to exercise his ministry. So they reject him as some one with a special message. They even drive him out of their village and feel proud of doing this act. They were proud of being the first to have driven away a presumptuous upstart of a teacher. We live in the modern times. The life has become more exposed to the world view. The world view of today is something different. People do not consider religion and religious tenets as important. What is important today is to own the best in this world. And there are many best things that are developed and marketed. Money has taken upper hand and people are competing with each other to have more cash so that they can have the best. In the attempt of having more, people and feelings take back seat. People become less sensitive to the needs of people greed takes the upper seat than the need, thus so many tragedies are taking place. We as Christians are not respected because ours is a strange tribe who preach forgiveness, service, sacrifice, humility, love, sharing, harmony, unity etc. The world preaches, revenge, power, amassing of wealth, pride of being on the top, hate, break neck completion etc. When we participate in the Eucharist every Sunday and meditate on the word of God we become familiar with the Divine plan for us. We understand our own responsibility to proclaim the value of the kingdom in our daily activity. There are many temptations but if we become aware of God’s Spirit in our life we will surely be able to discern the type of life we have to live, then we can answer the question, is it for God or for the world where we live? Wishing all a very happy Sunday Yours ever in the Divine word, Fr.Juze Vaz svd