HOMILY FOR WEDNESDAY 24TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME B
{1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13,Luke 7:31-35}
The idea of having faith and doing what is pleasing to God tells much about ourselves. We hear St Paul in the first reading admonishing his brothers on the need to use their faith to gain or desire something high. High here means something that will be of beneficial to everyone. That one thing that can be beneficial to everyone is love. The gospel presents the message of John the Baptist and the message of Jesus which fell on deaf ears and met with stiff resistance from the scribes and the Pharisees who listened with pride, jealousy, prejudice, suffering from spiritual deafness. Hence, they attributed the austerities of John the Baptist to the devil and saw Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners as “evidence” that he was a glutton and a drunkard – both “testifying” that Jesus’ reputation and silent Messianic claims were patently false.
Jesus compares the attitude of the Scribes and the Pharisees with that of street-children who want to entertain themselves by acting out wedding and funeral songs. They divide themselves into two groups. But when one group proposes to sing wedding songs and asks the other group to dance, the second group will refuse, proposing funeral songs instead, and asking the first group to act as a funeral procession, carrying one of them on their shoulders. In the end both groups will be frustrated. Jesus states that the scribes and Pharisees, because of their pride and prejudice, act exactly like these immature, irresponsible children. Jesus criticizes the unbelieving Jews for not listening either to John the Baptist, who preached a message of austerity, repentance, and God’s judgement on unrepentant sinners, or to Jesus, who preached the Good News of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness and salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters, some people will criticize us as they criticized Jesus and John the Baptist, even when we do good, correct things with the best of intentions. The best response is to ignore the critics, while examining our actions and correcting anything wrong we may find in them. But hearing the Gospel implies the total acceptance and assimilation of what we hear and the incorporation of it into our daily lives. We should not be “selective listeners,” hearing only what we want to hear, and doing only what we like. Like the generation of Jesus’ time, our age is marked by indifference and contempt, especially in regard to the things of Heaven. Indifference dulls our ears to God’s voice and to the Good News of the Gospel. Only the humble of heart can find joy and favor in God’s grace.
PAX VOBIS
Catholic Diocese of Ilorin, Kwara State,
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