Tuesday, 2 December 2014

20140901 PROCLAMATION OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED AS THE GOOD NEWS IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

20140901 PROCLAMATION OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED AS THE GOOD NEWS IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT


Reading 1, First Corinthians 2:1-5

1 Now when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with any brilliance of oratory or wise argument to announce to you the mystery of God.
2 I was resolved that the only knowledge I would have while I was with you was knowledge of Jesus, and of him as the crucified Christ.
3 I came among you in weakness, in fear and great trembling
4 and what I spoke and proclaimed was not meant to convince by philosophical argument, but to demonstrate the convincing power of the Spirit,
5 so that your faith should depend not on human wisdom but on the power of God.


Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 119:97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102

97 How I love your Law! I ponder it all day long.
98 You make me wiser than my enemies by your commandment which is mine for ever.
99 I am wiser than all my teachers because I ponder your instructions.
100 I have more understanding than the aged because I keep your precepts.
101 I restrain my foot from evil paths to keep your word.
102 I do not turn aside from your judgements, because you yourself have instructed me.


Gospel, Luke 4:16-30

16 He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read,
17 and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:
18 The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.
20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 Then he began to speak to them, 'This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.'
22 And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips. They said, 'This is Joseph's son, surely?'
23 But he replied, 'No doubt you will quote me the saying, "Physician, heal yourself," and tell me, "We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own country." '
24 And he went on, 'In truth I tell you, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.
25 'There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah's day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land,
26 but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a town in Sidonia.
27 And in the prophet Elisha's time there were many suffering from virulent skin-diseases in Israel, but none of these was cured -- only Naaman the Syrian.'
28 When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged.
29 They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him off the cliff,
30 but he passed straight through the crowd and walked away.

PROCLAMATION OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED AS THE GOOD NEWS IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT
SCRIPTURE READINGS:  1 COR 2:1-5; LK 4:16-30
http://www.universalis.com/20140901/mass.htm
Today, we begin the reading of the gospel taken from St Luke the evangelist.  It begins with the inauguration of the ministry of Jesus, which is spelt out in terms of bringing the Good News to the poor and in terms of liberation.  He is called to give hope to the marginalized and the poor; and to set the captives free from all that prevents them from living the fullness of life.
As followers of Christ, how are we to continue this mission that Jesus has begun?  Very often, many good believers make the sincere mistake of either reducing the proclamation of the gospel to the salvation of souls, or reducing it merely to a programme for liberation movements.  The truth is that Jesus has come to bring real liberation to everyone, not simply political, spiritual or social liberation but total liberation.  The gospel must permeate every area of human life, whether it is spiritual, social, political or economic.
How then is this proclamation to be realized?  In today’s second reading, St Paul says he came to proclaim the Crucified Christ.  He said, “Brothers, when I came to you, it was not with any show of oratory or philosophy, but simply to tell you what God had guaranteed.  During my stay with you, the only knowledge I claimed to have was about Jesus, and only about him as the crucified Christ.”
Why did he not speak about liberation like Jesus did? For St Paul, social justice and reaching out to the poor presupposes faith in Christ crucified.  This is true also in terms of spiritual liberation from sin.  For this reason, Pope Benedict in his first encyclical, “God is love”, underscores that unconditional love for others presupposes a prior experience of God’s unconditional and total love.
Consequently, St Paul makes the kergyma his preaching.  The proclamation of Christ crucified speaks on the self-emptying love of the Father and the Son in the mutual kenosis.  The Father delivered His only Son to sinners to be put to death and the Son surrendered Himself to the Father’s will for the love of the world.
Of course, to the Jews who were looking for a glorious and triumphant saviour, a crucified messiah was a scandal to them.  Yet, they failed to see that such is the wisdom of God, not the wisdom of man.  For real power is not the wealth and worldly power that the wisdom of the world proclaims; it is not even knowledge!  Rather, real power is the power of love.  Only love can conquer the hearts of men, not worldly powers nor intellectual power.
What would have made St Paul, himself a great scholar of scriptures, to take this unconventional approach?  It was his personal experience of the love of God in Jesus.  Indeed, it was his conversion experience at Damascus that changed his whole mindset.  This is implied in the statement, “During my stay with you, the only knowledge I claimed to have was about Jesus, and only about him as the crucified Christ.”  Before that, he relied only on his knowledge and will-power to know God and obey the laws.  He was self-righteous and judgmental.  But after the encounter with Jesus and hearing him say, “Why are you persecuting me?” he came to realize the love and mercy of Christ crucified.  Furthermore, when he recognized that Christ had chosen him to be an apostle of the gospel, in spite of his past, he was certainly, even more humbled by that experience.
As he said earlier, “…at the time when you were called: how many of you were wise in the ordinary sense of the word, how many were influential people, or came from noble families? No, it was to shame the wise that God chose what is foolish by human reckoning, and to shame what is strong that he chose what is weak by human reckoning; those whom the world thinks common and contemptible are the ones that God has chosen – those who are nothing at all to show up those who are everything.” (1 Cor 1:26-31).  Truly, he came to realize that the gospel has power only because it is not the work of man but the work of God.
What does this mean for us all?  Firstly, it means that in proclaiming the gospel today, proclaiming Christ crucified means that we need to teach a life of renunciation and poverty as Christ commanded us.
The gospel has lost its power today because we are depending too much on worldly wisdom and power, focusing more on branding, marketing, techniques, arguments and planning, rather than on the power that comes from God.  This is not to say that such planning or employment of the modern means of communication is not necessary in proclaiming the gospel.  What needs to be underscored is our reliance on the Lord above all.
At the same time, we are no longer living lives of contradiction.  Our lifestyle is no different from those of non-Christians.  We must once again recover the secret of the proclamation of the gospel which is to live our life in the shadow of the cross.  Jesus refused to play according to the rules of His people, who wanted Him to prove His worth through power and glory.  Instead, He came for the poor and lived among the poor.  Concretely, this means that we cannot carry out our Christian ministry without the cross.  We must be ready to suffer for the truth which we are called to proclaim.  We must be ready to be ridiculed, slandered and misunderstood in trying to proclaim the gospel.  It is said that no one throws stones at barren trees!   Hence, we must carry the cross because we are invited to live a life of integrity, compassion, charity and love.
Like Jesus who refused to bow to pressure to perform miracles in order to prove Himself, we too must pray for courage to be different.  We must remind ourselves that we are called to proclaim God’s love and mercy and not to boost our ego or to bask in our glory.  Indeed, how many of us dare to challenge the complacency of the faith and love of our fellow Christians?  We must avoid the unconscious desire for popularity, fame, glory and power, especially at the workplace, and in the social circles we move in.
For this to be possible, we need to follow the same path as Jesus and Paul did, which is to exercise our Christian mission in the power of the Spirit.  Jesus prefaced His call by declaring, “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.”  St Paul too said, “Far from relying on any power of my speeches and the sermons that I gave, there were none of the arguments that belong to philosophy; only a demonstration of the power of the Spirit.  And I did this so that your faith should not depend on human philosophy but on the power of God.”  Being in touch with the Spirit of God therefore is the key to power in our proclamation of the gospel in our lives.
Accordingly, we need to pray for this encounter with the Spirit by meditating on the Word of God, like the Psalmist who said, “How I love your law, O Lord!  It is my meditation all the day.  Your command has made me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers when your decrees are my meditation.”  Yes, when the word of God abides in us, then the Father and his Son will dwell in us through the Holy Spirit.  Only then can we proclaim his Word, the Good News of liberation with the power of the Spirit.

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

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