Readings:
1st Reading; Acts 4 : 32 – 35.
Responsorial Psalm; Ps. 117 : 2 – 4, 15 – 18, 22 – 24.
2nd Reading;1 John 5 : 1 – 6.
Gospel; John 20 : 19 – 31.

Our readings today directly touch the main tenets of Christian life; Charity, Faith and Hope. Otherwise referred to as ‘Mercy Sunday’, I choose to dwell on one of the community aspects from the readings. When the early Christians received the Holy Spirit, they were so grateful that they shared their possessions with the needy. They realised a new way of looking at life on earth as a Christian community. If their Master could give up His own life for theirs, what then were mere perishable possessions? Sharing is Charity, a language understood by all – the lame, the blind, the crooked, the dumb, the rich, the illiterates and the sages. When you extend a needy hand to even one who does not see, nor understands your language, the reaction is always the same. Joy, happiness and gratitude to both the giver and the taker.

Once, a friend impressed me so much by thanking me for accepting a drink from him. I have since then built up an attitude of telling people that I would be useless if I failed to help them when I could. This is one thing we take for granted as we think that only the taker should be grateful for receiving from us. The pinnacle of love is when both parties are happy with giving and receiving. It meets our need to matter to others, as someone puts it, ‘to be somebody’s somebody’. As much as we need people to tell us that we are special and irreplaceable, people who will tend to our needs and banish our fears and insecurities the way our mothers did when we were infants, we also need to give love, to make a difference in someone’s life.

In the Old Testament we read the story of Jacob who grows up to be crafty, greedy and a trickster. This takes him into exile and on his way back home, twenty years after, he dreams of struggling with ‘his angel’ over who he is and who he oughts to be. As Christians, we have an inner fear that keeps resonating, when we, like Jacob, think that we are flawed and that no one loves us , neither our parents, siblings, colleagues, or community. We need to know that someone around us finds us likable. We see that we need to make a difference in another person’s life. We come to understand that love (sharing) involves nourishing someone else’s soul and not just finding someone wishing to nourish ours. This is the kind of love that reigns in marriage. We learn that marriages fail most often when one or both partners are not receiving the love they need, but sometimes also because one partner is frustrated in his/her need to give the love and make a difference in the other person’s life. ‘He/she does not need me, that is why I can’t live anymore with him/her’. This can be viewed within the larger community. People who accept death without regrets are those who think that they have shared or contributed satisfactorily enough to their communities or countries and that their lives have not been led in vain. That is the highest satisfaction from sharing what we know we have.

Jesus tells us, His followers, to give without charge as we received without charge. The only possession He demands us to hold onto tenaciously, is our belief in Him and the power of His resurrection. There is nobody without a gift from God. Such gifts are not meant to be hoarded. When we hoard them, we are still in our favourite tombs of selfishness, greed, meanness, with large boulders still blocking our real selves in, and like Jacob, something resonates in us telling us that there is something wrong with us. That we are not who we are suppose to be. Once we can roll away this large stones, our real selves emerge from the tombs and we find the needy who have been waiting for God’s sharing through us. When we do not recognise our gifts, we need the Holy Spirit to show us what God has bestowed on us. When we find these, we are called to share them, freely with faith and hope that the giver will always make them grow or replenish them.

You received freely and freely you should give. The one true thing with us is that we usually have some selfishness in us. We like to accumulate things and keep them for our selves. We make sure that we have what we want before we can share the ‘rest’ with anybody else. And when we share at all, we make sure we give only to those who will be able to give us back when we are in need. In the first case, it is ‘dumping’ because we do not need it anymore. While in the later situation, it is a saving, a preservation to get back when needed. These are not the ways the early Christians shared their gifts and possessions. Their own way demands sacrifice. Do we realise that others may need just our time and sometimes just kind words?

In our Gospel of today, when Jesus appears, the apostles are like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden – hiding with fear and ashamed. They know who they are and who they ought to be. Instead of blaming them for their attitudes Jesus brings them peace, “Peace be with you”. He asks them to spread the peace and to forgive each other their trespasses. Thomas is not there and when he returns, out of doubt or envy, he refuses to believe that Jesus had come. God comes looking for us in our hearts and we feel like the apostles. We feel fear because we have abandoned him when he needed us most. We feel ashamed of who we are because we are not who we are suppose to be. Like Thomas, when we are extended a divine hand through others, we refuse to accept and say we will love to have ours directly from God – the giver. The rock/mountain of fear or doubt confines us in the tombs and makes us uncomfortable. When we can put away such a rock from the door of our tomb, the gifts freely emerge for the benefit of others. It is this benefit that interconnects us with God’s whole family. By this, we do our own share of the household chores to keep the house neat, alive and lovable.

It is our faith in the resurrected Jesus that interconnects us in this manner. That is where God is found, in relationships, not in people but between people. This is the kind of interconnectedness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit we hear in the second reading. We are challenged to believe without necessarily seeing. When we fail to share what we have, we are still in doubt and in the darkness of the tomb. Our prayer today should be for the awareness of the gifts God has bestowed on each of us and that we should be able to hold them generously to the benefit of our brethren and the community at large. That we should be truly attuned to each other, so that God can come down and fill the space between us, so that we are connected, not separated. God’s experience is best manifested in community. By this we shall be bringing God into a world that would otherwise be a vale of selfishness and loneliness.

A Little Prayer.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your victory over greed, by giving yourself even to death for my sake. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and strengthen my faith and my ability to share with the needy, so that I will be able to send away darkness from others’ lives and bring in the light of your resurrection. Amen.

Have a Blessed Week!
Bobe Talla Toh.