Call no one Teacher, Father or Master

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

October 30, 2011

Some people who do not want to be Christians sometimes argue that the hypocrisy of Christians is the reason for their refusal to become  Christians. They argue that the Church is full of hypocrites. Some Catholics who left the Church sometimes call the Church all sorts of bad names, saying that some of her leaders do not practice what they preach. They will waste no time in pointing out priests or religious who abused children or women and accuse them for being responsible for their exit from the Church. For these people, the Church does not practice what she preaches. Their accusations have some truths in it. But then, the sins of some priests and religious do not invalidate the teachings of the Catholic Church. What is wrong is not what the Church is teaching. What is wrong is the failure or refusal of some of the Church’s leaders and the laity to observe the Lord’s law of love. If Albert Einstein were arrested for stealing, would that make his theory wrong? 

In today’s gospel taken from Matthew 23: 1-12, Jesus tells those who would refuse to follow the teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees to reconsider their decision: “The Scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.” It is actually wrong to compare  the Catholic Church with the Scribes and Pharisees because the Church has had and continues to have countless Church leaders- bishops, priests, deacons, religious etc who lived or live exemplary lives. Moreover, the wrong deed of a Church leader does not invalidate the entire teachings of the Church. 

To his disciples and to the crowds, Jesus says, “...do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.” The Lord is simply saying, do not be the hypocrites that these people are. The hypocrisy of another should not prevent us from growing in our relationship with God. The refusal of a Christian to be authentic should not be our reason not to be authentic. The failure of a priest  should not cause our failures as well. Jesus did not ask his first listeners to leave the Synagogues or to abandon the practice of their faith. He did not tell them to use the weakness of the Pharisee and Scribes as a reason to leave their faith. Rather Jesus says, yes, I understand the hypocrisy of these leaders; they do not practice what they preach. But their teachings and preachings are in order. Therefore, practice what they preach, but do not follow their examples. Unfortunately, many Christians of today will stop the practice of their faith just because a member of the Church has fallen. But those who have a strong relationship with Jesus do not leave. They understand that salvation, though a universal call, but in the end  it's a personal thing. They understand that nothing will separate them from the love of the Lord. St. Paul in Romans 8:35 says, “What can separate us from the love of Christ? Is it trouble, or hardship or persecution or hunger or poverty or danger or death?

In today’s gospel, Jesus outlines his reasons for denouncing the Scribes and Pharisees. First, they imposed heavy burdens on others that they were unwilling to carry. These burdens are contained in the 613 rules and laws in the Law of Moses. Apart from these laws, there were also customs and observances that were difficult to obey. Second, the Scribes and Pharisees’ deeds were all for shows; they wanted people to see them as pious and deeply religious. They wanted their reward from the people and not from God, so to say. Thirdly, these religious leaders craved for worldly honors, praise and respect because of their important office. Whatever they do is for human praise and adoration and nothing more. 

Today, Jesus tells us not to be like them, not because they are evil people but because they missed the point. They missed the meaning of religion. “They have a form of religion but denies its powers that would have made them godly.” They missed what is really going on. While they move around looking for someone to teach the way of life, God has already sent the Way and the Life, Jesus Christ. 

And what does Jesus teach us? He teaches us that God is love; that God is our Father. He teaches us not to call anyone Rabbi because he, Jesus, is the good Teacher; he teaches us not to call anyone Father, because his Father is our Father; he teaches us not to call anyone Master, for he is the authentic Master. He teaches us that life does not consists in accumulating wealth but in the service of God and humanity. He teaches us that the only path to greatness is not by seeking greatness but by serving God and others. He teaches us that “anyone can be great because anyone can serve.” He teaches us that those who raise themselves ahead of others will be humbled; and those who humble themselves will be exalted. In Matthew 5:5 he says, “Blessed are the meek, the humble, for they will receive what God has promised.”  

Jesus does not ask us not to call anyone teacher, father, master in a literal sense, but in a strict sense. Of course, those who taught us and those who teach our children are teachers, but they are not Jesus the great teacher; they cannot teach us God like Jesus would. Everyone of us had or has a father, but our fathers are not like God the Father. They are not the source of life. They cannot love us as God does. Of course there are masters all over the world; but they are not the Master of life. Only Jesus is! Jesus is asking us not to equate anyone with him or with his Father. Only God is the true Father. Only Jesus is the true Teacher. Only Jesus is the Master. Only Jesus is the Lord.

Jesus Defines Religion 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

October 23, 2011

A story is told of a woman who was rushing to attend an important event. After spending a great deal of her time making up her beauty, she was running late for the event. As result of that, she was over speeding trying to make up the lost time. As she drove desperately, she was also praying for a free road. On approaching each traffic light, she would pray that the traffic light will remain green, and when it is already red, she prayed it turns green before she comes close. As if her prayer was being answered, she was driving past every traffic light before it turned red. As she drove past each traffic light before it turns red, she would shout “Thank you Jesus.” Eventually one traffic light failed her; it turned red before she could drive past it, meaning she must stop. To make matter worst, there was a car before her, so she stopped and was anxiously waiting for the green light. She was so in a haste that as soon as the light turned green, she was ready to zoom off. Unfortunately the man in front of her was carried away and did not know it was time to move. He was apparently texting a message with his phone. The woman started yelling and hooting for him to move. Finally the man zoomed off as the traffic light turns yellow. Before she could move, the traffic light is in red again. She started cursing and cursing loudly and also hooting. This attracted a police officer coming from behind. Immediately she was pulled aside the road and was arrested for car theft. “You are under arrest” said the police officer. By the time she proved ownership of the car, almost half an hour has passed. The police officer convinced she actually owns the car, apologized to her for the delay and embarrassment. But the woman wanted to know why she was arrested in the first place and accused of stealing the car she was driving. The Officer responded, “You see, when I saw you yelling, cursing very loudly and hooting, while at the same time driving a car with a sticker at the back which says, “I love Jesus, he is my best friend” I concluded you stole the car you are driving. I am sorry about that.” The woman got it. Her action does not correspond with the words of the sticker she pasted at the back of her car. 

Christians have always had a problem of how to tell the world who they are. At some periods in history and still in some places in the world, Christians have put on uniforms that sell their identity to the world. Think of the various uniforms used by various societies of consecrated life, which distinguishes consecrated people from other Christians, and which also distinguishes a religious order from others. These religious garment called habits are still being used today. In Nigeria, there is a church called The Deeper Christian Life Ministry. The members of this church are easily identified by the way they dress. There are also times when we use badges, banners, pinups, signs etc to distinguish and show who we are. We are symbolic beings who use symbols to express our faith. Jesus himself wrestled with the question of how to distinguish his followers from non-believers around them. But his prescriptions go deeper than the externals. For Jesus, the essential mark of distinction between Christians and non-Christians is not in the way we dress but in the way we live. What marks us out is not what our banners, badges, pinups, stickers say, but how we  act especially when we are upset. Today, Jesus defines what religion is all about!

In today’s gospel taken from Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus, in answering the question posed to him by a scholar of the law defines religion. In his response to the question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus lays down the complete definition of religion: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Love is the Christian identity. It is the Christian uniform. Love is the Christian habit. If we are not wearing the habit of love, then we are out. If we are not wearing love as a cloth, then we are out. Love is the essence of our religion; it is what defines our religion. Jesus defines the Christian religion as the love of God which is demonstrated in the love of others. Christianity is not only a faith believed, but also a faith lived and demonstrated. 

Every Christian claims to love God. And each Christian has external ways of showing it. But the problem is how this love for God is demonstrated. The same people who claim to love God will easily despise other people. But I am here to tell us that the love of neighbor forms the basis of Christian love. Those who want genuine relationship with God should understand that there is no authentic love for God without authentic love of others. Furthermore, there is no authentic search for relationship with God without a search for authentic relationship with others. Christian love is both horizontal and vertical at the same time. If one does not love others, he or she does not God. Period! As a matter of fact, authentic relationship with other persons points to an authentic relationship with God and demonstrates a genuine Christian spirituality. 

In today’s gospel, our Lord defines religion. And his definition of religion is love- love of God and love of the people of God. Jesus wants us to love God with all the emotion, with all the will, and with all the intellect. God should come first, second, and third in everything we do or plan to do. Everything we plan to do should be weighed on the scale of God. Loving the Lord with all your heart means allowing God to control and direct your emotions; loving God with all your soul means letting your will conform to the will of God; loving the Lord God with all your mind means letting your intellect be directed by God. Jesus wants us to surrender our emotions, our will and our intellect to God. Our emotion should feel God; our decisions should be in consonance with the will of God; our thoughts should think God. Simply put, feel God; will God, and think God!

Then this love of God should translate into the love of others. In John 13: 35, Jesus says to his disciples, “If you love one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.” Love makes God present among us. love enthrones the reign of God in our human family. It wipes tears from people’s eyes- tears of frustration, hunger, sickness and hopelessness. Love breaks the chain reaction of evil and replaces it with a chain reaction of good. Love weakens evil. Love makes the whole of creation new. Love removes mourning or sadness. Even in suffering, love from others brightens the burdens. 

The Lord wants us to love God with all we’ve got and to love our neighbor as well! According to Pope Benedict XVI, “The love of God and the love of neighbor have become one; in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God.” 

The Hour of the Lord

Fr. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

Homily on the Feast of St. Gerard Majella

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

October 16, 2011

Dearest beloved, today we celebrate the feast of our patron Saint, Gerard Majella.  Today’s gospel taken from John 12:23-32 begins with an amazing declaration by our Lord Jesus. Without any fear or anxiety, Jesus declares to his disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This is Jesus’ moment! This is the Lord’s hour! This is the Lord’s most crucial time! It is the hour that he has been waiting for. It is the hour when the grain of wheat will be made to fall into the ground and allowed to die to bring forth other lives. It is the moment when Jesus would complete the work for which he came on earth. It is the hour when the Cross with Jesus hanging on it would be raised so that all people would be drawn to him. In John 12:32, Jesus says, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”

Sisters and brothers, the hour of Jesus is not the hour of eating and drinking. It is not the hour of political victory; it is not the hour of defeating an enemy. The hour of the Lord is not the hour of  winning a jackpot or lotto. It is the hour of offering his life for the ransom of many. The Lord’s conception of glory is different from ours. For us, to glorify someone is to honor someone. It is to give award; to praise an individual and to give the person some special titles. For Jesus, the hour of glory is the moment when he will offer his precious life for the redemption of many. The pinnacle of this hour was when Jesus said, “It’s finished!”

In the hour of the Lord, he warns the lovers of this life: “Those who love their life would loose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” In Matthew 10:39, he also says “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” Jesus cautions those who will horde theirs life instead of spending it for the service of others. He warns those who would do anything even immoral things to preserve their lives that they would loose it. He cautions his followers not to get too comfortable with this earthly life because it passes away. Do not be earth-bound, the Lord seems to be saying. Jesus invites us to reconsider the meaning of human life. The Penny Catechism Book asks the question, “Why did God create us?” It answers, “God created us to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world and to be happy with him for ever in the next.”   

To the Jews, the Son of Man was the undefeated conqueror sent by God. So when the Lord declared, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” they hissed a sigh of relief thinking that the hour of victory march has come. They thought that the moment of trumpet call has finally arrived. But Jesus has a different meaning for the hour of glory. The hour of glory for the Jews is the hour when the subjected people would overcome their oppressors. But for Jesus, it is the moment of crucifixion. When Jesus mentioned the Son of Man, the Jews thought of the conquest of the armies of God; but the Lord meant the conquest of the Cross. 

The hour of the Lord is the victory that comes through death. The hour of the Lord is the victory that comes through the cross. Jesus does not see death as extinction but as the rebirth of life. He sees death as the best invention of life. This is why he says, “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Of course, the death of Jesus Christ is the reason for our new life. His death has given birth to the grace, favor and the power we possess. Yes, the death of the Lord has given us our wonderful Patron Saint, Gerard Majella whom we celebrate today. 

As Jesus speaks about his hour, he also promises those who would serve him“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” Dearest beloved, one of those who served Jesus is Saint Gerard Majella, our patron Saint. One of those who is where the Lord is St. Gerard Majella. St. Gerard Majella served the Lord faithfully as a Redemptorist despite his ill-health. He was very sickly, but did not let the frailties and sickness to prevent him from giving his whole life to Jesus. He did not sit idly by blaming God for his ill-health. Instead, he used his sickness as a stepping stone to everlasting life. 

St. Gerard was not born in a rich home. His parents were not rich. His parents did not have much to offer him, but they did give him the best of all. They gave him God! From his parents, St. Gerard learned the virtues of love, prayer and sacrifice. From his parents, St. Gerard learned that God matters greatly. From his parents, he learned that falling in love with Jesus is the greatest of all romances. His deep love for Jesus Christ drove him to join the Redemptorists. As a Redemptorist brother, he worked with those overlooked by the society. Like Jesus, he was present to those battered by disease, and his presence was a sign of hope for them. Like Jesus, St. Gerard had deep compassion for the poor. Like Jesus, St. Gerard was falsely accused. Like Jesus, he did not panic. In the face of false accusations, he kept his eyes fixed on Lord. During his five years as a lay brother in the Redemptorist Congregation, “he was remarkable for his apostolic zeal, patient in sickness, love for the poor, deep humility in the face of false accusation, heroic obedience, spirit of penance and was constant in prayer.”

Today, we celebrate the glory of St. Gerard Majella given to him by Jesus. We ask for his intercession. We ask God to give us his spirit so that even in difficulty, we will keep our eyes on Jesus and on the prize. Heaven is our destination; heaven is our prize; heaven is our glory and glorification. Where Jesus and St. Gerard Majella are, we wish to be. 

Fr. Marcel’s Bulletin Message for the Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Dearest beloved, in today’s gospel taken from Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus again speaks in parable. He tells of a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. But the invited guests refused to come. Obviously they were neither hungry nor have any need. Some were property owners; some had farms; others had businesses. Some were arrogant; some just ignored the invitation, while some went as far as heaping insults and killing the servants sent by the king as messengers. The king became furious. In anger, he sent his army to wipe out the murderers and burn their city. Then he said to his servants: “The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come. Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.” The servants went to the streets and invited everyone, ‘the bad as well as the good.’ The banquet hall was filled up. 

But when the king came in to greet the guests, he saw a man who wasn’t dressed in the white garment which was considered proper for a wedding banquet. When he challenged him on it, the man had nothing to say. So the king told his guards, “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

But what’s wrong with the people who refused the king’s invitation? Why would they exclude themselves from the experience of a wedding feast? The answer is, they don’t have any relationship with the king. In this parable of the wedding feast, our Lord Jesus Christ makes it clear that just being a member of the church with official approval is not enough. When the king came to see his guests, he saw a man who had been admitted by the king’s own servants, but wasn’t dressed up for the wedding feast. The man was physically present, but spiritually absent. He was present but worthily unavailable. 

To be in the Church is to be in a relationship of love with Jesus Christ. In this parable, the King who gave the wedding banquet is the Father. The Son is Jesus. The wedding banquet is that of the Lord found in Revelations 19:7, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory. For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” It is the end of the time banquet which will mark the second coming of Jesus. Everyone is invited to this wedding feast. But only those who are prepared and ready, who are still wearing the spotless white garment given to us at our Baptism will be admitted into the Banquet Hall. At Baptism the priest usually place a white garment on the newly baptized say, “...... you have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ. See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.” 

Dearest beloved, only those who retain this symbolic white garment given to them at Baptism unstained will be admitted into the banquet of the Lord. Keep the baptismal garment spotless by keeping yourself pure. Keep the garment pure by keeping your heart pure. Remember, in Matthew 5:8, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” If we want to be admitted into the wedding feast of Jesus, then let’s keep our relationship with him undivided by being pure in heart. Let’s not say it is difficult to be faithful. In today’s second reading from Philippians 4: 12-14, St. Paul assures us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Yes, we can be faithful! Yes, we can be pure in hearts! Yes, we can keep our love relationship with Lord unstained and undivided! Yes, we can love the Lord above all things! And yes, we will be admitted into the wedding banquet of Jesus our Lord!