REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 27TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 9TH OCTOBER 2023 (Faith clarifies Mission

REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 27TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME 9TH OCTOBER 2023

Jonah 1:1-17;2:1,10; Jonah 2; Luke 10:25-37

Faith clarifies Mission

One of the veritable ways God reveals himself to us is in the pages of the scripture and our life experiences. In today’s first reading, Jonah struggled with beholding one attribute of God: Mercy. When God asked him to go preach against Nineveh, he decided to decline and run away not because he was afraid of the people but because he knew that in the finally analysis, God will have mercy on them and not bring about what he has threatened. Clearly, Jonah had difficulty with accepting God (faith) as a merciful God just as some Christians today have difficulty in accepting Him as a working God or a suffering God (the cross).

When faith is not perfect, mission is blurred. The call of Jonah had a twofold dimension. Going to Nineveh was both a call to repentance for the people and a fulfilment of the destiny of Jonah himself. Jonah knew the first but not the second. In trying to evade the first, he was also evading the second. All these were caused by lack of faith in a merciful God. Truly, without faith, no one can please God.

Beloved, without faith, we cannot identify the path God has mapped out for us and when we are not on this path, we remain restless. The first benefit we derive from doing any good is the fulfilment of the purpose of our creation. We run the risk of becoming people oriented when we only consider those who will benefit from our response to God’s call. See, if you do good, you do for yourself; if you do bad, you do for yourself.

In the gospel reading, the lawyer wanted to know the limit to which he can be good to others; and so he asked: “who is my neighbour?” A direct answer to this question will invariably spell out who is not his neighbour. Most times we think and act like this lawyer. Before we help others, we want to first know who they are and maybe where they come from. We do this in a bid to see if we have common grounds with them, that is, if any of them is “my person”.

A Christian should be able to act the way he prays. In most of our prayers, we ask God for unmerited favours, yet we want others to merits ours. Whatever is merited is no longer a gift but a reward. In the gospel acclamation, Jesus tells us to love others as he has loved us. Only unmerited favours qualify as love. Every one of us is a “Paul” called to evangelize the gentiles.