Friday Gospel Recharge Series
Friday Gospel Recharge
A Reflection on Luke 10: 13-16
(26th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)
Upholding the Fatherhood of God
In
today’s Gospel Jesus tells us something about himself: like many of us, he
knows what it means to be rejected. In fact, in this passage he forewarns of
the rejection he will face in those who continue his work as disciples. The
word rejection appears three(?) times in his discourse. In another Gospel we
learn that Jesus is in fact rejected by his own kinsman for being a man of
wonder while of a low social class; obviously his death cross culminates the
rejection he faced by his own people. 😢
As disciples of Jesus, rejection is an integral part of the ministry. Part of our work requires to uphold Jesus’s message by word and the way we live. The crux of the message we share with others is that Jesus is truly God, the Son of the Father, he died for us out of love, he wants us to have a change of heart and repent of former ways.
When we are rejected for Jesus’s message, we are not rejected personally though the experience itself is a personal one. Where is Jesus to be spat on when we are yelled at, have the doors shut in our face, or experience physical and emotional abuse for what we stand for? Since we suffer the experience, we associate the rejection we face as a personal one. On top of whatever else we are rejected for, that might be that people find us too ugly, we’re not smart enough, we lack material wealth, nor are gifted in areas that makes for popularity etc., we are rejected also for believing in Jesus. 😯
While we are rejected for Jesus’s sake, Jesus tells us that it’s not us who are rejected: it’s God whom we represent. People reject God when they reject us because God our creator and redeemer and sanctifier has a particular vision for man. Sometimes his vision does not align with our own intentions. When God’s vision doesn’t match with our own ambitions, we say thanks but no thanks to God, and show him the finger. 🖕As his representatives, we are a reminder to people in the flesh that God has another plan for them, a plan bigger than theirs, one that is opposite and questions the nature of their motives. Each time we stand up to the world for the Lord, offering the Good News, we the middle men of God take those blows each time hostility faces us.
Notice also in this Gospel, Jesus criticises Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum. The significance of these three places is that they are Judaean towns where Jesus had ministered, preaching the Good News. Here, Jesus is frustrated with the townsmen of these three places and criticises them not exactly for their ungodly ways, but for rejecting him instead. He had performed all kinds of wonders there, such as curing the blind, the deaf and the lame, raised the dead, healed even lepers. He also fed the hungry and people possessed by demons he exercised.
The people, through the works of Jesus, personally witnessed the power of God, and yet they still rejected him, wanting to stone him, even mocked him. What on earth is wrong with them? No doubt this is a question asked by Jesus too, hence the frustration.
God who is all powerful exercise his power for the good of others. This is seen in Jesus’s own ministry. God who exercises this power through Jesus tells us that he is a caring and loving God. His care and love isn’t lacking personality either: he loves us with a father’s love.
While we are not townsmen of Capernaum, nor of Chorazin, nor Bethsaida, we are capable of rejecting the fatherhood of God too. Indeed, we can reject God by the way we live; we might intoxicate ourselves in alcohol, take drugs such as cannabis which impedes us from thinking rationally, gossip, fornicate or even avariciously accur wealth at the expense of others; however, we can reject God by saying to hell with the Father’s love for me, I’ll do what I want.
This is the essence of today’s Gospel. God’s fatherhood is questioned and sidelined by the people. As Christians, it’s our first duty to recognise that God is more than some intangible force that puts into motion the material world, and distance himself from us watching all that takes place from afar. Instead, he is a God who not only causes things to exists but who is also close to us and is loveable. 🥰 God should be loved not because he gives us gifts but for his own sake, the fact he loves us and desires our flourishment and as a result always gives recklessly.
There are fringes in society that deny the reality of God’s fatherhood. Sceptics have their doubts: if he is a God who loves us, why all the evil in the world? Wouldn’t a loving Father figure God do something about the injustices in the world? On the surface of it all it may look as though God is indifferent to the evil that exists however if we look deeply, we find God is working to bring about peace in the world: he uses us as his hands, to do all he can, to limit the hurt we witness in the world today. Then there are our Muslim friends who militantly deny Jesus’s divinity and Sonship in the Father. Since they deny the Sonship of Jesus, they deny also the Father who sent him too.
As disciples our duty is to witness to the Sonship of Jesus in the Father. As history has shown, this will come at a cost and if we’re not too familiar with history, Jesus warns of rejection for us who love him. On that note, why don’t we spend some time in prayer examining our lives and reflect on our relationship with God the Father? If we’ve prioritised and idolised material goods, and experiences as our first love instead of God, now is the time to ask for the grace to repent and change our ways and dedicate our entire lives to his cause which is to make us as adopted sons and daughters of the kingdom.
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