One day, as usual, a little orphan
girl, stood at the street corner begging for food, money or whatever she could get.
The girl was wearing tattered clothes, was dirty and quite disheveled. A well-to-do
young man passed that corner without giving the girl a second look. But, when he returned
to his luxurious mansion, his happy and comfortable family, and his well-laden dinner
table, his thoughts returned to the young orphan. He became very angry with God for
allowing such conditions to exist. He reproached God, saying, How can you let this
happen? Why don t you do something to help this girl? Then he heard God in the depths
of his being responding by saying “Yes friend I did something. I created you.”
Every
human person in today’s world seeks to find meaning to his or her life. People particularly
young ones are often discouraged when they are unable to perceive the why of life
and aim to search for it in wrong and absurd ways. According to the theologian Paul
Tillich the word God translates as the depth of our life, the source of our being,
and our ultimate concern, what we take seriously without any reservations. So our
search for meaning connects with our search for God. Every human person has a purpose
to fulfill in life. All have a specific task and are individually called by God for
a task or a mission. The call that God gives is personal. We will not comprehend
the mission easily unless we are totally attentive to his calling just as young Samuel
was and respond as Isaiah or Jeremiah prophet did. Our entire person must be totally
attentive to his invitation. All the three readings of today tell us of the mission
that is specifically given to every individual by Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark we
see Jesus sending out his disciples on a mission. They are sent to the Israelite community
to proclaim the message of the kingdom of God. They are to proclaim the need for repentance
and offer them the gift of healing. Jesus relies on human support in preaching the
gospel to people. In the first reading Prophet Amos refuses to abandon his mission.
He must speak God’s word to those who need to hear it. In the second reading we praise
Father, Son and Spirit for lavishing us with every spiritual blessing. We bask in
their freely given divine love and intimate care.
In the First Reading we heard
the Lord instructing Prophet Amos to go and to prophesy to the people of Israel.
Amos was a native of Judah. He was a shepherd by profession and dresser of sycamore
trees. Such person was called by God to be the shepherd of his people. He was given
the task of communicating the word of God with a call to repentance in order to be
saved. He protested strongly against the religious abuses and the lack of religion
then rampant in Israel. Amos as well as the people were aware of the role of a prophet
namely to speak for God and uphold his values. Amos would have spoken things that
displeased the king and the priest of the place. Amaziah who held the rank of the
priest told him that the king was angry with him and he was seeking to kill him. It
was better that Amos looked for his own safety. Amos tells him that in the eyes of
God the Temple that Amaziah served was not legitimate as it was established by the
royal household. For this reason God’s prophets challenged this Temple. Now Amos was
accused that he was speaking on his own behalf. But Amos re-emphasizes the call of
God. He told the priest that it is God who called him from nowhere for this mission
and God will protect him. God had asked him to speak his word which is the word of
truth and he was bound to speak. In other words, he explained that before the choice
of God the human choice will be null and void. He was given the mission to cultivate
faith in their hearts. He told the King and Amaziah that they must listen to God and
choose life.
The Second Reading of St. Paul to the Ephesians says that we were
chosen by God before creation and He wanted us to be saved by the blood of his son
Jesus. The motive of God’s choice is love. His plan for humanity existed from the
beginning as he cared for each and every one. God did not choose them when they committed
themselves at Baptism or because of any good deeds. He chose because they are his
own and have existed in the eternal plan of salvation. The choice of the Father is
such that he never abandons anyone. Having destined the chosen ones for adoption as
His children through Jesus Christ, the Father chose all to be holy and blameless before
Him in love. And all of this is freely given to manifest the praise of his glorious
grace. He has made them his chosen ones his real children, purchased by his blood
and makes them precious before him. He has given all these gifts freely that they
may fully inherit the divine life. He wanted that our inheritance that comes through
Christ, through whom they were destined according to the Will of God to be called
the children of God. Their hope had to be in Christ to live for the praise of his
glory. Jesus Christ is the visible embodiment of God’s love. Through his Son, God
has granted his people forgiveness and has brought creation back to himself. The Holy
Spirit is Trinitarian gift and is the first installment of the heavenly inheritance.
That is the reason why Paul starts with the words, “Blessed be our God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places.”
The Gospel of today tells us of the mission and ministry
of Jesus where the master accepts human helps to continue his work. For Jesus from
the beginning it has been a shared ministry. He invites his own chosen men to work
with him. Jesus had been quietly training his chosen Apostles for some time. They
had heard his preaching they had seen the miracles worked by him. Their future work
was to bring his teaching and the story of his life and miracles to all people. They
were not fully aware of the real Jesus whom they had accepted as their master but
they knew that he was planning something great. They were being prepared for the challenge
he was placing before them. As the Gospel unfolds, that shared ministry grows until
we see Jesus calling the twelve and giving them authority over unclean spirits as
well as to preach repentance. People had been watching and admiring his work and they
wanted his presence in other towns and villages to come to preach and also work miracles
there. But as a human person Jesus was unable to reach out everywhere and he called
the twelve apostles together and gave them a task to do his work and fulfil the special
mission given to him by the Father. He instructed them to go out, two by two, and,
heal people as they drive out “unclean” spirits. They were to do the task he himself
was doing and continue doing his mission of healing. It was not just to conquer the
evil spirits but more importantly to bring reconciliation and healing. They were
to trust absolutely in God’s providence. He would see to it that those to whom they
preached would provide them with the necessities of life. They were called upon to
cure the sick, reduce the pain of people and destroy the power of the evil one. In
reality they were to be participants in the ministry of Jesus. By sharing this power
with the twelve, Jesus brings them into full association with his own mission. He
involves his disciples while he sends them out to be his instruments of liberation,
to help others recover their freedom.
Jesus sends his disciples two by two
on a temporary mission. Going two by two carries with it the authority of official
witnesses. Only Mark mentions this detail in his Gospel while Matthew and Luke do
not speak of it on this occasion. But in another passage Luke says: “After this the
Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two.” This has
a profound meaning that needs to be explained. Indeed, it amounts to saying that the
disciple of the Lord is never alone: he is always accompanied by another disciple
of the Lord, that is, a man or a woman not chosen by the disciple himself, but rather
a person whom the Lord himself chose to be his companion and helper in the apostolate.
This person may be an equal, but may also be a superior, perhaps even the Pope himself.
The mission of the Church is always accomplished in the company of others: the disciple
is never alone. Again the Lord takes care of all his needs while on mission by providing
them the necessities of life. While on mission they had to trust in the absolute providence
of God.
If Jesus takes care in choosing his disciples in order to ensure a
good beginning to the mission he entrusts to them, he also watches over the mission
itself to ensure that it proceeds well. Here we notice that the discipleship demands
a lifestyle of radical simplicity while the other demands he makes of them are heavy.
The instructions we find in the Gospel probably reflect the directives that were given
to the Christian missionaries of Mark’s time. The main point of the instructions
was that the disciple must trust that God through the community will provide the essentials
of food and housing. Clothing and accessories must be kept to an absolute minimum.
Jesus tells them that if they are to help people recover their freedom, they too must
be a free people. So he instructs them saying that as they go out to evangelize, they
should not bring many things with them. No food, no backpack, no money, no extra clothes,
no sandals or staff. This teaching does not seem to be very practical to our ears.
He also tells them that when his disciples were on the mission of the kingdom, there
would be at least some to welcome them and give them what they needed, namely they
will receive proper hospitality. They are not to look for comfort, but rather seek
a place where God dwells, a place of peace. The elements of food, tunic, sandals
and staff, all placed within the context of a journey indicates that this is a second
exodus which will once again lead them through the wilderness.
Jesus strictly
instructs his disciples to stay at the house they originally enter. They must not
be preoccupied with finding better and more comfortable accommodations. This would
violate the customs of hospitality as well give impression that the disciples were
concerned primarily with themselves and their own comfort. Besides to leave the house
that has welcomed them would be to insult their kind host. If they were rejected or
if no one received them in that place, they were to depart immediately. He tells
them to shake the dust off their feet at the door of the inhospitable householder
or at the end of the village if the villagers refused to hear them and go to a more
hospitable environment. Of course the gesture of shaking the dust from one’s feet
was, in effect, equal to cursing that place. With this commission and with these instructions,
the Twelve are depicted as heading off to preach repentance. This action also signified
that they were cleansing themselves of all pagan contamination. The entire mission
of the disciples reflects the post resurrection community of mark, but remains rooted
in the mission and ministry of Jesus. However, the essence of their preaching was
that the Kingdom of God is coming and they have to prepare themselves by repenting
from their sins. At the same time they were given the power to cast out demons, anoint
the people with oil and heal them, and more importantly preach the proximity of the
Kingdom of God. Jesus today is inviting us to cooperate with him. He wants us to be
his instruments of liberation, to help others recover their freedom.
Thus the
Gospel today is telling us that each Christian is called not only to be a disciple
but also to be an apostle. A disciple is one who hears, who accepts and who carries
out the teaching of Jesus in his/her life. A disciple follows Jesus, imitates Jesus,
and becomes a second Christ. An apostle is not only a follower but also an evangelizer.
He is to be sent on a mission with a message from a superior – an ambassador, an envoy.
Every person who has been baptized has this mission and this calling, actively to
share their faith with others. We work with the lord to help people find or recover
their freedom. We help people to cure their sicknesses, physical, psychological and
emotional. Secondly, Jesus is telling us to go through our lives with the maximum
of freedom and the minimum of burdens. The apostles were told to go out bringing with
them only the message they had received from Jesus and nothing else. They were not
to carry with them any earthly material goods which would be an obstacle in their
mission work. He stresses on their poverty and emptiness in the mission. All of us
have heavy burdens to carry that have come from the past or from the present situations.
There worries and anxieties in our heads which also can paralyze us and prevent us
living rich and enriching lives. Jesus himself is a model for us for he was materially
poor and had did not have a shelter of his own. He could have possessed whatever
he needed but it was not to be. He was born poor and he died poor and in fact he lived
a life of poverty. But he tells us that each of us has a calling according to the
Divine Will of God. We all have been commissioned through Jesus Christ to lead a life
worthy of adoption to become children of God.
We are aware that Christ the
Son of God could have spread his Gospel of peace and love and the message of eternal
salvation to the whole world without any human help. Yet he chose the weaker and more
human way of evangelizing people by sending their own fellowmen who brought the Good
News to them. This choice showed his divine love and understanding of weak human nature
much better and more effectively than the use of any supernatural means which he could
have employed. Today we realize that we all have been sent by God and the church to
spread and defend the faith before our family, our friends and our co-workers, we
can expect that our Christian obligation will not be easy. We have to be prepared
to be rejected by many or even our own communities because we represent Jesus on earth.
But we should feel happy because we are in good company. We will be counted among
those who have been rejected, like Jesus himself, Peter and Paul, Stephen the deacon
and all the martyrs of the Church. We will be counted among our brothers and sisters
in Christ who today are sharing the same hardship in the hope of the glory to come.
What is important for us is to listen to the voice of the Lord continuously. While
we thank God from our hearts today for having been put on the road to heaven let us
remember all those whom we serve that they may truly realize the meaning of the kingdom
through us.