29th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 22nd October, 2017
Is 45: 1,4-6; 1Thes 1: 1-5; Mt 22: 15-21
America, North Korea, the ISIS or ISIL, the Soviet Russia... which of these is the super power today? Aren't they vying with each other to prove to the world that they are the dominant force on the globe today? Where will all these end?
The readings today have a theme that is very difficult for the world today to accept. It brings out the absolute sovreignity that God has over reality. The post-modern mind and the new age spirituality clamours for an autonomy that sometimes borders on an absolute independence of the human person and a meaning made in total isolation. The episode of the tower of Babel is a specimen event already in the beginnings of Biblical prehistory. Today we are called to pay attention to three facts:
The readings today have a theme that is very difficult for the world today to accept. It brings out the absolute sovreignity that God has over reality. The post-modern mind and the new age spirituality clamours for an autonomy that sometimes borders on an absolute independence of the human person and a meaning made in total isolation. The episode of the tower of Babel is a specimen event already in the beginnings of Biblical prehistory. Today we are called to pay attention to three facts:
1. Everything belongs to God
The first reading recalls the role of Persia and the Persian king Cyrus, in the emancipation of Israel. It was possible because Persia was first able to grow into a super power. And the reading from Isaiah points out that even though Persia seemingly has nothing much to do with Yahweh, it was infact the Lord who was preparing Persia in view of emancipating Israel.
The Lord is seen as the Lord of history, and not merely the Lord of Israel. Everything belongs to God and God is in control of everything. At times when things may not be going the way we would want them to, all that we need to do is remain calm believing that God is working out a history. Today we are well aware of the madness human beings are wreaking on the world and humanity - the eco crisis, the nuclear crisis, the religious fundamentalism... all these are fear inducing but not for a true Christian. A surrender into the hands of God and a patient wait on the Lord would bring us to an experience that would be absoutely awesome.
2. God belongs to everyone
That Cyrus was raised to power by God comes as a special learning for the people of Israel. They were being challenged on their claim to monopolise Yahweh as their own. God slowly opens them up to the reality that God belongs to everyone. What matters was to have what it takes to be called God's own. The Gospel brings it out subtly in the reflection that Jesus makes on the coin, saying it belongs to Ceasar as it bears Ceasar's image. Hence the condition to belong to God is to have God's image imprinted on our selves.
No one, absolutely no one, can monopolise God and it is not Christian to think of it that way. God cannot belong to a particular group of people. It can be true the other way about, that we belong to God. But to claim that God belongs to a group would be a human folly without doubt. Hence, we need to respect every person with genuine search and yearning for God or with an experience of God.
3. Render, and don't hold back, what belongs to God
All that we have belongs to God. What is that you have, which you have not received? (1 Cor 4:7) asks St.Paul. We are called to render to God all that belongs to God : our talents, our skills, our learning, our abilities... everything we are called to render unto the Lord... that is, unto the cause of the Lord; unto establishing the Reign of God. All that we say, think or do, has to be unto the Reign of God. Thus we will totally belong to God and have within us the mark of belonging to God: the Holy Spirit.
