2 Eph 2.13-18;
Mk 6.30-34)
My dear friends,
The readings this Sunday are a source of consolation and encouragement to all of us, especially those who feel that their lives have lost direction, and who feel let down by those whose task it is to give leadership and inspiration. The gospel is particularly relevant to those who are pressed for time with tons of work to do. The passage contains the counsel of Jesus, who knowing our human nature too well, counselled his first recruits who had a whole world to save to take a break for a little while. Jesus wants us back on the high road to heaven so he calls us in the gospel reading to break with our past, to break with the earthly things that have kept us from him.
It is a call to you and me particularly if, like sheep without a shepherd, we have wandered half-lost through life. Jesus is calling us as always to come to him so that he will lead us to safe pastures. It is a great pity that we Christians who know how Christ has put us on the right path, on the road to heaven have often allowed ourselves to get caught up in the briars and brambles of earthly attractions.
I have often compared our lives to that of a poor man who had a great desire to go to the Holy Land. He was given a free ticket with all expenses paid. He set out joyfully, say from a remote area here in Plateau State. His first stop was Lagos. Here he became enchanted with the hustle and bustle of Lagos city life. He visited many movie pictures and stage productions and spent so much time that he missed the pilgrim place for which he was booked. He soon discovered that he had not enough money to pay for a ticket to Europe on another plane and so missed seeing the Holy Land. He ended his day in misery in Lagos, no longer enchanted by its attraction but driven to despair by the utter emptiness of what it had to offer. That man's fate was but a shadow of the irreparable loss of the christian who lets the attractions of this world keep him from heaven.
We may find our days, our mind and our hands full of interesting worldly affairs, but we should realize that every time the clock strikes we are an hour nearer to our earthly end. In our modern societies marked by hurry and worry, therefore, we must take some time off and be with God so that he may recharge us with spiritual energy and strength. Otherwise, what explanation shall we offer when we arrive empty handed and totally unprepared at the judgement seat of God? Will you plead ignorance or lack of time or what? Jesus in his mercy and compassion is calling us ever ready to pardon us as he did the Galileans. These Galileans we may want to know were not saints. They were ordinary people like you and me, who were not over religious. They cheated one another, they were often uncharitable to one another, they were not always chaste and pure, they prayed vey little and perhaps only when they wanted some material benefits. Yet our Lord had compassion on them.
I was at the Diocesan Secretariat a few days ago. A poster on the door of the Secretary to the Laity caught my attention. It reads:
"HELL EXISTS AND WE MIGHT GO THERE
Preach to save souls not to please, be a stepping
stone for others to meet Christ by your life style"
It can happen to us unless we frequently take a good look at our way of living and honestly and sincerely measure our daily doings by the standard of the Gospel. The standard put before us today is one of God as a good shepherd creating new relationships between people, gathering as one people those who had previously been divided by enmity, gathering people across the divides which cause hurt or create fear. All of us are called upon to be shepherds one of another.
In the first reading God was angry with the leaders he had appointed to look after his people. The religious and civic leaders had brought afflictions and misfortunes on the people. God intervened by casting them off and providing in Jesus one who will care for his people and changed our world. Now that Jesus has come, heaven is our destination, our only purpose in life. Now everything is secondary and only of transitory importance. But how many of us have let these transitory things of secondary importance get such a hold on us so much so that we forget or ignore our one and only purpose in life?
In the second reading we find Jesus inaugurating a new humanity in which the differences between Jews and Gentiles are wiped out and through his death on the cross and his gift of the Spirit peace is made between God and human kind. In the Gospel we see Jesus in a concrete situation showing his care and compassion to the members of his flock. Jesus and his disciples whom he had sent out last Sunday were worn out and sought to get away from the crowds. But the people, desperate for what Jesus had to give them, ran after him. When Jesus sees the situation his primary concern was no longer his own need for rest but the needs of the people who are "like sheep without a shepherd." Although their plans for rest was frustrated by the impatient crowd, the story clearly exemplifies the necessity to take time off from the constant routine of duties.
We must realize that our Lord's invitation to rest is not just a pious gesture given only to a chosen few, but an indispensable call to all of us to find some needed time to rest. Unless we take off some time to rest as Christ and his disciples did, our activity will be without direction, our work will become a hardship and our life will lose its meaning. Work six days and rest one day is the advice given in the first chapter of Genesis. We all know that the body demands for sleep and how sluggish we feel after a restless night. In Rome the siesta time is religiously observed each day between 2 and 4 p.m. Mondays are days of rest with most stores and shops closed. We might think these people are unbusiness-like or lazy, but they reply "we work to live, not live to work". And this extends to many other things. An occasional dinner out for husband and wife can produce a continual bonding of their union. Obviously they would have food at home, which they could eat and save money, but that's not the point. There are greater things to save than money.
Today, it is very easy for us to blame our young people for their abuses. But are they really to blame? Young people may not like the older generation to force their opinions down their throats, and yet they are looking for direction. I read recently of some young people in a major archdiocese. They pleaded for a counselling Center where they could go to discuss their problems and difficulties. They went so far as to volunteer to raise the funds to provide the facilities, provided the archdiocese supplied the counsellors but up to the time they wrote nothing had been done about it. "Priests, religious, school authorities, parents are all too busy when we go to them. Who will help us face and live with our problems?" they ask.
The readings this morning, I believe give us a pointer as to the way forward. In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah thunders in God's name, "doom for the shepherds who allow the flock to be destroyed and scattered...it is the Lord who speaks". This message of doom applies to all of us. As members of the body of Christ, we are all co-responsible for one another; we are our brothers' keepers and have to be shepherds to one another, as elders in this Church today - priests, religious, parents and parishioners, each in his own sphere of life and with his own contribution to make. All of us are called to be shepherds of the sheep .. of the young, of the students. Like Jesus in the Gospel reading today, we are expected to take pity on our young people who are looking on us to lead them, on the students who look on us to help them carry the burdens of life.
I feel so helpless when a mother comes with tears requesting for prayers for her son who is now a drug addict; I feel frustrated when parents come all hot and bothered because their children are carrying on with non-christians or indulging in liberties permitted only to the married. I feel lost when I am faced with young people who are complaining about lecturers and teachers harassing them and ensuring them of failures for non-compliance to their demands.
Many parents are also so busy doing a hundred and one things, and not having time for the only thing that matters - shepherding the flock in their own homes. The result is that the flock strays into forbidden pastures and the tears of the shepherd come too late. President of the United States, though he was, we are told that John F. Kennedy, whenever in the Whitehouse, made time to spend at least an hour in play with his young children. Are we more important or busier than the president of the United States? Parents where are your children, now? Hove you bothered to know what is happening to them wherever they are? It is a pity that some of our families are so selfish that they think that they are the reason for which God has not destroyed our world. Some of our families are living in total self deception that we think that our family is the best and in fact that it is next to the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Some of such families have some members of their family steep in secret cult and are in fact a curse to themselves because of the havoc their members are causing to other families. Some of you have secured places in the higher institutions of learning for your children but you have not bothered to know about their association in these institutions. Some of your children spend late nights in meetings of secret cults planning how to maim and destroy others whom God has equally placed here by right simply because they must eliminate others. They have been deceived to believe that belonging to secret cults will get them connected, assure them of beautiful girls, who are other peoples daughters and automatic success in exams. My dear friends, it is only a highly mischievous, untrained and morally deficient student that would subscribe to such lies. What manner of student are you that membership of a secret cult will enable you to short-circuit studies? The fact is that there is no student without studies.
Like Jesus in the Gospel, we are called upon by our less fortunate brothers and sisters who are enduring injustice and miseries to stand up and speak for them. I am reminded here of three stories in the Bible where the intervention of others in the face of injustice saved some would be victims. I recall in the first place the story of the beautiful woman Sussanna, the wife of Joachim in the Book of Daniel Chapter 13. Two lustful and wicked old men were selected as judges but they decided to abuse such office. They tried to blackmail Susanna because she refused to co-operate and yield to their adulterous desires. They concocted their plans and hell bound to destroy her. Susanna, as the poor always do chose to put her trust in God. The elders gave false evidence against her, and she was condemned to death, without hearing her side of the story.
Thank God for the spirit of Daniel, the wisdom of his judgement brought freedom to the poor woman and condemnation for the lustful old men. How many Daniels can we find today? If Daniel had not cried out in the face of injustice there would not have been a retrial, which exposed those treacherous old men.
The second story is that of Joseph, the dreamer, also in the Old Testament. The truth sometimes appears to remain hidden. Someday, however, it will come out. Joseph, as you very well know, was jailed on the false allegation of Portiphar's wife. She wanted to seduce him, but he would not allow himself to be dragged into sin. Joseph was willing to suffer so as to keep the high trust of his master. At God's time, however, Joseph was vindicated and his position elevated.
Remember also the story of the woman who was caught in adultery who was dragged before our Lord, Himself. As he wrote on the sand, Jesus asked a simple question that those without sin should cast the first stone. We are told that her accusers all disappeared one by one. I often thank God for this daughter of Eve as I often wonder what sentence she would have received if she were brought to us in today's Nigeria to give the sentence. Even with our Lord's example, would we not have been asking the accusers how dead they wanted the woman to be rather than trying to see justice done?. Would many of us not have proceeded and aimed stones at the places where deadly wounds would be inflicted on the woman, instead of asking for God's mercy for our own sins?. The accusers had an opportunity to haul stones on a sinner but they forgot that they too were guilty of even those public sins other people know about. What happened to the man?
My dear friends, it is a great pity that many of us do not only keep quiet in the face of pervasive injustice but we also think that keeping sealed lips means charity to those in authority or those in power while speaking up is lack of appreciation of the positive points in leadership. When we look at the matter seriously however, keeping sealed lips is in reality a disservice to those in authority, it is a deliberate attempt to hide from them the truth until their consciences become further scared and worse tactics adopted. To speak the truth in the face of injustice is a service to humanity and helps to protect against an impending danger.
Speaking in the face of injustice reminds me of the saying of one great philosopher Dante who once said that the hottest place in hell was reserved for those who, in the face of injustice, remain neutral. How many of us are always preparing hell for ourselves? Each and every one of us is challenged to react to injustice wherever it is found. We should not applaud or oppose what we do not know, simply because it is the majority opinion. Rather, we should make every effort to understand the issues at hand before we support or oppose them. Some of us mortgage our consciences and follow other people without knowing the details or reasons for the coloured picture one has of another person. Watch out when someone comes with gossips against another.
Let us not forget the immortal experience of one Rev Martin Noller during the Nazi era. This was the time when there was a great massacre of the Jews in Germany. Rev Noller said that the Germans came for the communists so I did not speak up because I was not a communist. They came for trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. They came for Jews, and I did not speak up, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Finally they came for me, and there was no body to speak for me.
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