Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I had an extra week in India this time. Not only did I get the time to travel with my parents but it I also got the opportunity to meet people who I otherwise would not get to meet. Many of them were families in our own neighborhood and a few even beyond. Not that I am surprised but in many of my conversations with people I became aware of the immensity of their needs. There are families and social service institutions that are simple overwhelmed by the immensity the needs. There is a couple, for instance, with four daughters struggling to educate them and then see that they are married and settled down. In India, getting the daughters married is huge responsibility. And then, there is this woman whose husband is paralyzed but supports him and the education of her two children by working as a maid. She barely makes it. There is a couple who got into debt so that their son could emigrate to Dubai and realized that the job he promised is not what awaited him and now cannot repay the debt. There is a woman whose husband is an alcoholic and the only son who supported her met with a bike accident and is now laid up with compound fractures. There are more stories but they too depressing. I did try to help some of these families, but I wish I could simply wipe their pain away. It is the immensity of the needs that overwhelmed me. We are not alien to situations like these in our own nation, are we?
It is with this sentiment of being overwhelmed with the needs of ordinary people that I wrote this homily enroute my flight back to Dayton. I am choosing to reflect with you on the very first sentence from his letter to the Corinthians, where he says, “As you excel in every respect, in faith, discourse, knowledge, all earnestness, and in the love we have for you, may you excel in this gracious act also.” (2 Cor 8:7) What does Paul mean by “this gracious act?” As we will see, it has got to do with the immensity of the needs of some of the early churches and responding to them as Christ would do.
The early Christian churches were very poor because it was the poor that formed bulk of the members. Christianity was not popular among upper classes of Roman society. Christians could not also hold Roman offices since that automatically implied emperor worship. The church in Jerusalem was particularly poor because persecution against Christians had led them to flee the city. The church in Jerusalem was in dire need. In this context, Paul asked the other churches to support the church in Jerusalem. The Corinthians had started a collection but even after a year they had not completed the project. The Macedonians, on the other hand, had been exemplary in the way their collection had been completed. By asking the Corinthians to “excel in this gracious act,” Paul was asking them to ease the burden of the poorest of the churches. So he asks them to excel in graciousness so that the people in need might experience some relief.
Paul’s exhortation could mean many things for us today, but I would like to focus on three things.
- Bringing work to completion.
As I said earlier, Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the “gracious act” because the Corinthians had failed to bring the collection for Jerusalem to completion even after a year. By this, Paul was emphasizing the need for Christians to be aware of each other’s needs. In so many ways we are responsible for each other. And graciousness is the answer. At work, at home, at church, Paul is inviting us to graciousness. Many of us can go home at look at some work that needed to be completed and we never got to it. May be you promised your wife you would fix dinner one night, or promised your husband that you would get the closet cleaned, or your promised your parents you would get good grades, or promised your boss that you will excel at your work. Paul would say, “excel in the gracious act.” In other words, in our daily work and responsibilities toward God, family, neighbors, colleagues, society and the poor – let us complete them in graciousness. That is what Jesus did. God sent him for accomplish the work of salvation. Jesus was more than gracious in accomplishing his work so that our need for salvation might be met.
- Imitating the Radical Graciousness of God
Paul does not merely ask the Corinthians to excel in graciousness but he also provides the theological reason for making that demand. He says, “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” In other words, he was simply asking the Corinthians to imitate the graciousness of God in Jesus Christ. We are not in any doubt about the graciousness of God. The story of the healing of the hemorrhaging woman and the story of the little girl being raised to life are great examples of the graciousness of Jesus. However, Jesus did not merely do a few things to be gracious. It was his life-style. The cross is the greatest symbol of the radical graciousness of God. It is the kind of graciousness of that calls for self-sacrifice. Jesus became poor for our sake and suffered for us. Jesus died for us in a radical act of graciousness. Paul is inviting us today not to merely do gracious things but to become radically gracious… like Jesus.
- Being Gracious toward the Earth and One Another
Today there are few areas where the need for radical graciousness is greatly felt. Let me highlight a couple of them. Earlier this month, Pope Francis released his encyclical on climate change entitled Laudato Si (Praise Be). Pope Francis begins with the canticle of St Francis, “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”, and reminds us of St Francis’ understanding that our common home [earth] is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. Then the Pope continues, saying, “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22).” Violence, today, is not only being done toward the earth. If Charleston, South Carolina is any indication, we are doing self-destructive violence to each other. Racial, social, and economic violence is destroying us. I think the answer to these problems today is the radical graciousness of God in Jesus Christ.
Today we bring bread and wine to the altar. The reason we have these gifts and the reason why it becomes life-giving for us is because of God’s gracious act. As we participate in these acts may we become gracious disciples, Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph