Homily for 25 June 2023


 

One of the primary responsibilities of a priest or a deacon is to break the Word of God, and

therefore when we prepare for a homily there is always a sense of anxiety about what the

Gospel is going to be. You see it is relatively easy to preach about the love of God,

forgiveness and the kingdom of God but when you get a passage about persecution it’s not

that easy. And that’s because we all are afraid of dying and more so dying due to violence.

Sometimes we believe that if we follow the will of God our life is going to be a bed of roses

and there would be no difficulty. On the contrary, as we see in the readings, if we follow

God’s will, we will have to face troubles, difficulties and persecution. In the 1 st reading taken

from the prophet Jeremiah, we witness his struggle in trying to make sense of his mission.

Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry is set at a short time before Judah was taken into exile by

Babylon. Jeremiah warned Judah about this danger but the people criticised him. Jeremiah

feels caught in the middle, sandwiched between God who insists that he preach this difficult

word of warning and the people who refuse to believe him. He laments and cries out ‘God,

I’m doing your work, so why am I facing all these difficulties?’ His pain is so much that He

even goes on to say it would have been better had he not been born.

While the logical and easy thing to do in this situation would be to quit, Jeremiah remembers

Yahweh’s promise to be with him, and Jeremiah expresses his trust in God. Yahweh will

prevail over those who persecute Jeremiah. There would have been times when we tried to do

the right thing and faced a lot of opposition and difficulties. At such times we must be able to

place our trust in God and persevere instead of giving up.

In the second reading taken from St. Paul's letter to the Romans, Paul relates sin and grace in

the stories of Adam and Christ. We see a parallel being drawn between Adam and Jesus. He

highlights the point that Adam’s act of disobedience has been overcome by the more

powerful obedience of Jesus in his faithful death on the cross. Just as we once had our

identity and our destiny of death in Adam, so now we have a new identity and a new destiny

of righteousness and life in Christ. The grace of God far outweighs the sin of humanity.

In the gospel taken from Matthew, we see Jesus speaking to the disciples about being

committed in the face of persecution. If prophets suffered persecution and Jesus suffered

crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples can expect similar treatment. Being afraid in the face of

persecution is natural, but Jesus begins by asking us not to be afraid. And there are primarily

three reasons for this. First, everything evil that is hidden or covered will be brought to light.

Implying that God will not permit evil to win. The second reason not to fear is the limited

power of our opponents. They can kill the body, but they have no power over the soul. Only

God has power over our soul. The third reason not to fear is God’s compassionate love. God

cares even about tiny sparrows, how much more will He care for us? The God who created

heaven and earth cares about even the hairs on our head. We are not born out of some

assembly line manufacturing process, but each of us is special and unique to God.

The fact however remains that true Christianity is like a magnet which attracts persecution.

And gone are the days when we used to say persecution is going to come. It is already here. It

is not uncommon to read news about attacks on Christians in India and overseas. We can’t

forget Fr. Stan Swamy who just a couple of years ago was martyred for fighting for tribal

rights and the victims of the persecution at Kandhamal in 2008. Persecution against

Christians is not a recent phenomenon. Christians have been persecuted right from the time of

Jesus. They were first persecuted by the Jewish authorities, and then they were persecuted by

the Romans for not accepting the emperor as God. And the one question which always comes

up is why did the early Christians risk their lives for someone who was branded as a

criminal? The answer I believe is that they had an experience of the risen Christ. And this

experience gave them the courage to lay down their lives for Christ. In these times of

persecution, I pray that each one of us may receive this personal experience of Christ and the

courage of the martyrs to be able to place our trust in God like the prophet Jeremiah. May

there be justice and peace in our country and all over the world. May God bless us all.

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