Wednesday, 3 December 2014

20140801 FAMILIARITY A BANE OR BOON IN COMING TO KNOW THE LORD WHO IS A GOD OF SURPRISES

20140801 FAMILIARITY A BANE OR BOON IN COMING TO KNOW THE LORD WHO IS A GOD OF SURPRISES  


Reading 1, Jeremiah 26:1-9

1 At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh,
2 'Yahweh says this, "Stand in the court of the Temple of Yahweh. To all the people from the towns of Judah who come to worship in the Temple of Yahweh you will say everything I have ordered you to say, not omitting one syllable.
3 Perhaps they will listen and each turn from his evil way: if so, I shall relent and not bring the disaster on them which I intend because of their misdeeds."
4 Say to them, "Yahweh says this: If you will not listen to me and follow my Law which I have given you,
5 and pay attention to the words of my servants the prophets whom I have never tired of sending to you, although you never have paid attention,
6 I shall treat this Temple as I treated Shiloh, and make this city a curse for all the nations of the world." '
7 The priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah say these words in the Temple of Yahweh.
8 When Jeremiah had finished saying everything that Yahweh had ordered him to say to all the people, the priests and prophets and all the people seized hold of him and said, 'You will die for this!
9 Why have you made this prophecy in Yahweh's name, "This Temple will become like Shiloh, and this city become an uninhabited ruin"?' And the people all crowded in on Jeremiah in the Temple of Yahweh.


Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 69:6, 8-10, 14

6 Those who hope in you must not be made fools of, Yahweh Sabaoth, because of me! Those who seek you must not be disgraced, God of Israel, because of me!
8 I am estranged from my brothers, alienated from my own mother's sons;
9 for I am eaten up with zeal for your house, and insults directed against you fall on me.
10 I mortify myself with fasting, and find myself insulted for it,
14 Rescue me from the mire before I sink in; so I shall be saved from those who hate me, from the watery depths.


Gospel, Matthew 13:54-58

54 and, coming to his home town, he taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished and said, 'Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?
55 This is the carpenter's son, surely? Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude?
56 His sisters, too, are they not all here with us? So where did the man get it all?'
57 And they would not accept him. But Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is despised only in his own country and in his own house,'
58 and he did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

FAMILIARITY A BANE OR BOON IN COMING TO KNOW THE LORD WHO IS A GOD OF SURPRISES  
SCRIPTURE READINGS: JER 26:1-9; MT 13:54-58
http://www.universalis.com/20140801/mass.htm
“Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?”  In asking this question, the townsfolk of Jesus were not really interested to know the source or origin of His wisdom and power.  Rather, they asked in skepticism, in disbelief that He had such powers since He was only one of them and furthermore, only the son of a carpenter.

At the beginning of chapter 13, we read how the disciples of Jesus and many others followed Him even to the seaside, gathering around Him to listen to Him and be healed.  The townsfolk of Jesus on the contrary were not hungry for the Word.  They were there at the synagogue merely out of convenience, habit, and probably out of curiosity.  They did not expect to get anything much from Him.  In the words of today’s gospel, “A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house.”  It was a case of over familiarity.

In contrast we have the situation of Jeremiah in the first reading.  He too was called by the Lord to prophesy.  But when he spoke the truth as instructed, they accused him of being a false prophet.  They did not want to hear the truth and the bad news.  They could not see how God could have spoken to him instead of speaking to them, the prophets and religious leaders appointed to serve at the temple.  It was a case of a lack of familiarity.  They were not used to hearing such prophesy against Judah and against the Temple.  It was simply unacceptable, more so from one not known to them.

So the question is whether familiarity is a bane or boon.  Is it good to be familiar with the Lord or to keep a distance from Him?  Familiarity with God implies that we are in a personal relationship with Him.  We know Him so well that we are comfortable with Him and can rely on Him.  We know that God can be trusted to act.  In such a relationship, familiarity brings true friendship and intimacy. 

Unfortunately, it is also equally true that familiarity has brought contempt for God and for others in our lives.  This is because when we are familiar with someone we become prisoners of history and our past.  We look at people whom we know with an old mindset.  We do not see that people are changing all the time, not only physically but also in character.  No one can remain the same all the time.  We are dynamic beings, changing for the better or for the worse.  But when we see them as fossilized beings, then we are not relating with who they are now but what they were.  This is so true especially in community living.  We often look at each other based on our past experiences with that person.  We do not look anew when we see each other.  We tend to label each other as arrogant, boastful, lazy etc.

Consequently, we must recognize that familiarity can make us prejudiced against others.  For this reason, our problems are never resolved because we are using old solutions to tackle a changed situation. This is certainly a great injustice to any relationship.  It is as good as condemning them.

Distant familiarity too can be used as an excuse for not changing.  We say to ourselves, “Oh, God understands us.  God knows what we are doing.  He knows why I am not praying.”  Isn’t this what we say of our friends too?  We take them for granted.  We are not serious in growing in that relationship.  Complacency in relationship simply means that we are relying on old times, again implying that people never change, that those relationships never change.

Perhaps, at the root of it is our fear of the future.  We do not want to change.  We do not like the unknown.  We want to control our lives and our future.  Fear is thus connected with pride and ego.  We do not want to feel vulnerable.  We want to be in charge of the situation.  So when we are challenged to go beyond our comfort zone, we become nervous and threatened.  Consequently our self-defense mechanism operates by making us reject whatever is new and unfamiliar.

But what is even more tragic is that when familiarity also enters into our relationship with God, especially in prayer and worship, we truly suffer.  The greatest obstacle in coming to know God more deeply and to experience the power of His miracles working in our lives is simply because we are too familiar, or ritualistic in the way we relate with God or talk about Him.  We become irreverent in the way we relate with Him.  We lose the sense of awe and sacredness before God.

Our relationship with the Lord is but a memory of the past.  In itself, it is not wrong.  We must know the past in order to ground our present reflection and openness.  However, we must go beyond such past knowledge to a personal knowledge.  Indeed, only when we are able to go beyond ourselves, can we allow fresh experiences to happen.  On the basis of the past, Jeremiah could trust in the Lord to help him.

There is of course a price to pay for failing to take God or our relationships with others seriously.  Indeed, as St Matthew noted, Jesus “did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”  We will never be able to see the transformation in the lives of our fellowmen when we are not open to the fact that we are meeting a new person.  Similarly, because we are not open to a new relationship with the Lord, we will miss out the opportunity to experience Him powerfully in our lives.  By clinging to our fixated relationship with God, we imprison and restrict the ways the Spirit works in the world.

Consequently, we must pray for faith, so that we can say truly that we know “where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers” from; and we know that a person has been transformed because God is at work in his/her life. Let us pray that we can “accept God’s message for what it really is; God’s message and not some human thinking.”  We must with faith cling to the promise of God in the scriptures.  We must pray and relate with Him in faith, believing that God is always working in new ways in our lives.  If we remember the past, it is in order that we can pray with confidence that just as in the past, He will manifest His power again, albeit in ever new and marvelous ways.  God is the I Am.

WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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