Stop Worrying, Trust in God (8th Sunday Ordinary A)

I used to worry a lot. I was always on my toes and was often nervous. I was worried about what others would think of me, most especially, the ones whose opinion I deemed important in my life foremost of whom was my father. I was anxious about measuring up to expectations and worried that I might fall short.  This basic fear of not being appreciated or loved because of the feeling that even my best was not good enough spawned a lot more forms of useless worrying that made me quite unhappy.

But everything has changed.  The change all started when God became real to me—when I learned that what matters most is how God sees me, when I began to trust in God rather than in my own creativity, when I realized that God embraces me still lovingly even when I am at my worst.  Allowing God to be God of my life has given me tremendous peace of mind and joy in my heart. Indeed, there’s no use worrying when God is one’s refuge and fortress, God, in whom one trusts (Ps 91:2).

Today’s readings affirm my own journey to freedom.  With confidence, I extend to all with open minds and hearts the invitation of our Lord in today’s Gospel reading:  STOP WORRYING. TRUST IN GOD. Our readings offer us three assurances that free us from our worthless anxieties:

Stop worrying because God never forgets. The people of Israel were suffering in exile during the Babylonian captivity. They were losing hope and were ready to concede that God has abandoned them as recounted in our first reading (Is 49:14-15): Zion said: “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” But through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke his assurance: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

God somehow is compared here to a mother.  A mother always cares for her child. But still a mother’s love may fail sometimes. We experience this failure more and more in our contemporary culture of death, when millions of mothers reject the baby in their womb. Then God assures us that even if a mother’s love fails, his love never fails. God never forgets his people.

When we experience being forgotten or unrecognized, we naturally worry about pleasing significant others in order to catch their attention. Worse, when we are abandoned by people who ought to care for us, we live day by day in insecurity, fear, and even anger. Today, God offers us freedom.  He assures us that He has not forgotten us. He cannot abandon us. Our names are etched in his palm.

Stop worrying. Seek the Lord. Open your heart to God. He has never forgotten you.

Stop worrying because God always provides.  In this consumerist society we have now, we worry a lot about material amenities in life. We worry even about things we actually do not need but want.  So we work like a horse not because we enjoy it but because we worry about many things.  Or even if we are not really materialistic, we still worry that we might not have the things we need to support ourselves and our family.  Hence, many are tempted or misled to serve mammon rather than God.

Jesus assures us in today’s gospel reading (Mt. 6:24-34) that God always provides. So he invites us to stop worrying.  Nature shows indubitable evidences of God’s sustaining care for the birds, the grass, flowers, etc.  We have to accept that we are far more important to God than these.  We are his children in Christ; He ensures all the more that we have what we need.

This assurance, however, does not encourage indolence or irresponsibility. Let us remember that the Lord praises the responsible steward. The Lord does not say “stop working.”  What he says is “stop worrying;” stop enslaving yourselves to your material pursuit to the point of ignoring God.  Only the non-believers worry for provisions in life because they do not believe in God. But we continue to work and plan for our present needs and that of the future without worrying.  Let us trust in the providence of God.  God surely brings our labor into fruition.

Stop worrying because God sees the goodness in your heart.  We worry about what people say of us; we stressfully live up to other’s high expectations of us. We worry about proving ourselves to others—that we are good or we are the best. We worry because we crave for the approving pat on our shoulders. We worry because we have come to believe that what others say of me matters most.

St. Paul, in the second reading (1 Cor 4:1-5), testifies that he does not worry about what other say of him: “It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself; I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord” (v. 3-4).  For St. Paul, what matters to him is how God sees his heart. He believes that the Lord “manifests the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God” (v. 5).

Hence, we can stop worrying about what people say of us. Let us be good. Let us be good even if nobody gives us a pat on the back or even if others may maliciously misinterpret our goodness.  Let us be good and not worry. God sees the goodness in our hearts. This is what matters.   

Again, we can drastically improve the quality of our lives through the secret that Jesus has revealed to us:  STOP WORRYING. TRUST IN GOD.

Knowing Jesus, Following Jesus (12th Sunday C)

A sheep was leisurely grazing on some patches of green grass in a village when suddenly a dog eyed it and chased it ferociously. The sheep fearfully scurried for dear life while the dog pursued it resolutely barking and catching the attention of other dogs in the village. In no time, a pack of dogs joined the chase. As the chase went on, the dogs which did not really see what they were hounding gave it up easily. Eventually, what persevered tirelessly was the dog that had seen in its own eyes what it was after.

This is true to Christian discipleship. It requires personal encounter with Jesus Christ. To go after the Lord and persevere in following him presupposes a personal knowledge of him. No one follows a stranger much less an unseen ghost or an abstract idea. But one may even lay down one’s life for a friend.

Today’s gospel reading (Lk 9: 18-24), reveals the essential link between knowing Jesus and following him. Let this be our matter for reflection.

Knowing Jesus. “But who do you say that I am” (v 20)? Jesus’ follow-up question shows that he is not contented with the disciples’ knowledge of him that is based on mere opinion of others. The disciples have got to know him quite personally. This is very important.

There are two levels of knowing. One is conceptual, the other is experiential. Conceptual knowing is knowledge by the head. This is the process of understanding data and information about someone or something from different sources like books, lectures, researches, etc. This enhances understanding and satisfies curiosity. But the object of knowledge is nothing more than cold, abstract concepts that our minds formulate. It’s a real pity if we Christians relate to Jesus in this level. That would mean relating to a concept of Jesus. My sad suspicion is that a great number of us do religiously follow Jesus as an undoubtedly beautiful concept!

The experiential knowledge, on the other hand, involves knowing with the heart. This is knowledge beyond concepts. This is getting to know not just some information and data about someone or something; this is encountering the person himself or the thing itself. To know a person, for instance, in this level is to have a personal relationship with him, to experience the person himself, to be moved by his values, to be awed by his vision, to be contaminated by his joy, to be brought to tears by his deepest sorrow, etc. It is this experiential knowledge that has the power to draw one to a real friendship with another. It is this knowledge that elicits loyalty, love, sacrifice.

Do I know Jesus with this kind of knowledge? Do I know him with the heart? Can I give a confident answer to his question, “And YOU... who do YOU say I am?”

Following Jesus. Knowing Jesus with the heart is of utmost importance for discipleship. Again, no one follows a stranger and no one sheds his own blood for a cold concept. To follow Jesus requires that one identifies with his values, share with his vision, and embrace whatever that matters most to him.

Anyone who knows Jesus with the heart cannot but see the cross and its essential place in the life and mission of Jesus. The cross matters most to Jesus. To follow him, then, means to embrace his cross too! His declaration of this fact is as clear as daylight: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (v. 23).

To take up the cross “daily” does not mean suffering a one-time crucifixion like Jesus did. Instead this refers to the challenge of a day-to-day denial of oneself and of consistent obedience to the Father’s will. To take up the cross daily means to make the cross and everything it represents a way of life. A Lifestyle.

A cross-less Christianity is, therefore, an abysmal emptiness! It’s nothing but vanity!

Christianity without the cross breeds these familiar kinds of discipleship: “the feel-good discipleship,” cheap discipleship, curiosity discipleship, prosperity discipleship, discipleship of privileges and benefits, discipleship of convenience, discipleship of power, and the like. All of these prosper because of a lack of a real and personal knowledge of Jesus. The cross is consciously or unconsciously given up because it is difficult, it is inconvenient and not seen as essential.

Can we then liken this cross-less band of followers of Jesus to the pack of dogs barking and chasing a sheep which they themselves did not see?

The Grace of Forgiveness (11th Sunday Ordinary C)

No doubt one of the most profound, liberating, and even life-changing human experiences is the joy of being forgiven. We just have to recall our own experiences of being forgiven in order to realize that the greater the offense we acknowledge to have done, the deeper is our sense of gratitude for being freed from its burden through forgiveness.

Today’s readings invite us to reflect even more deeply on our experience of the grace of forgiveness. We shall focus on three things: The recognition of sin as essential to the experience of forgiveness shown in the story of King David; the heart-warming tears of repentance illustrated by the sinful woman in the Gospel reading; and gratitude as our loving response to being forgiven as taught by the parable of the two debtors.

Recognition of Sin. The first reading (2 Sm 12:7-10, 13) recalls how the Prophet Nathan reminded David of God’s goodness to him—anointing him as king, rescuing him from the hand of Saul, giving him the house of Israel and Judah, and many other countless blessings. At the same time, Nathan reminded David that despite God’s graciousness, David had spurned the Lord and done evil in God’s sight by plotting the death of Uriah and ultimately taking the latter’s wife, Bathsheba, as his own.

The fact that David needed a prophet to be told of his sins shows that He had been spiritually blind. While, as a king, he had been enjoying the favor and blessings of God, he was practically unaware of the evil of his maneuverings in the sight of this gracious God.  Sin blinds. Our habit of sins renders us incapable of seeing the evil in what we do. The worst situation is precisely what’s going on now in our contemporary milieu—the loss of the sense of sin. People just want to do whatever they please without regard to moral principles.  We hear this being said too often: “How can this be wrong when it feels soooo right?”

It is only when David recognized his sins that he was assured of God’s forgiveness. “I have sinned against the Lord” (v. 13). To this confession, Nathan responded with assurance of God’s mercy. The grace of forgiveness abounds.  It is given, however, only to those who have recognized their sinfulness.  In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the penitent names and confesses his offenses. It surely is embarrassing to oneself but it is at the same time empowering. By naming and confessing, the penitent get holds of his sins and not the other way around. Recognizing our sinfulness, naming and confessing our sins liberate us from our spiritual blindness and enables us to see the graciousness of God and hence experience the grace of forgiveness.

The Tears of Repentance. The gospel reading (Lk 7:36—8:3) presents an illuminating contrast between the gate-crasher sinful woman and the Pharisee, Jesus’ host for the dinner.  The woman came in weeping and started to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears! She wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with expensive perfumed oil; while the Pharisee had not offered this customary hospitality to his guest. The lavishness of the woman’s expression of sorrow and devotion to Jesus is reflective of both the depth of her repentance for her great sins and her faith in God’s mercy; while the coldness with which the Pharisee received the Lord manifests the Pharisee’s self-righteous stance—a stance that rendered him incapable of seeing his own need for repentance and forgiveness, much like the blindness of David to his sins.  This same stance gives him the self-endowed right to condemn and distance himself from sinners.

Like the sinful woman in the gospel, we are invited by the Lord to a genuine repentance of our sins.  If we should weep, so be it. The tears of repentance reveal both the sincerity of our acceptance of our sinfulness and the depth of our yearning to experience the mercy of God. At the same time, the Lord warns us against self-righteousness because it is the surest way to forfeit by default God’s abundant offer of the grace of forgiveness.

Gratitude as our Loving Response.  The parable of the two debtors--one with a large debt, the other with smaller debt—who experienced being forgiven as both of them are unable to pay, illustrates the point that the degree of gratitude and love evoked by the experience of forgiveness is directly proportionate to the amount of the debt forgiven.  Between the two debtors, the one whose debt is much larger expresses greater gratitude to the creditor who forgives. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.

We should not fear approaching the Lord for mercy as we realize how great a sinner we are.  The greater the burden of sins lifted, the greater is our gratitude, our joy, our yearning to love God in return.  No wonder most of the saints consider themselves as great sinners and their lives have shown the greatness of their love for God.

What is our invitation? We are invited to overcome our self-righteousness which hinders us from experiencing the abundance of God’s mercy and to acknowledge our sinfulness with tears of repentance. This is not, however, to make of us a community of guilt-ridden Christians but a community who can love lavishly because of the freedom experienced through the grace of forgiveness.