Sharing the Word – January-27-2019 – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (YearC)

                2nd Reading; 1 Cor; 12: 12- 30,

                Gospel; Luke 1 : 1 – 4, 4: 14 – 21.

In the Gospel, Jesus reads scripture in the synagogue. Luke begins by letting, Theophilus know that he, Luke, is giving an ordered account of all what Jesus did. A true story!  A private letter to his Senior friend, Theophilus, has become one of the Synoptic Gospels.

‘He sent me to bring the good news to the poor, tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more, to bring sight to the blind, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour’.  A striking thing is Jesus’ proclamation, that the words of the prophet Isaiah are being fulfilled even as the people in the synagogue listen. He does not hide his identity. He lets them know that He is the long-awaited-for Christ. We have a duty to let people know who we are, who we represent and give them what gifts we are endowed with. The Israelites weep in the first reading because they realise who they are. Each time we read Scriptures and find out what God is saying to us, we discover who we are. We should keep reading as each time we learn not just about ourselves but also about who our God is. St Jerome says,’ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ’.

One wrong thing with us today, is false identity. We either want to make friars with cloaks that aren’t ours, or truly throw them off, when circumstances are not to our advantage. We try to devalue truth whenever, anyhow and everyhow, in order to make circumstances benefit us, at the disadvantage of our nearest. When we have so much money, we tend to downplay the poor. When we accumulate so much knowledge, we tend to deceive the ignorant. When we have bad family setups, we tend to deceive our neighbours who are apparently happy in theirs, etc.

What is wrong that we have accumulated so much, yet we are always in want? Ask the person next to you what he/she wants in life. The obvious answer is ‘ All I want is to be happy’. I believe in that answer. If he/she wants a partner, a home, money, health, good looks, etc, it is because he/she thinks these will bring happiness. I believe most people want to be happy. That is why even those who have food, diet to have a better look and shape, those who have money work harder to get more, those who are healthy strive to maintain their health. All these efforts are to find that elusive quality: happiness. We are poor!! Yes! we are. We are apparently successful, yet we still feel hollow inside. We want the voice inside us to quench that feeling. The feeling that we are fulfilled, happy, rich and not in need. We want other people to know us the way we would like to be, not the phonies we feel of ourselves.

Jesus says He came for the poor. But who are the poor? We are poor because we are ignorant, yet those who know better than us think they should mislead us when they themselves still go astray. We are poor also because we are hungry and thirsty. We rarely eat or drink what we desire all the time. The poor are those who go about in rags. We hardly wear what we would love to. The poor are the homeless. Our dream homes are yet to come. The poor are the sick. We are never in top form, we wish, we had been better. The poor are the physically and mentally handicapped. The poor are the old. We wish, our earlier days stayed on. The poor are the imprisoned. Even if physically free, we store a lot of untold truth in us, for fear of the unknown. The poor are the sad and depressed. Are we really happy, and all times? Not possible!  The poor are the alcoholics, drug addicts, sex maniacs. The zeal always increasing. The poor are those who live on bread alone (and not on bread and tea as one of my  friends would say). The poor are those with hearts of flesh, but who do not love, because of the absence of truth. The poor are the ignorant. Our search for more knowledge is insatiable

The poor, in one way or the other, are we ourselves. Before God, we are all poor. Especially, when we keep telling God that all He has given us is not enough. Yes we are poor. Truly poor because we are in need of almost everything. The true measure of our wealth is not how much we have, but how much we want and do not have. We are undeniably brilliant people, honour graduates from the finest universities, armed with mountains of information from the most sophisticated computers and still, we keep making the wrong decisions in governing, teaching, family, business. We have intelligence, we have information, we have money, yet we lack wisdom. We lack love and care. We had better been the simple, educated, unsophisticated, serving God and neighbour with our many gifts. And we all have the gifts. Who does not have a gift?

Gifts to give life to dead situations in others’ lives. Gifts to free others from their prisons by giving them what we have which they lack. Gifts to give direction to those blinded by ignorance. Gifts to set the downtrodden free and not to lay more burdens on them. Gifts to bring God’s Good news to all and to proclaim that this is the time for God’s favour. Time to fulfill the essence of our being.

Paul tells the Christians in Corinth that we are parts of the same body, and to fulfill God’s plan, we need each other to function properly. You are my eyes, my ears, my legs, my hands and I am your hair, your fingers, your toes. God has clothed us all with functions to compliment each other. You are a healer, teacher, leader and I am the patient, student, subordinate. You will utterly be useless if I were not there for you to perform your functions. You are bringing me good news for the accomplishment of our duties. You are setting me a prisoner, free. In turn, I am giving you direction of movement, I am giving you sight. I am liberating you of the gifts that will otherwise be held captive. Together we are proclaiming God’s year of favour and our world will become the better place God intended.

This is God’s word for us today. A living word that has power to change and transform lives and bring freedom and healing to those who give and receive it. A word that shows God’s grace in action. Action that will save us from emptiness and transform our entire world. You have your part to play and now.

Lord Jesus thank you for coming to alleviate my poverty. Lord, May I never see my poverty as a curse. Rather, may I know that when I am poor, your kingdom and all its plenty is mine. May your word be a lamp for my steps and a light for my path. Amen.

Have a Blessed Week!