23rd September 2018: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wis 2: 12,17-20; Jas 3:16 - 4:3; Mk 9: 30-37
I remember more than one conversation, where persons have remarked to me: 'why should I be good when everyone else seems to be discouraging me from that? And not just that, they take advantage of me. And I am forced to give up on being good!' How true and real it is! Everyone of us wants to be good, but on a second thought we wonder whether we really want to be good, given all the consequences of it.
The Word today brings out this theme in such a picturesque manner.
If I want to be good, I will be mostly alone! Or atleast the majority will be against me, opposing me and trying to get me renounce my wish to be good. The first reading presents that so vividly. Even if not so directly, we will surely sense people talking behind our backs, pulling down our spirits, assassinating our character, calling names and fixing us into pigeon holes. How are we going to react to them? Are we going to go around convincing each of them that we are good and we want to be good? Are we going to be bogged down by all the pressure that they create around us? In the Indian context, for example in Tamilnadu, we have a great examples in the likes of Sagayam IAS, a civil service official who has been shunted to over 29 posts in 21 years, all because he has vowed to be honest and sincere. He seems to be fighting a lone battle. Are you ready for it?
If I want to be good, I will have to suffer and who knows, even be killed! Think of persons like Bl. Oscar Romero, who is going to be canonised next month. Or think of the scores of whistle blowers in the world who have been erased from the face of the earth in the recent times. Being good is not all that easy. You need to resolve to be good, in spite of the eventual rejection and every such risk. Jesus was clear about what is going to happen to him; he instructed the apostles about it time and again though they did not really understand what he meant. They were busy playing the game of the majority, seeking the prime places and the limelights. Jesus today takes his time off, makes sure no one interrupts, in order that he can drive home this lesson deep into the hearts of his beloved brothers. That is what the Word wants to do to us: drive home the lesson into our hearts...we have no reward here below if we want to be good, but still we have to be good! Now comes the question...but why? Why have we to be good? Because...
If I want to be good, I am godly! If I am a child of God, as Jesus tells me to be, I have to be good. God is good, all the time: we know it so well! If God is good, I who am God's child, I have to be good too! I have to be good even though there are no rewards for it. Apostle James says, if I am of God, then I will be good, pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits (cf. Jas 3:17). People may not appreciate it, but I have to be good because I am a child of God. People may take advantage of me and take me for a ride, but I still have to be good because I belong to God. I don't need a reason; or rather I don't have a reason to be good, other than the fact that it is my true nature to be good, for I am created in the image and likeness of God and it is godly to be good!
Ask this question to yourself: Do I really want to be good? If so, am I prepared for all its consequences?
