20240707 ENTRUSTING OUR MISSION TO GOD, RELYING ONLY ON HIS GRACE
07 July 2024, Sunday, 14th Week in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 2:2-5
2 And when he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation* of rebels, who have rebelled against me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. 4 The people also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them; and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’ 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that there has been a prophet among them.
Psalms 123 :1-5
1 To thee I lift up my eyes,
O thou who art enthroned in the heavens!
2 Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he have mercy upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Too long our soul has been sated
with the scorn of those who are at ease,
the contempt of the proud.
2 Cor 12:7-10
7 And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Mark 6:1-6
1 He went away from there and came to his own country; and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by his hands! 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offenser at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief.
And he went about among the villages teaching.
ENTRUSTING OUR MISSION TO GOD, RELYING ONLY ON HIS GRACE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Ezk 2:2-5; Ps 123:1-5; 2 Cor 12:7-10; Mk 6:1-6]
All of us are called to undertake the responsibility of carrying out the vocation and mission that the Lord has given each one of us. We are called to serve the Lord in different ways. Some are called to be actively involved in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel by forming our fellow Catholics in the faith or sharing it with those who do not know Christ. Others are called to serve the Lord according to their vocation at home, in society, or in their place of work. These people proclaim Christ through their words and deeds, and where the opportunity arises, announce the name of Christ explicitly to their friends, colleagues, and clients.
Yet, we know that this work of God cannot be carried out without His grace. We will face rejection and failure, misunderstanding, and even opposition. Some will fiercely oppose the Gospel. Others will reject it because they disagree with Jesus’ teaching on gender, marriage, family, and the culture of life. Those who live sinful lives will fight our attempts to influence the world against them. This was what happened to Ezekiel. The Lord commanded him, “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to the rebels who have turned against me. Till now they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me. The sons are defiant and obstinate; I am sending you to them.” Ezekiel was called to invite his people to repent from their refusal to recognise God’s sovereignty over them, just like in today’s world, when many reject the authority of God and claim sole sovereignty over their lives as they do not believe in any God except themselves. Like the people in Ezekiel’s time, their hearts and minds are hardened. They are obstinate and stubborn.
If we were to measure Ezekiel’s success in terms of the response to his call for repentance, then his mission was a failure even before he began. The Lord warned him of the outcome of his mission when He said, “Do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 2:6f). But what we consider Ezekiel’s failure was actually God’s success. The Lord measured success not by human standards, but that the people would know “there is a prophet among them.” When the prophecies of destruction befell Israel, they would, on hindsight, come to recognise with regret and shame that Ezekiel was a true prophet that God sent, but that they were too proud, arrogant, and presumptuous to accept him.
Indeed, through Ezekiel, God provided the people an alternative model of conduct. The prophet was called to show them how they should have acted in the face of God’s call. Unlike Israel, he was docile and obedient to God and not rebellious as the people were. He was asked to speak to the house of Israel: “So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat” (Ezekiel 3:1f). But the news he was called to tell the people was not good news, for written on the scroll were words of lamentation and mourning and woe (Ezekiel 2:8). Which one of us likes to announce bad news to people? And who likes to hear bad news today? Very few preachers today want to speak about morality in their homilies or teachings because many would condemn them for lacking mercy and compassion; for being too conservative or out of touch with the world. Even we priests prefer to speak of God’s mercy and love rather than the hard teachings of our Lord in the Gospel. We want to tell people they can love Christ without changing their lives. We are deceiving them, of course, but unlike Ezekiel, we are afraid of rejection and persecution. Ezekiel, however, was truly obedient to the Word of God. Before the glory of God, he fell face down in humble submission (Ezekiel 1:28).
Similarly, Ezekiel’s rejection reminds us of Jesus’ experience of being rejected by His own relatives when He went back to Nazareth. On the Sabbath, He taught in the synagogue of His hometown. “Most of them were astonished when they heard him. They said, ‘Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him?” They were surprised at His eloquence and His power to work miracles. But, instead of being grateful and praising God for working in and through Him, they began to question His credentials. They were prejudiced because they knew His lowly status and that His relatives were ordinary people. They lacked faith in Him as the one whom God worked in and through. Jesus lamented, “A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.” Back home, His mission, like Ezekiel’s, was a failure. The Evangelist noted, “He could work no miracle there, though he cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”
Jesus’ rejection by His people was just the beginning of many more to come. Throughout His ministry, He was opposed by the scribes and Pharisees who felt He was distorting the teachings of Moses and even breaking the prescribed laws. Most of all, He was standing against the establishment of His time. The Sadducees, represented by the high priests at the Temple in Jerusalem, were the ones primarily responsible for executing our Lord through false accusations and manipulating the people’s will. Yet, once again, His failure was the means by which God built His success. Through Christ’s death, God overcame the sins of hatred and evil by His humble love and service. Through His resurrection, God showed that hatred and death were not the last word. By His resurrection, God established His victory over sin, death, and evil.
The lesson we can learn from the apparent failed ministries of Ezekiel and our Lord is that God’s grace is sufficient for us to carry out His will in our lives. We are successful not because of our ingenuity or strategy. Rather, it is through His grace that He ensures our success in our ministry. This is underscored by Saint Paul when the Lord assured that His grace was sufficient for him. Recounting his physical and emotional weakness, Paul spoke of being given a thorn in the flesh – an angel of Satan to beat him and stop him from getting too proud! He had to bear with pain and discomfort throughout his life. It was God’s way of keeping him humble in his ministry so he would never become too proud, especially about the fact he received the extraordinary revelation of Christ at Damascus while on the way to persecute Christians (2 Corinthians 12:1-6). Indeed, as the Lord reminded Paul, who had pleaded with Him three times to take the thorn away: “My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.”
With these words of assurance, St Paul submitted in obedience to God’s will and said, “So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” We, too, are called to be like Ezekiel in our ministry, like our Lord and St Paul, always relying on God’s grace. We should not be too worried whether we are considered successful or failures in our mission. Leave judgement to God. All we need to do is obey God’s will, do our part as best as we can, and leave the rest to Him.
Whatever we do is within the unfolding plan of God. Sometimes, He allows us to fail so a greater good would come about in the future. God knows us and the situation better than we do. We only have hindsight, not foresight, and His glory will only be revealed at the end. Our afflictions can draw us closer to God, and even strike the conscience of hardened hearts. Truly, God works in mysterious ways to fulfil His designs for us through an existence marked by sin and suffering. Through our weaknesses, failures, and brokenness, His grace will bring us to seek forgiveness in Christ. Indeed, through our weaknesses, we come to realise that without God we can do nothing, and that His power is made perfect in our weakness.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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