Listen, Learn and Live
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 24th September, 2017
Is 55: 6-9; Phil 1:20-24,27; Mt 20:1-16
There is a colleague of yours who is very close to you, spends a lot of time with you and enjoys much of your favours. You come to discover that the person is spreading rumours against you and calumny against you. What would you do?
Every one in your locality consider you and your spouse, as the the best couple around. They speak highly about you. But both of you know, only both of you know, that you are not really happy with each other. What would you do?
Everyone in the ambient where you work are corrupt. They are in one way or the other people who either directly involve in corruption or indirectly promote corruption through an assistance or silence. You find yourself in the thick of this situation, what would you do?
What would you do?
The Word today wants us to say: I would think, decide, act and live as a Christian. I would be a Christian. What does that mean: To be a Christian means to be Christ! For me to live is Christ, to die is a gain, declares St. Paul today!
I would change things, revolutionise the world, challenge the society, transform the world...these are easy statements to make. But "how" is the million dollar question. To be Christ today, the Word invites us to listen to Christ, learn what it means to be Christ and live to be Christ.
To be a Christian is to be Christ - that is the call. Limitless Forgiveness and Compassionate Challenge, Authentic love and Sincere Relationships, Integral Living and Uncompromising Values - these are the need of the hour - this is what it means to be Christ, to be Christ wherever we are, to be Christ in whatever way we can, to be Christ to the extent we can. How can I do that?
First, I need to listen to Christ, listen to Christ who invites me, listen to Christ who calls me, listen to Christ who tells me "go" into my vineyard! The Lord comes seeking for me and I need to pay heed to the Lord. The situations of difficulties, the situations of temptations, the situations of challenge are situations through which I am being called to enter into the mission of Christ, to transform the world. If I give excuses and stand by without listening to the Lord, I am already failing in my duty. It doesn't matter how much difference I make, all that the Lord wants is I make a difference. It doesn't matter how much I achieve, all that the Lord wants is that I remain faithful to whatever I can, because as Mother Teresa said, I am called not to be successful, but to be faithful.
The second is to learn to be Christ, to learn the way Christ would look at things, to learn the way Christ would approach an issue, to learn the way that Christ would act in a given situation. Seek the Lord when you still have time, says Isaiah in the first reading today. Seek the Lord means, seek to know and understand the Lord, seek to get closer to the Lord and the ways of the Lord, seek to know the difference between the ways of the world and the ways of the Lord and make the Lord's ways mine.
The third call is to live to be Christ...to say like Paul, for me to live is Christ. To live to be Christ is to have the mind of Christ. To live to be Christ is to think like Christ, to speak like Christ, to love like Christ, to suffer like Christ, to be ready to give our life for the sake of the will of God, just like Christ. It is easy for us to set this aside and say, this is too much or this is impractical. But let us also understand, in doing that we are telling ourselves, it is impractical to be a Christian, it is too much to be a Christian. All that the Lord wants to see is our sincere effort to be Christians, not merely nominal Christians but Christians true to our name - to be Christian is to be Christ!
