Being the Household of God

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 24, 2019: Ezra 6: 7-8,12,14-20; Luke 8: 19-21 

'House', 'Mother', 'brothers and sisters' ... today's readings present to us terms that seem to draw a highly familiar note to our faith. It is important to look at our faith and its expression in terms of living in the presence of God, living as brothers and sisters of the Lord and as brothers and sisters in the Lord, instead of duties, obligations and rituals to be faithfully carried out. 

It is all a question of priority and clarity of the essentials. At times we get lost in the minute details and let go of a gross reality - may be this is what Christ spoke of when he said of the Pharisees and Scribes: you strain the gnats, but swallow the camels! It is not for laughing at them, but for us to question ourselves whether we are being blind to larger deformities in our Christian faith, than the rubrics, rituals and rites that we fight about. 

The basic premise of our faith has to be a loving relationship with God which makes us related to each other, and makes us persons dwelling under the same roof - every place we encounter each other becomes a 'house of God' to encounter God in the other, alive and active, warm and vibrant. Understood thus, can faith ever divide us? In spite of our faith, if we consider some 'apart' from us, 'lower' or 'higher' than us or not belonging to us, what kind of followers of Christ are we? And worse, if it leads to harming the other, will it still be worthy of the name 'faith'?

By our call and our baptism we are called to live as a household of God, a household that invites, welcomes, receives and embraces everyone as brothers and sisters! What is important is not merely being in the household of God, but being the household of God.