20170731
LEADERSHIP IS TO STEER PEOPLE AWAY FROM
IDOLATRY
Readings
at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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Exodus 32:15-24,30-34 ©
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Moses made his way back down the mountain with the two tablets of
the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the
front and on the back. These tablets were the work of God, and the writing on
them was God’s writing engraved on the tablets.
Joshua heard
the noise of the people shouting. ‘There is the sound of battle in the camp’,
he told Moses. Moses answered him:
‘No song of victory is this sound,
no wailing for defeat this sound;
it is the sound of chanting that I hear.’
As he approached the camp and saw the calf and the groups dancing,
Moses’ anger blazed. He threw down the tablets he was holding and broke them at
the foot of the mountain. He seized the calf they had made and burned it,
grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water; and he made the sons
of Israel drink it. To Aaron Moses said, ‘What has this people done to you, for
you to bring such a great sin on them?’ ‘Let not my lord’s anger blaze like
this’ Aaron answered. ‘You know yourself how prone this people is to evil. They
said to me, “Make us a god to go at our head; this Moses, the man who brought
us up from Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So I said to them,
“Who has gold?,” and they took it off and brought it to me. I threw it into the
fire and out came this calf.’
On the
following day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a grave sin. But
now I shall go up to the Lord: perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ And
Moses returned to the Lord. ‘I am grieved,’ he cried ‘this people has committed
a grave sin, making themselves a god of gold. And yet, if it pleased you to
forgive this sin of theirs...! But if not, then blot me out from the book that
you have written.’ The Lord answered Moses, “It is the man who has sinned
against me that I shall blot out from my book. Go now, lead the people to the
place of which I told you. My angel shall go before you but, on the day of my
visitation, I shall punish them for their sin.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 105(106):19-23 ©
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O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
They fashioned a calf at Horeb
and worshipped an image of metal,
exchanging the God who was their glory
for the image of a bull that eats grass.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
They forgot the God who was their saviour,
who had done such great things in Egypt,
such portents in the land of Ham,
such marvels at the Red Sea.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
For this he said he would destroy them,
but Moses, the man he had chosen,
stood in the breach before him,
to turn back his anger from destruction.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is good.
or
Alleluia!
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.2Th2:14
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Through the Good News God called us
to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!
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Or
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James1:18
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Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father made us his children
by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of first-fruits
of all that he created.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Matthew 13:31-35 ©
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Jesus put a parable before the crowds: ‘The kingdom of heaven is
like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest
of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all and
becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches.’
He told them
another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman took and
mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.’
In all this
Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed, he would never speak to them
except in parables. This was to fulfil the prophecy:
I will speak to you in parables
and expound things hidden since the foundation of the world.
LEADERSHIP IS TO STEER PEOPLE AWAY FROM IDOLATRY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Ex 32:15-24. 30-34; Ps 105:19-23; Mt 13:31-35 ]
We can
imagine how angry Moses was with the infidelity of the people to the
Lord. He had just returned from meeting the Lord at Mount Horeb.
He came down from the mountain “with the two tablets of the Testimony in his
hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the
back. These tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was
God’s writing engraved on the tablets.” And as he arrived, he heard the
chanting of the people, the dancing and worship of the golden calf. We
read that “Moses’ anger blazed. He threw down the tablets he was holding
and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He seized the calf they had
made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water;
and he made the sons of Israel drink it.”
Was his anger
justified? Perhaps such anger would not be justified today. We read that he even
ordered the sons of Levi “Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and
forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother,
your friend, and your neighbor.’” The sons of Levi did as Moses
commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day.” (Ex 32:27bf)
Yet, in the ancient days, such anger was justified because it was such a grave
sin and could destroy the whole community if it were not checked.
The purity of faith was something that the prophets sought for the People of
Israel, as they could be easily influenced by their pagan neighbours.
This is true in our situation today.
With
globalization, migration and mass media, we are being secularized. As a result,
today the purity of faith in many of our religions are compromised or are
undergoing great changes, forced by situation to adopt values that seem to
contradict the Word of God. Indeed, once the evils of society
penetrate our faith, especially the hierarchy and leadership of the Church, the
values are compromised. This is the stark reality of the Church
today. Many of our leaders are making false compromises to please the
crowd. This was precisely the mistake of Aaron. When Moses
confronted him for misleading the people, his excuse was, “You know yourself
how prone this people is to evil. They said to me, ‘Make us a god to go
at our head; this Moses, the man who bought us up from Egypt, we do not know
what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Who has gold?’ and they took it
off and brought it to me. I threw in into the fire and out came this
calf.”
Like Aaron,
many leaders today are no longer shepherding their flock, teaching them right
from wrong.
Rather, they seek popularity and are acting more like coordinators, allowing
the people to lead them, and to choose what they will. This is the
downside of democracy, where decisions are decided based on the whims and
fancies of the community, depending on how they are indoctrinated, influenced
or bought over. This explains why it is so difficult for the Holy
Father to revamp the Church, or the bishop his diocese, as the infiltration of
alien values and doctrines contrary to the Church have been imbibed by weak
leaders. They want to feel loved and accepted by the people and so give
in to their desires and wishes.
Moses however
would take no nonsense from his people. He was very clear about the
costs of allowing idolatry to take root in the people. He took action immediately
and his actions appeared to be rather harsh in our assessment today. But
it was necessary to deter the people from being so easily swayed by the foreign
gods of the lands around them. He punished the people and he ordered them
to be killed. Why were such measures necessary? Why was the
sin of idolatry such a grievous offence against God in the Old Testament?
Because it the sin of all sins. By turning away from God, the living
reality to an illusion, we worship nothingness.
St Paul in
his letter to the Romans called the sin of idolatry the ultimate sin, the sin
that leads to all other sins. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to
them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine
nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the
things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God,
they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in
their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.” (Rom 1:18-21 cf Rom 1:22-31)
When we reject God and make our own gods, we make ourselves our own gods,
worshipping creatures, our passions and living a debased life.
Relativism is the consequence of agnosticism. Amorality is the
consequence of relativism.
Indeed, the
first commandment of the Decalogue clearly states, “I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you
shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an
idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You
shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God
am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents.” (Ex 20:2-5a)
Images are prohibited simply because God cannot be captured in such
images. God is beyond images. He is pure Spirit.
To reduce God
to an image of this world is to reduce the dynamism of God. He is not a static
God but a trek God, always on the move and always with His people, “I am who I
am.” He cannot be placed in a little temple even. That was what the
Lord told King David when he wanted to build Him a temple. The Lord said,
“Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a
house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day,
but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I
have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with
any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people
Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” (cf 2 Sm 7:5b-7)
The
prohibition against images of God does not preclude the images to express our
devotion to God, which we call sacramentals. Signs and symbols are necessary to help
us to encounter the presence of God, as in the Ark of the Covenant, the Temple
of Jerusalem, the Sacred Scriptures, the Crucifix and the cross, other images
and icons of Christ and saints, because these are means by which we remember
the goodness and mercy of God. So it is not wrong to make use of images
and icons of those people who lived in our midst, just as we keep photos of our
loved ones with reverence. Christ, for us, is the greatest image of
God as St Paul tells us. “He is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and
on earth were created, things visible and invisible – all things have been
created through him and for him.” (Col 1:15f)
Yet, in the
final analysis, we must safeguard what we wish to inculcate for our community,
the values and the beliefs. In the gospel, Jesus, makes it clear that the kingdom of
God is like a mustard seed and the leaven in the dough. Everything begins
small, good or bad. If we plant good values, then “when it is grown it is
the biggest shrub of all and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come
and shelter in its branches.” But if we plant wrong values, then, like
the yeast which is also a symbol of evil and impurity, it can cause the Church
to grow in the wrong way. The Lord is warning us, especially leaders,
educators, parents and those in authority, how we want to influence the world,
for good or for evil. What we sow today will be what we reap
tomorrow. “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever
you sow.” (Gal 6:7)
Are we sowing the seeds for the Kingdom or the weeds of the Evil one? “If you
sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow
to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” (Gal 6:8)
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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