Third Sunday of Lent, Year B

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Ex 20:1-17(20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17); 

1Cor 1:22-25; 

John 2:13-25

Today is the Third Sunday of Lent. If we go back to the readings, especially the gospels, of the past two Sundays of Lent, it is clear that they are interconnected. On the First Sunday, after His Baptism, the Spirit led Jesus into the desert. He stayed there for forty days and forty nights in prayer, fasting and was tempted by the devil. But God came to His rescue through His angels. I call this as Jesus’ desert experience with God. On the Second Sunday, Jesus brought His three disciples on the top of the mountain and Jesus there changed in appearance while praying. I call this as the mountaintop experience of Jesus in His encounter with God. Today’s gospel is the cleansing of the temple by Jesus. The temple is a place of special encounter with God. In other words, the desert, the mountain and the temple are places of special encounter with God.

But today we are not going to see the glorious face of Jesus; we are going to see His angry face. Jesus is not happy with what He sees precisely because the way the temple worship has been organized no longer reflects God’s original idea of a worshipping community. He found people selling animals and exchanging money in His Father’s house. Making a whip, Jesus drives the animals out and overturns the table of the money changers. Jesus loses His cool. Jesus losing His cool is something that is unthinkable. It could not have happened because we know Jesus as meek, humble, merciful, compassionate, kind and loving. For us to lose His cool is simply out of His character.

In the First Reading today (Exodus 20:1-17), God gave the people of Israel rules that are meant to direct their lives and relationship with God and their neighbours. This is traditionally known as the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue). It will be fitting to begin by exploring the basic reason why God gave them the Ten Commandments which  are rules of conduct that should guide people’s relationship with God and their neighbours. They are meant to guide the people in their daily lives, they are meant to be standards for them to measure if they are doing well or not.

 If we look at the Ten Commandments very well, there are no corresponding punishments for the infringement on each and every one of them as was obtainable in most ancient laws like the code of Hammurabi that existed about that time! Why? The answer can be found in our explanation above. The commandments are dependable measuring standards for our lives and relationships in our journey to reach God. They are meant to help us identify the right steps in this journey. They are not meant to remove sin but to reveal sin so that we can avoid them in our journey. St. Paul made this clearer in his letter to the Romans (3:20): For “no human being will be justified in his sight” by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

From this explanation, it is clear that observing the commandments alone is not enough for our salvation. Just like observing the rules of the game of soccer does not guarantee victory in the game. Players must go beyond observing the rules and strive to score goals.

An appeal to our Lord Jesus Christ will help us here. In the Gospel of Matthew (10:17-22) we are told that a rich man came to Jesus Christ and asked what he must do to inherit the kingdom of God (eternal life). Jesus asked him to pay due attention to the commandments and he confirmed that he had been keeping them since his youth and our Lord said that he was lacking something and asked him to go and sell all he had and give the money to the poor; but he went away! The rich man in question believed that observing the commandment was enough but our Lord indicated from what he told him that beyond observing the commandments there is need to carry out some guided positive actions.

From what we have above, keeping the commandment must be accompanied by the performance of good deeds. We are saved not by the law but by our good works in Christ Jesus our Lord. In the Gospel of Matthew (25:35-40) our Lord Jesus Christ presented the formula for entering into heaven and if we check the space very well he was making reference to good works beyond the observance of the law. One can keep all the commandments and still remain unacceptable to God if the person fails to match the commandments with works that are good and pleasing to God.

In the Gospel Reading today (John 2:13-25), we are presented with a clearer picture about the need for cleansing beyond observance of the law. Our Lord Jesus Christ was seen at one of his most radical moments. He entered the temple in Jerusalem and saw those who were buying and selling animals and he drove them all away with a whip and went further to overturn the tables of the money changers.

There will be need for us to understand the events very well. The temple in Jerusalem was usually a beehive of various religious ceremonies. People came at various times to offer sacrifices prescribed by the law. People bought the animals for sacrifices they intend to make from sellers around the temple. They obtained the temple money from the money changers in exchange for the one with the impression of Caesar which is not used in the temple ceremonies. From the picture we have here, they were doing the recommended things. It is easier to say that our Lord Jesus Christ drove them away because they were conducting business but that does not say it all.

A deeper insight into the event would show that our Lord went there to cleanse the temple and to convey the message that it is not all about observing the religious recommendations but also by spiritual performance. We might be observing the law while at the same time having a lot of things going on inside of us. It is not all about external religious ceremonies but more about internal sanctity. If we check very well our Lord was more concerned about those conducting business inside the temple and not those outside.

The temple represents us. St. Paul (1 Cor. 3:16-17) made us to know that we are the temple of God that should not be tampered with as it is God’s dwelling place. When Jesus was driving out the merchants and their merchandise from the temple he was simply demonstrating that our lives need to be cleansed by good works and prayers and not just by observing the rituals of the law: offering the external sacrifices that are recommended without living the inner life that is commendable. There are indeed many things that are robbing us of God’s graces in our external religious observances that lack internal spirituality.

It will be fitting for us to examine closely what our Lord actually did when he came into the temple. Firstly, he was not pleased with what the people were doing in the temple. Oftentimes we see and even encounter attitudes and dispositions that are contrary to the good news and we choose to keep mute and allow them to thrive. It is absolutely wrong not to speak out against sin and disobedience.

Our Lord demonstrated his anger by using a whip to drive both the merchants and their merchandise away. He identified something wrong and took a practical step to stamp it out. He went further to say that the temple should be a place of prayer but they have turned it into a den of robbers. Our lord not only identified a problem and acted, he also prescribed what should be done. Often we end up criticizing a person or situation without providing a remedy or solution as needed.

Our Lord Jesus Christ remains the central point of our Christian life. In him is the fulfillment of the laws and the prophets (Matt. 5:17). This is actually the point St. Paul was emphasizing in the Second Reading (1 Cor.1:22-25) when he maintained that the Christ crucified is the greatest treasure and central object of the good news which for many is a stumbling block and to others folly. However it is for those who are called power of God and wisdom of God.

If the commandments were sufficient for our salvation, God would not have taken the extra step of sending His Son our Lord Jesus Christ into the world. In fact, the commandments are better understood and expressed in the life and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. On one occasion, a lawyer came to Jesus Christ and asked him which is the greatest of the commandments. Answering, our Lord said: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbour as yourself. He even concluded by saying that all the Law and Prophets hang on the two.

Another significant thing our Lord did that should not be taken for granted was the overturning of the table of the money changers. When a table is overturned one sure thing that will happen is that the things on it will be pour away and it will become empty. This season is actually the proper time to overturn the tables of our lives to away all those things that are irrelevant. It is a time of self-emptying which our Lord Jesus Christ himself did in order to save us. St. Paul did mention that he (Jesus Christ) emptied himself taking the form of a slave though he was God (Phil. 2:6-11).

The commandments will become very efficient if they make us to overturn the tables of our lives and empty ourselves of unnecessary things. It is at this point that inner cleansing is inaugurated. The sixth commandment which for instance stated that we should not commit adultery should help us to overturn all the things (actions and words) that disposes us to impurity not just that very act. The same applies to all the others. (It is important to note that none of them is higher or lesser than others; they all have the same weight and measure).

As we march into the third week of Lent, let us be attentive to the Ten Commandments. We should focus on them not as ends but as guides that will enable us to perform more credible and creditable actions that will eventually lead us to eternal life which is the end.

Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR B

Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18

Romans 8:31-35, 37

Mark 9:2-10

Last Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, we heard proclaimed St. Mark’s account of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Having just been baptized by John in the Jordan, Jesus is “driven by the Spirit” into the wilderness where He will come face to face with Satan and the allurement of sin. Jesus’ victory over temptation and sin gives us confidence that, in Christ, we, too, will be victorious in our struggle with the powers of evil. That Gospel passage is a fitting start to our annual lenten journey, a journey that takes us away from sin and toward a deeper love of God.

Today we have just heard proclaimed the account of the transfiguration of Jesus in the presence of Peter, James and John. What a dramatic shift from last Sunday’s Gospel. We have moved quickly from a mortal struggle with sin and death to a vision of the glories of heaven itself. This movement from sin and death to heavenly glory gives us a picture not only of Jesus’ divine mission but also of our journey as Disciples of Christ.

In the Gospel Reading, Saint Mark tells us about what happened on Mount Tabor.  Prior to this, in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus told his disciples about his passion and death.  He told them that he would suffer terribly and be killed by the religious authorities of the day.  In reality, what he told them was that he would have to suffer in order to reach the glory of his Resurrection.  But Saint Mark tells us that the apostles did not understand what Jesus had said to them.  Still, and perhaps because they really did not completely understand what they had heard, Jesus’ words saddened and worried them.

It was then that Jesus led Peter, James and John up a high mountain apart from the others to pray.  These were the same apostles who would later witness first the agony and then the arrest of Our Lord in the Garden of Olives.  But that would be in the future.  After hearing what the Lord had said to them in Caesarea Philippi the

First Sunday of Lent

First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 9:8-15; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15

We have now entered the season of lent, a forty day period of time to prepare candidates for baptism and confirmation and  also one of preparation for all the people of God. It is a time to reflect on Christ’s journey to the cross ending at the Resurrection.  Ash Wednesday and  Lent began as a way for Catholics to remind themselves to repent of their sins in a manner similar to how people in the Old Testament repented in sackcloth, ashes, and fasting.  During this season all Christians are invited to fast and pray and be prepared for the suffering and death of Jesus and to wait for his suffering and death.  

Lent invites us to enter into the desert, the birthplace of the people of God of the first covenant. The Hebrew people who escaped from Egypt as scattered tribes arrived the Promised Land as one nation under God. It was in the desert that they become a people of God by covenant. In the course of their history

Sixth Sunday of the Year, B

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46

1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

This Sunday's gospel tells us of Jesus' cure of a man afflicted with leprosy (a term referring to any repulsive skin disease) and the readings contain a lot of material for thought. First of all leprosy was not an easy illness to handle in ancient days, just as Ebola would scare all of us, these days!  For fear of contaminating others, the patients were driven away from the neighborhood and restricted from using common roads, stores and facilities. They must let others in the society know that they were lepers by not covering their hairs. They must also wear torn pants and clothing. If there is any reason for them to step outside their isolated camps they have to alert others by shouting “unclean, unclean, and unclean.” This disease had the power of separating members of a family from each other, since contact with them would make others unclean! It is terrible to be isolated from our community. Here, we might want to think of what isolate us from our family members, friends, and community, and even from the love of God. What separates us from the love of God?

Instead of avoiding, rejecting or stigmatizing the leper, Jesus touched and healed him. This is surprising because during the time of Jesus in ancient Israel, leprosy was a dreaded disease like the Ebola or HIV/AIDS of our time. Contacting leprosy was a matter of life and death.  Anyone with leprosy was to stay afar but, somehow, the leper of the gospel reading today got close to Jesus and begged him to make him clean so that he could return to normal society.  If a leper touched a clean person, he or she would become unclean and would also have to live apart from normal society. But, we hear that Jesus was “moved with pity” and touched him and made him clean. 

Like the leper, today, we are individually and collectively afflicted by several forms of diseases which have separated us from others. We too are “lepers” in one way or the other: morally, socially and spiritually. Some of us are suffering from diseases of the body such as terminal and chronic illnesses and diseases of the mind such as traumas, psychological disorders, emotional imbalances,  just to mention but a few. Several nations have their own diseases like terrorism, (especially the boko haram insurgence in Nigeria and the terror of the Islamic State in the West), electoral tension and violence, war, corruption, strange epidemics like the bird flu, ebola, etc. In the midst of these problems, who do we run to for healing?

The leper in the Gospel reading teaches us what to do and who to meet when we need help. He knew Jesus could heal him and that was why he broke the rule which forbade them from approaching the healthy when he ran to Jesus and requested for healing. At the end, he was healed. Jesus still invites all who are overburdened with diseases to come to him. He alone can guarantee us healing with his saving hands. But can we muster the courage to come out of our hideouts and approach him for healing? Today, we are challenged not just by physical diseases but by a more serious disease called sin which destroys the soul. Sin is the leprosy of the soul. It is the worst disease we can think of because it not only separates us from God, it also spoils our relationship with one another, darkens our souls, makes us candidates for hell, makes us unclean, keeps us troubled, robs us of our innocence and separates us from the community of the faithful. It has personal and social consequences. When it becomes national like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, it could destroy a whole nation and who knows if what we are suffering in Nigeria today is not as a result of our sins. 

Let us learn from Jesus today how to approach “the untouchables and outcasts,” the sick, the weak, the poor, and those we find difficult to love in our society. Jesus communicates the love and mercy of God in signs that speaks more eloquently than words.  There is no gain saying that in our world today many still suffer and die from the stigma we have placed on them because of their poverty, sickness, or weakness. Do we offer them mercy and help as Jesus did? Jesus has set a model for us Christians on how to have pity on others; how to have compassion. What does that mean? It is summarized in this particular gospel passage as reaching out to them and touching them. 

Paul writing to the Corinthians challenges us to imitate Christ by being ministers of healing.  We are to lovingly touch those aspects of hurting lives which need healing.  So many in our society and church need healing and acceptance (divorced and remarried, those who have had abortion, AIDS patients, homosexuals, victims of violence, racism, sexism, ageism, and all who are hurt by life). As individual Christians and as a community we must risk touching and healing.  Jesus showed us the way.

So, who is the unclean for us? Whom don’t we want to touch? Or, perhaps, whom don’t we touch because we never tried or never even thought about it? Who is not a part of our normal groupings? They are often invisible. We probably won’t find them in our subdivision or down the road from our acreage. Where are these people who are separated from us? We probably won’t find them here in church, nor will we find them in line with us at our grocery store or at the mall.

I find the words of the leper "If you wish you can make me clean…" very powerful and full of hope.  I thought of this when I read an email a friend sent me a couple of weeks ago.  It was a short story about a woman confiding to her therapist:  She said, “My husband and I can’t say two words to each other without getting into an argument.  The second he comes in the door we are at each other’s throats.  Deep down, I know the love’s still there but it seems hopelessly buried.”

The therapist listened intently, then reached into his drawer, and pulled out a bottle and handed it to her.  “This is a special water, holy water from a sacred spring in India,” the therapist explained.  “For the next week, whenever your husband’s about to enter the room, take two tablespoons, but don’t swallow right away…take a moment and look into his eyes.  After a couple of seconds, swallow it.  You should notice an improvement in your interaction right away.”

She went home and anxiously waited for him to come home.  When he walked in; she forgot the tablespoon and just took a swig of the blessed water and silently held his gaze.  He gave her a suspicious look, then grinned curiously.  After a bit she swallowed the water and asked how his day went.  Amazingly, they didn’t argue.  In fact, they had one of the warmest and loving conversations they had had in recent memory.  As each night passed she performed the same ritual…suddenly as if a veil was lifted, she saw him in a whole new light; she saw him as if it were the first time again…the man she fell in love with.

The following week the woman returned to her therapist, proclaiming that the treatment had healed her marriage and that she needed more of this miraculous water…and fast.  He smiled and revealed that the potent elixir was nothing but store-bought Mountain Spring water.  

Obviously, it was not the “magical” water that reconnects these two spouses.  Rather it is the woman’s desire to heal her relationship with her husband that brings about their reconciliation.  The miracle that healed the turbulent marriage was not the water but her willingness to drink it; to stop and look at her husband with new eyes, to put aside her urge to lash out from hurts and disappointments and speak, first from the love they cherish in one another.

If we could take a moment and reflect on our lives, we can see times when we reduce others to “lepers”…people who are broken and don’t measure up to our standards of righteousness and goodness, who don’t “fit” our image of propriety and success.  Or perhaps we become swallowed up in our own sense of “uncleanness”… unworthiness and remove ourselves from family and community.  The request the leper makes of Jesus is a challenge to all of us who now seek to follow him.

Our prayer is simple, “If you wish, you can make me clean…” what is needed first is the will to put aside our own fears and doubts and interests to do so.  Jesus promises us the grace to be imitators of his compassion and forgiveness whenever we are ready to take the first step in healing the wounds and cleaning the “leprosy” that afflicts us and divides us from one another. If we can just take the first sip from this simple prayer and hold on it in our hearts, I believe we will experience Jesus’ compassionate touch and hear his comforting words:  “I do will it. Be made clean.”

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

This Sunday's gospel tells us of Jesus' cure of a man afflicted with leprosy (a term referring to any repulsive skin disease) and the readings contain a lot of material for thought. First of all leprosy was not an easy illness to handle in ancient days, just as Ebola would scare all of us, these days!  For fear of contaminating others, the patients were driven away from the neighborhood and restricted from using common roads, stores and facilities. They must let others in the society know that they were lepers by not covering their hairs. They must also wear torn pants and clothing. If there is any reason for them to step outside their isolated camps they have to alert others by shouting “unclean, unclean, and unclean.” This disease had the power of separating members of a family from each other, since contact with them would make others unclean! It is terrible to be isolated from our community. Here, we might want to think of what isolate us from our family members, friends, and community, and even from the love of God. What separates us from the love of God?

Instead of avoiding, rejecting or stigmatizing the leper, Jesus touched and healed him. This is surprising because during the time of Jesus in ancient Israel, leprosy was a dreaded disease like the Ebola or HIV/AIDS of our time. Contacting leprosy was a matter of life and death.  Anyone with leprosy was to stay afar but, somehow, the leper of the gospel reading today got close to Jesus and begged him to make him clean so that he could return to normal society.  If a leper touched a clean person, he or she would become unclean and would also have to live apart from normal society. But, we hear that Jesus was “moved with pity” and touched him and made him clean. 

Like the leper, today, we are individually and collectively afflicted by several forms of diseases which have separated us from others. We too are “lepers” in one way or the other: morally, socially and spiritually. Some of us are suffering from diseases of the body such as terminal and chronic illnesses and diseases of the mind such as traumas, psychological disorders, emotional imbalances,  just to mention but a few. Several nations have their own diseases like terrorism, (especially the boko haram insurgence in Nigeria and the terror of the Islamic State in the West), electoral tension and violence, war, corruption, strange epidemics like the bird flu, ebola, etc. In the midst of these problems, who do we run to for healing?

The leper in the Gospel reading teaches us what to do and who to meet when we need help. He knew Jesus could heal him and that was why he broke the rule which forbade them from approaching the healthy when he ran to Jesus and requested for healing. At the end, he was healed. Jesus still invites all who are overburdened with diseases to come to him. He alone can guarantee us healing with his saving hands. But can we muster the courage to come out of our hideouts and approach him for healing? Today, we are challenged not just by physical diseases but by a more serious disease called sin which destroys the soul. Sin is the leprosy of the soul. It is the worst disease we can think of because it not only separates us from God, it also spoils our relationship with one another, darkens our souls, makes us candidates for hell, makes us unclean, keeps us troubled, robs us of our innocence and separates us from the community of the faithful. It has personal and social consequences. When it becomes national like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, it could destroy a whole nation and who knows if what we are suffering in Nigeria today is not as a result of our sins. 

Let us learn from Jesus today how to approach “the untouchables and outcasts,” the sick, the weak, the poor, and those we find difficult to love in our society. Jesus communicates the love and mercy of God in signs that speaks more eloquently than words.  There is no gain saying that in our world today many still suffer and die from the stigma we have placed on them because of their poverty, sickness, or weakness. Do we offer them mercy and help as Jesus did? Jesus has set a model for us Christians on how to have pity on others; how to have compassion. What does that mean? It is summarized in this particular gospel passage as reaching out to them and touching them. 

Paul writing to the Corinthians challenges us to imitate Christ by being ministers of healing.  We are to lovingly touch those aspects of hurting lives which need healing.  So many in our society and church need healing and acceptance (divorced and remarried, those who have had abortion, AIDS patients, homosexuals, victims of violence, racism, sexism, ageism, and all who are hurt by life). As individual Christians and as a community we must risk touching and healing.  Jesus showed us the way.

So, who is the unclean for us? Whom don’t we want to touch? Or, perhaps, whom don’t we touch because we never tried or never even thought about it? Who is not a part of our normal groupings? They are often invisible. We probably won’t find them in our subdivision or down the road from our acreage. Where are these people who are separated from us? We probably won’t find them here in church, nor will we find them in line with us at our grocery store or at the mall.

I find the words of the leper "If you wish you can make me clean…" very powerful and full of hope.  I thought of this when I read an email a friend sent me a couple of weeks ago.  It was a short story about a woman confiding to her therapist:  She said, “My husband and I can’t say two words to each other without getting into an argument.  The second he comes in the door we are at each other’s throats.  Deep down, I know the love’s still there but it seems hopelessly buried.”

The therapist listened intently, then reached into his drawer, and pulled out a bottle and handed it to her.  “This is a special water, holy water from a sacred spring in India,” the therapist explained.  “For the next week, whenever your husband’s about to enter the room, take two tablespoons, but don’t swallow right away…take a moment and look into his eyes.  After a couple of seconds, swallow it.  You should notice an improvement in your interaction right away.”

She went home and anxiously waited for him to come home.  When he walked in; she forgot the tablespoon and just took a swig of the blessed water and silently held his gaze.  He gave her a suspicious look, then grinned curiously.  After a bit she swallowed the water and asked how his day went.  Amazingly, they didn’t argue.  In fact, they had one of the warmest and loving conversations they had had in recent memory.  As each night passed she performed the same ritual…suddenly as if a veil was lifted, she saw him in a whole new light; she saw him as if it were the first time again…the man she fell in love with.

The following week the woman returned to her therapist, proclaiming that the treatment had healed her marriage and that she needed more of this miraculous water…and fast.  He smiled and revealed that the potent elixir was nothing but store-bought Mountain Spring water.  

Obviously, it was not the “magical” water that reconnects these two spouses.  Rather it is the woman’s desire to heal her relationship with her husband that brings about their reconciliation.  The miracle that healed the turbulent marriage was not the water but her willingness to drink it; to stop and look at her husband with new eyes, to put aside her urge to lash out from hurts and disappointments and speak, first from the love they cherish in one another.

If we could take a moment and reflect on our lives, we can see times when we reduce others to “lepers”…people who are broken and don’t measure up to our standards of righteousness and goodness, who don’t “fit” our image of propriety and success.  Or perhaps we become swallowed up in our own sense of “uncleanness”… unworthiness and remove ourselves from family and community.  The request the leper makes of Jesus is a challenge to all of us who now seek to follow him.

Our prayer is simple, “If you wish, you can make me clean…” what is needed first is the will to put aside our own fears and doubts and interests to do so.  Jesus promises us the grace to be imitators of his compassion and forgiveness whenever we are ready to take the first step in healing the wounds and cleaning the “leprosy” that afflicts us and divides us from one another. If we can just take the first sip from this simple prayer and hold on it in our hearts, I believe we will experience Jesus’ compassionate touch and hear his comforting words:  “I do will it. Be made clean.”

Fifth Sunday of the Year, B

Job 7:1-4, 6-7

1 Cor 9:16-19, 22-23; 

Mark 1:29-39

Once upon a time, a ship carrying a lot of merchants got wrecked on the high sea. All the passengers and the entire crew got drowned and died except one man who was luckily thrown onto an uninhabited island by the sea waves. After sometime he managed to build himself a hut by the side of the sea where he got minimal protection from the elements and wild animals. He kept praying to God for deliverance, and anxiously scanned the horizon each day hoping to see a passing ship. But no help came to him and he was becoming weak and was gradually giving up hope for survival.

One day, on returning from his usual hunt for food where he got nothing, something terrible happened. He saw his hut going up in flames! Where the fire emanated from, he could not say. “The worst has happened!” He cried. He was totally heart broken and thought of ending his life instead of dying out of frustration. But again something happened! Behold a ship