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Homily for Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (Isa 22: 19-23; Rom 11: 33-36; Matt 16:13-20)

REFLECT: Seek, Acknowledge and Manifest God’s glory in life…

Dear friends, today we are in the twenty first Sunday in Ordinary Time. Someone has very beautifully said, “We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.” Yes, the glory of God is in each one of us. Let us not make ourselves shine by the sin of pride or arrogance or vainglory rather manifest God’s nature and glory in us the beauty, the goodness and divine presence. Yes, if we could permeate the divine presence of God in us, the glory of God could be manifested to each and every creature on earth. As the liturgy of the word invites each one of us to understand that to God alone belongs glory and honor, let us realize what matters in life is not the manifestation of our own self-glory but seeking, acknowledging and manifesting God’s glory in our lives. So based on the liturgy of the word, I would like to share with you three points of reflection;

1. Seek God’s glory: 

We all know that it is God who has created us and makes us successful in all that we do or undertake. It is God who provides us with all the necessary equipments or the requirements to play our part best. Therefore any blessing or success we obtain must aim at seeking God’s glory and give credit to God our creator. We seek God’s glory by giving credit to God as our creator. It is not only as a duty that we do but it is the right way of loving and serving God, who makes us to experience happiness and attain manifold blessings in our lives. However, it is God who plans and it is only his plans that would work. Nothing goes without his knowledge and wisdom. We might think at times God’s ways and means go wrong or we may find weird, but God chooses or  gives whatever he wishes wisely and places each and everything accordingly in all his goodness and good will. Something similar, we find in the first reading from prophet Isaiah. 

In the first reading Isaiah speaks of the announcement concerning Eliakim and the fate of Shebna that God would do. Shebna was the royal steward of the palace at the time of King Hezekiah of Judah. He was unfaithful, arrogant and proud steward. It is for this reason that God removes his post as a master of the royal palace in King’s court. The Lord chooses Eliakim to be appointed to the vacated post of Shebna. Eliakim was indeed a servant of the Lord, who both in his actual conduct and in the desires was faithful to God. God chooses Eliakim as his servant; He attributes honor and respect; He asserts that servant will serve Him. All the more, there is a recognition and honor to Eliakim as he is mentioned as the son of Hilkiah. Perhaps, his father’s name (Hilkiah) is mentioned in order to indicate that he may serve legitimately in every respect. 

Indeed, Shebna must have thought to himself that no one would take away his power and enjoyed every privilege as a master of the royal place. But the Lord takes away from Shebna the identity in the city and in king’s court which was so dear to him and gives it to Eliakim. That’s what the Lord says, “your rule I shall give in his hands.” Yes we notice here the power of the servant. The power and authority of Shebna is placed in the hands of Eliakim who is now more worthy to receive it from the Lord. We know it is the master of the house who owns the key of house and all authority is given to the one who owns the house. Similarly God gives entire authority over the dynasty of David by giving the key of house to Eliakim. This key is given to him as an expression of the responsibility of the Davidic government that Eliakim would rule over. 

Certainly, the choice of the Lord is wise and it’s for a social welfare and well-being of the people entrusted to one’s care. Every responsibility or authority needs to be considered as a service to one another and not making others slaves and controlling them like task masters. Every authorized person need to remember wisdom to rule the world and bring about social changes for the welfare and well-being of the people, so that, all that created things function better and serve God according to his plan. Today, most of us get disgusted and dissatisfied with the way life takes us onward. It is because we do not realize the plan of God in our lives. Let us remember that whatever we may choose to do or to start. It may or may not work, however, ultimately God’s decision we need to depend on. 

The reason why Shebna was removed from his office and given to Eliakim was because Shebna’s unfaithfulness to God and taking upon himself the pride and seeking self –glory and honor which he does not deserve. Shebna, the master of the royal palace and who is also known to be the most powerful person after the king was under God’s judgment because Shebna had built tomb for himself. It only proves that he was a self-seeking and ambitious person, who wants to be remembered even after death. That’s what we hear in Isa 22:15, where God asks Shebna, “Who are you and what right have you to carve the resting place on the heights, to cut out a burial place for yourself here in the rock.”? Yes, Shebna was removed from his post as a master of the royal palace, so that he would not have any access to the city and to the king. He was seeking self-glory rather than giving to God the due credit, the creator of us all. Let us not seek self-glory rather seek God’s glory and serve the humanity in kindness and compassion.

2.              Acknowledge God’s Glory:

Acknowledging God’s glory would mean that we accept and give utmost importance to God, recognize God’s glory in the entire creation. Such an acknowledgment would inspire us to love the way the created things are and respect them with due dignity and ultimately give due glory to God. The context of today’s second reading is seen in the previous verse of the Rom 11: 32, which speaks that we are all consigned to disobedience, that God might have mercy on us all (Rom 11: 32). Yes, Israel has been disobedient to God but God has not rejected Israel (Rom 11:1). God has now turned his face towards gentiles in order to provoke jealousy among the Jewish people and bring them too to the path of salvation (Rom 11:29). Therefore, God’s wisdom and knowledge are deep. It is difficult to understand God’s designs and plans, what we need to do is acknowledge God’s work in our live and give glory to God always.

In the second reading from St. Paul’s letter to Romans, St. Paul exhorts us to acknowledge God’s glory and grandeur in our lives. We need to glorify God because God’s riches, wisdom and knowledge are unfathomable. God’s decisions cannot be explained and his ways are mysterious. Yes, it is not possible to know God’s thoughts and plans, but they are made known to us in such a way, we find delight and fulfillment, because God gives us his children what is good and appropriate for the smooth sailing of the boat called life. Therefore to acknowledge God’s wisdom and knowledge, His grace and mercy, His holiness and His justice in all of his creation would be the right way of expressing and acknowledging glory to God. 

Further towards the end of the second reading St. Paul gives us an assurance and spells out doxology in the closing hymn of Rom 11: 33–36. St. Paul shows and shares the centrality of the Lord in all things in the following statement, “For of Him, through Him and to Him. To him be glory forever.” The word “For Him” is a reminder that God is the source of all things; “Through Him” is a reminder that God is the sustainer of all things. And “to Him” is a reminder that God is the end of all things or a final goal where we reach our destination and destiny.  Yes, to the one from whom we came, through the one whom we keep our being active and alive and to the one in whom we have our destiny is to be glorified forever and ever. It is to God that glory rightly belongs and God knows who we are and how we are to go in life. God knows us through and through from top to bottom, from dawn till it gets dark at night and from birth till the life ends. So God is our beginning and our end of all that we do or say. 

Very beautifully Pope Francis tells us that “Men and women who are called to follow Christ must help those in need and not to seek their own fame and glory. True disciples make a free and conscious choice, made out of love, to reciprocate God’s invaluable grace and not as a way to promote oneself.” Yes, today most of us do not acknowledge God’s work or do not understand God’s plan in our lives. Because of such faulty understanding and failure to acknowledge God in our lives, we tend to take glory in our own works and projects. The moment we do not acknowledge God’s works or plans in our lives, we become slaves of pride and prejudice. The attitude of pride makes us arrogant and adamant to hold on certain views and value that could destroy us and the prejudices make us to criticize and speak ill of people. In addition to these, what puts us to the daily temptations of life is our vainglory, the glory for which we never worked for or which we do not deserve. Most of us take delight in self-promotion or self glory but do not acknowledge God who is the real cause and effect or true source of our success. So let us give glory to God, the all-time cause and effect, the source and summit of our lives on earth below and heaven above. When we give glory to God, God gives us due reward and raises us on high.

3.              Manifest God’s glory to one another: 

We all know that the manifestation of God’s glory means making known to others the divine presence of God. In fact, we ourselves are the glory of God, because we are created in the image and likeness of God and there is a divine presence in each one of us. If we could observe, the word ‘Glory’ refers to beauty, brilliance, splendor, power etc. In the Old Testament, God manifested himself in different forms of light, fire and cloud or made him known through prophets and kings etc. In the New Testament, God manifested his glory through his Son Jesus Christ. The glory of Jesus was made known to the apostles or to people by God himself, through the Holy Spirit during his ministry at different point of time. Today we have one such passage in the Gospel reading that manifests the identity of Jesus and the glory of God invested in Jesus through the apostles. One is a collective understanding of Jesus by the common people and second one is a personal understanding about Jesus by the apostles themselves, who were close to Jesus

We know while we trace the history that Judaism had both the worship of nature and the worship of man. Jesus being in that scenario and in the midst of Jewish people, Jesus asks the question to His disciples, “Who do people say that son of man is?”  And “who do you say that I am? The first question was an open to all question in general about people’s opinion but the second question was specific to the people close to Jesus, the so called apostles of Jesus. The first question had different opinions and their answers associated Jesus with three great persons of salvation history. They are John the Baptist, the herald of a new age and the one who prepared the way for the messiah; Jeremiah, the prophet of reform and hope; and Elijah, the prophet of power and miracles. In all surety, Jesus had all the qualities of the three great persons of salvation history, but Jesus had an unique personality, which they did not have. That’s the divine origin which Jesus had and Jesus is divine or the Son of God. 

Yes, the divine character of Jesus made a difference and that’s what is confessed by Peter, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.” Certainly, these are the statements of confession of faith in Jesus. The confession of faith in Jesus means acknowledging Jesus as Lord and saviour; thereby one surrenders all that he or she has to God alone. Today, the confession of faith is important to every Christian because, it helps us to experience who is Christ for us and will enable us to express clearly to others who Christ is. However, the confession of faith made by Peter is not the perception of his own that Peter comes to know Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God rather it is the divine illumination or divinely revealed or divine touch. It is because of God’s divine touch that Peter was able to tell correctly the identity of Jesus. That’s why Jesus says, it has not been revealed to you by flesh and blood or by human aid or effort but by divine assistance, the heavenly Father. 

Yes, the moment we are divinely moved or touched or motivated by God, we become close to God and will get to know what God wants of us to say or do for others on his behalf. As soon as Jesus perceives that Peter was divinely moved to utter the statement of confession of faith, Jesus admires him as a solid rock and appoints him to build the church of God, gives him the authority to bind or lose on earth and in heaven. Yes, every person who is divinely moved and touched by God will be given the privilege to build the church of God. Today if we look at the history of the church, we would find and acknowledge that those who were divinely moved and touched by God have been the cause of sowing seeds of God’s word and have expanded God’s mission to different parts of our world. One such example in our catholic church is the saints canonized. They have been such wonderful examples to build the church of God on earth.

For such a privilege we need to allow ourselves to be moved and touched by the divine assistance. Jesus gives authority to build his church on every divinely moved or touched people to love people and not to hate, to bring people closer to God and not to chase them away from the faith one professes. Today, we all need to understand that Church is not merely a building that has four walls, nor a religious institution that centers around rituals and conservative ideas nor an ethnic group that supports one’s particular culture and custom promoting one’s own ethnicity, but church is a divinely motivated and divinely moved community, a covenant community, that shows true love and reflects sincere relationship with Christ and to one another in the world after the heart of Christ. 

So for such a divine move and divine touch, we need to be open to God’s inspiration and manifestation. We get such inspirations and manifestations when we journey with Jesus, even in the midst of good and bad, victories and defeats in life. Then we will be able to say who Jesus is for us personally as he is. That’s why Pope Francis says, “in order to respond to that question which we all hear in our hearts, “Who is Jesus for us?” what we have learned and studied in the Catechism does not suffice. Certainly it is important to study and to know it, but it is not enough. For in order to know him truly, we need to travel the path that Peter travelled. One only understands the question posed to Peter “Who am I for you?” within the context of a long journey, after having travelled a long path. A path of grace and of sin”. Pope Francis says, “It is the disciple’s path.” In fact, he added, following Jesus enables us to know Jesus; to follow Jesus through our virtues and also through our sins. But always following Jesus!” 

Yes, following Jesus and journeying with Jesus all the time will make us know and love Jesus better. The more we know and love Jesus the better will be our sharing about Jesus. The more we share Jesus; the better shall be our manifestation of Jesus. The more we manifest Jesus in our lives; more the people would turn to Jesus. More the people turn to Jesus, the better shall be our life in joy and happiness. So let us journey with Jesus, make Jesus part of our journey and make others to journey with Jesus as well. 

RESPOND: 

Do we seek God’s glory or own self-glory with selfish ambition and self-pride?

Do we acknowledge God’s glory or satisfied merely with the vainglory?

Do we manifest God’s glory in our lives or manifest our glory to win over the attraction of others by way of name and fame?

Let us seek God’s glory, acknowledge his divine presence all over us and manifest the glory of God by the divine fiber we have in our lives. Amen. 

God bless us all! Live Jesus!

Fr. Ramesh George MSFS

rameshvkmsfs@gmail.com

9500930968