20190908 IRONY OF A
RUNAWAY SLAVE
08 SEPTEMBER,
2019, Sunday, 23rd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Green.
|
First reading
|
Wisdom 9:13-18 ©
|
What man indeed can know the intentions of
God?
Who can divine the will of the Lord?
The reasonings of mortals are unsure
and our intentions unstable;
for a perishable body presses down the
soul,
and this tent of clay weighs down the
teeming mind.
It is hard enough for us to work out what
is on earth,
laborious to know what lies within our
reach;
who, then, can discover what is in the
heavens?
As for your intention, who could have
learnt it, had you not granted Wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from above?
Thus have the paths of those on earth been
straightened
and men been taught what pleases you,
and saved, by Wisdom.
|
Responsorial Psalm
|
|
Psalm 89(90):3-6,12-14,17 ©
|
O Lord, you have been
our refuge from one generation to the next.
You turn men back to dust
and say: ‘Go back, sons of
men.’
To your eyes a thousand years
are like yesterday, come and
gone,
no more than a watch in the
night.
O Lord, you have been
our refuge from one generation to the next.
You sweep men away like a dream,
like the grass which springs
up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
by evening it withers and
fades.
O Lord, you have been
our refuge from one generation to the next.
Make us know the shortness of our life
that we may gain wisdom of
heart.
Lord, relent! Is your anger for ever?
Show pity to your servants.
O Lord, you have been
our refuge from one generation to the next.
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all
our days.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of
our hands.
O Lord, you have been
our refuge from one generation to the next.
|
Second reading
|
|
Philemon 9-10,12-17 ©
|
This is Paul writing, an old man now and,
what is more, still a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for a
child of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean
Onesimus. I am sending him back to you, and with him – I could say –
a part of my own self. I should have liked to keep him with me; he could have
been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the Good
News has brought me. However, I did not want to do anything without your
consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be
spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, but it was
only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any more, but
something much better than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but
how much more to you, as a blood-brother as well as a brother in the Lord. So
if all that we have in common means anything to you, welcome him as you would
me.
|
Gospel Acclamation
|
Jn15:15
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
I call you friends, says the Lord,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father.
Alleluia!
|
Or:
|
Ps118:135
|
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let your face shine on your servant;
and teach me your decrees.
Alleluia!
|
Gospel
|
Luke 14:25-33 ©
|
Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way
and he turned and spoke to them. ‘If any man comes to me without hating his
father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he
cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
‘And
indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down
and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he
laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, the
onlookers would all start making fun of him and saying, “Here is a man who
started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war
against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten
thousand men he could stand up to the other who advanced against him with
twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he
would send envoys to sue for peace. So in the same way, none of you can be my
disciple unless he gives up all his possessions.’
IRONY OF A
RUNAWAY SLAVE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Wis 9:13-18; Ps 90; Philemon 9-10.12-17; Luke 14:25-33 ]
In the second reading,
we read the story of a runaway slave. This was in spite of Philemon being a good
Christian and master, a man of love and faith, as St Paul acknowledged earlier
on in his letter. (Philemon 4-7)
Although we do not know the reason why he ran away from his master, Philemon,
he was surely wanting to find his own freedom and meaning in life.
Perhaps, like all of us when we were young, we were rebellious towards our
parents and authority. We wanted to do things our way. We
wanted freedom, a freedom that is unlimited and absolute. One can
appreciate a slave running away from his evil master, or when people run away
from home because of abuse, but many of us run away simply because of
self-will, pride and ignorance.
We do not only run away
from human authority; we also run away from God who is all goodness and
love. We have become rebellious, like Onesimus. This could be because we are disillusioned
and confused about our life. Indeed, we lack the wisdom of God to discern what
is truly good for us. We seek the wrong freedom, which is slavery to sin
in the world. This is because, as the book of Wisdom tells us, “The
reasonings of mortals are unsure and our intentions unstable.” We are
ignorant like the rest of the world. We seek money, thinking that we can
find security. We seek pleasures, thinking that they can make us happy.
We seek power, thinking that we can be free. We seek fame, thinking that
we will be admired. We seek sex, thinking that is love.
We end up with more
problems because of our mistakes. One sin leads to another. We fall deeper into the hole. We get
hurt and become resentful of life, society and God. We retaliate and
often take out our anger and hurt on others. That is why we are all so
wounded. We are paying the consequences of our rebellion against God and
His commandments which are meant to be guidelines to authentic life and love,
and true freedom. In seeking absolute freedom, ironically we are also
seeking absolute slavery to oneself and to the world because sin, temptations,
the flesh and the world now control our life. We are addicted to the sins
of the world and have lost control over ourselves to do what is truly right and
good. This is the paradox of freedom. The more we want our freedom,
the more we are enslaved by our will. St Paul warns us, “Let me put it
like this: if you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding
to self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit, the
Spirit is totally against such a thing, and it is precisely because the two are
so opposed that you do not always carry out your good intentions.” (Gal 5:16-17)
But God is kind and
merciful. He does not give up on us. He is like the Prodigal Father
in the gospel waiting for His son to return. When He returned, He showered Him with
abundant love and unconditional forgiveness. Love does not keep a record
of wrongs. So long as the son who was once dead and had come back to
life, it is good enough. This, too, was what happened to Onesimus.
He changed when he met the Lord and encountered Him when he came into the hands
of Paul. Life is indeed so strange and this is the mystery of God’s
love. When we try to run away from Him and His love, we end up running
into His arms. Onesimus, wanting to find his own freedom, ended up
serving St Paul in prison! What an irony. The man who sought
freedom found freedom in the prison where St Paul lived. How could this
be?
Paul converted him and
transformed him in the Lord.
By his gentleness, patience, compassion, understanding and love, St Paul
mediated Christ’s compassion to him. But most of all by his own life in
prison, his love and fidelity to the Lord, Paul must have inspired Onesimus and
that made him ready to accept Paul as his tutor and mentor for discipleship in
Christ. At the end of his stay, St Paul and Philemon became like
father and son. He wrote to Philemon, “I am appealing to you for a child
of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus. I
am sending him back to you, and with him – I could say – a part of my own
self.” And as St Paul vouched for Onesimus, “I know you have been
deprived of Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him
back for ever, not as a slave any more, but something much better than a slave,
a dear brother; especially dear to me.” Indeed, under the tutelage of St
Paul, Onesimus became a true disciple of the Lord and a brother to Philemon in
the Lord.
St Paul healed him by
teaching him to make Jesus the center of his life. This was what the Lord said to the
great crowds who accompanied Him on His way. “If any man comes to me
without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and
his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.” When Jesus asked us to hate
our loved ones and our own life, it is not meant to be taken literally.
This is because the construct of the biblical language does not permit a ‘more
or less’ but ‘either or’. In asking us to hate our relatives, Jesus is asking
us, rather, to make Him the center of our relationships and our life. If
we put Jesus as the center, then we can see everything else in perspective
because we look at the world and our friends through the eyes of Jesus.
By loving Jesus more, we will love our brothers and sisters as much as He loves
us. Coming to Jesus the Light of our life does not make Jesus the Light
less bright but as we carry the light to others, we brighten everyone else as
well.
Indeed, those of us who
put Jesus as the center of our lives learn to see ourselves in perspective. This is what the first reading
tells us. “As for your intention, who could have learnt it, had you not
granted Wisdom and sent your holy spirit from above?” It is God who
enlightens us in the truth and teaches us the way of authentic love for self
and neighbour. Without God, we are misled and deceived by the Evil One,
just as the world is deceived by him into thinking that glory, power and wealth
can bring real happiness in life. They make us slaves, rather than
masters of our lives.
For those of us who make
Jesus as the center of our lives, we see our life as the psalmist did. We now realize the shortness of our
life. “You sweep men away like a dream, like the grass which springs up
in the morning. In the morning it springs up and flowers: by evening it withers
and fades.” To know the shortness of life helps us to grow in wisdom and
to treasure each moment and day of our life. No longer do we waste our
time, our day and our years away but we use them for our growth, for love, for
growing in virtues and for service of others. “Make us know the shortness
of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Lord, relent! Is your anger
forever?” At the end of the day, we know it is the Lord who will bless us
and make success possible in what we do.
We, too, are all called
to be mentors for others.
We are called to inspire hope, give guidance and be a witness of Christ in love
and truth. We are called to be like St Paul who was a true mentor in
every way to Onesimus. He was patient with him, gave him support and
encouragement till he was transformed in the Lord. Our task as Christians
is to make disciples of all nations by being inspiring mentors and witnesses.
Many are disillusioned
with the world today because we lack good mentors to lead us in life. We are without good, credible, wise
and holy leaders to inspire us. The sad reality is that today,
leaders are no longer trusted, whether political, corporate and even religious
leaders. There is a failure in leadership. We expect our leaders to
show us the way but they become obstacles to growth. This is true in our
offices, schools, home, organizations and Christian community. Without good
mentors, there cannot be good disciples for Christ.
But we must be watchful
that when we are mentors, we must set our disciples free to be mentors of
others once they have been formed and transformed. St Paul did not keep Onesimus to
himself much as he liked to. He said, “I should have liked to keep him with
me; he could have been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the
chains that the Good News has brought me.” St Paul’s purpose of keeping
Onesimus for a while “was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as
a slave any more, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother.”
So we, too, must not cling to our children, our loved ones and all those
whom we serve and formed to be disciples of Christ. Our great joy is that
they in turn become mentors and set others free from the slavery of the world
and make mentors after them, for discipleship in the Lord.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment