Readings: Ezek 1:28b-2:1-5, Psa 123:1-2,3-4, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Mk 6:1b-6
Theme: God’s Power Lies even in the things we consider Ordinary
Dearest brothers and sisters, the readings of this Sunday present to us the theme of faith and acceptance of the true message and work of God irrespective of “who” says or does that. In a special way they warn us to be careful of our familiarity with the things of God.
a. The Familiarity that Stiffens the Acceptance of God’s Message
In the first reading, God sends the prophet Ezekiel to the people of Israel who were in exile in Babylon, the same people of Ezekiel in order to call them back to God. Sending Ezekiel, God knew the kind of people he was dealing with. So he said to him, “whether they hear or not, they will know that there is a prophet among them.” Apart from the fact that Ezekiel was one their countryman, he was also in exile with them. That is to say, he was undergoing the same punishment all of them were undergoing because of their disobedience to God’s covenant with them (cf Ezek 1:1-3). So you can imagine the problem he would encounter in going to the rest of the exile people to say to them “Thus says the Lord”.
For the people, it would have been better was someone unknown to them to come to them with the message, and not their fellow sufferer of exile, the man they knew too well.
In the gospel, Jesus took the message of the gospel to his own people, the response he got was “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James…” The problem of the people was not a doubt about the authenticity or the importance of Jesus’s message but the authenticity of Jesus as the carrier of the message.
That is to say, when the people shouted in amazement “From where did this man get all this… Is this not a carpenter…?” they were simply asking “where is this man from that he’s able to say and do all these?” Their Familiarity with Jesus’s earthly beginnings and origin generated in them a total refusal of acceptance of what he was saying and was doing. For them, there was nothing extraordinary about the things they knew Jesus for that they would accept him. He was not just like one of them but one with a poor family background. In a word, what the people knew Jesus for, was not sufficient enough to give credence to his words and works. They abandoned the revelation of godly nature of Christ evident in his words and works because they were seeing in him “a carpenter”.
1.Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus calls our attention today to our Familiarity with God and the things of God to the extent that they become for us “just ordinary”. We may be in the house of God, frequenting sacraments but no evidence of it in our lives because they have become for us “these things”. We must watch out against some even unpronounced attitudes we exhibit that tend to show our diminutive treatment of some aspects of our faith.
2. It is through the things we consider ordinary and common that God manifests his power. God uses the things he has given us, the same people we see every day, even those people we consider sinners, to manifest and to reveal to us his power. We must be careful therefore when we look for extraordinary things and people in order to believe. One man, one day looked at me and said, “dear Fr., do you know why I stopped receiving communion?” I said “please tell me”, then he said “I stopped receiving communion the very day I saw where those hosts are produced. I tasted the host there where it’s being produced, then the next day, I received Holy Communion, and its taste was exactly like the normal one I ate at the factory.” This man expected the consecrated host to taste differently from what he ate in the factory and when it did not, he stopped believing in the Eucharist. Dear brethren, without faith, we will see nothing special and extraordinary in the sacraments because almost all the substance of the sacraments are from the things we know and see. Many of us have received holy communion for years that it now becomes normal, nothing extraordinary. It is against such attitudes that Jesus warns us today.
Today’s gospel reading says that because of the unbelief of the people, Jesus COULD NOT do any mighty work among them. That is to say, the unbelief of the people incapacitated Jesus’s desire to perform mighty works of God among his people. This means that God needs our faith.
3. Furthermore, dear brothers and sisters, we live in a world where who a person is plays greater role than what he says or does. In fact, for many people, who a person is, that is, how a person is seen by them, determines the acceptance of what he/she says or does.
Many people have lost wonderful opportunities in life because what they met or saw did not match with their expectation. Many people have missed God’s blessings and their destiny because they were looking for something extraordinary while God’s blessing was waiting for them in the ordinary things lying just before them. God knows no boundary when he picks persons and means of conveying his message and his blessings. Neglect no-one and no-thing because God can be waiting for you in that person or thing you consider “nobody or nothing
Finally beloved in Christ, in the second reading, St. Paul’s knowledge of and familiarity with himself helped him to discover his weakness. But instead of allowing that knowledge to stiffen him or to pull him to doubt of God’s power, he realized that he actually needed that weakness as to enable him to depend constantly on God.
St. Paul saw God’s handwork even in his weakness. He therefore teaches us that even in the things that inconvenience us, God may be
calling our attention to him through them. God works even with our weakness but we must in all sincerity hand over everything about us to him and have undiluted faith in him. God does not call us to himself so that he will make everything smooth and convenient, rather he calls us so that even in the things that discomfort us we may find strength in him.
Fr. Henry Chukwuezugo Nnamah
Catholic Diocese of Aguleri