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WELCOMING GOD’S PROPHETS AS GOD’S PRESENCE IN OUR MIDST - stephenkhoo - 07-09-2012 02:15 PM
08 July, 2012, 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
WELCOMING GOD’S PROPHETS AS GOD’S PRESENCE IN OUR MIDST
SCRIPTURE READINGS: EZ 2:2-5; 2 COR 12:7-10; MK 6:1-6
God loves us and continues to show us His love by being present with us and guiding us in our daily lives. He shows His constant care and love for us in sending His prophets into our lives. This is what the message of today’s liturgy is all about. In the Old Testament, God sent prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to the people of Israel to counsel, advise and encourage them. In the New Testament, we are told that Jesus is THE prophet of God. And today, after Christ, His apostles and many charismatic people in our days continue to be prophets of God in our midst.
Who exactly are the prophets? They are basically messengers of God. They are those whom God has called to be the conscience, signpost and guide of our days. When we forget about God or morality or justice, then the prophets would reprimand and remind us. But when we are down, depressed or lack courage, then these prophets would give us a message of hope and faith. So through the prophets, God makes His presence felt in our midst. For this reason, we should thank God for the prophets in our days.
However, the reality is that many of us cannot accept prophets in our lives. Like the Israelites in the first reading, or the contemporaries of Jesus and St Paul, they could not accept the prophets of God. Instead of being open to their messages delivered on behalf of God, they rejected them and even persecuted them. This is also true for us. We do not like the prophets in our lives, especially those in our community.
Why is it that we do not welcome prophets in our lives? Firstly, because we are prejudiced against them. We cannot accept that someone from among us can be chosen as God’s prophets. This is especially when they are our own kind, like our brothers, sisters, friends or our subordinates. This was what happened to Jesus in today’s gospel. They could not accept Jesus because He was too ordinary. He was a carpenter’s son and they all knew Him from young. So it was too difficult for them to see how a carpenter’s son could have become a man of wisdom, a man of God. Hence, they could not accept His message.
Indeed, it is our prejudice and blindness that makes us unable to see the true prophet in our midst. We do not listen to them because we are coloured by our opinions of them. Perhaps, some of us expect some spectacular intervention from God before we would listen to Him. But that is not the way of God. Normally, God comes to us in the ordinary events and circumstances of our lives. In most cases, the prophets that He sends will be from among us. Unfortunately, we fail to recognize that a prophet is always chosen from within the community. We cannot accept that God speaks through the people that we know. We only want to listen to people who are outside of our community, like a visiting speaker from abroad. But we are prejudiced against people of our own kind, because they are too ordinary, or because we hear them so often that we have become immune to them. As a result, even when they speak the truth or words of wisdom, our ears are shut and our eyes are blinded. No wonder, Jesus could not but sighed in today’s gospel because He realized regretfully that “a prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.”
Secondly, we reject prophets because we cannot face the truth about ourselves. They are, as the cliché goes, “a thorn in our flesh”. They irritate us by making us aware of what is wrong with what we do, and about ourselves. As a result, our conscience is pricked and we have no peace. But more painful still is when people criticize our character. Our ego hurts. Such criticisms incense us further and make us deaf to what they are saying. In order to justify ourselves, we become even more defensive. We are too proud to listen to them even though we know that what they say is the truth. We prefer to live in our sinfulness because we are not willing to change.
Thirdly, we reject God’s prophets not only for what they say but also for what they do. Indeed, if the people rejected Jesus, it was not only because they could not accept His teachings about God and the laws but His very life was an affront to them. What was true of Jesus’ contemporaries is also true for us. Some of us are uncomfortable with the life-styles of some prophets in our midst. The reason is because they do things differently from us. They are not like one of us. Their very lives become a reprimand to us. Thus, we become jealous and envious of them. So we try to feel good about ourselves by speaking evil of them or belittling whatever they say or do, sometimes suggesting spurious motives for their actions. Jealousy and envy as a result of our own inability to live righteous and loving lives make us respond negatively. This is the height of blindness indeed!
This is foolishness on our part because we will hurt ourselves more. The failure to listen to the prophets of God will bring about unhappy consequences for us. This was what happened to the people of Israel in Ezekiel’s time and before him, Jeremiah. They failed to listen to the warnings and exhortations of the prophets. As a result, their kingdom fell to the Babylonians in 587 B.C. and King Nebuchadnezzar banished them into exile. We too will suffer exile, that is be stripped of our happiness, of who we are, of all that we have built up because of our failure to take heed of the warnings of those good messengers that God sent to us.
In contrast, we have the example of St Paul who shows us his openness to God. We are told in the second reading that St Paul too suffered a thorn in the flesh in a literal manner. In spite of the fact that he pleaded for God three times to remove it, God did not accede to his request. However, Paul was not disheartened. Instead of being angry with God, he was grateful for that thorn in the flesh because it kept him from being too proud. We too are called to be like him in accepting such prophets of God or thorns in our lives. He knows that we will be dependent on Him only through such weaknesses. St Paul in his weakness tells us that “the power of Christ may stay over” him. Consequently, Paul could say, “I am quite content with weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions and the agonies for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” Yes, today we must pray for the grace of God to remove our blindness so that we can be more humble to recognize and listen to the prophets that God sends us each day into our lives.
Of course, it is true that some prophets, even when they speak the truth, are difficult to accept. This is because they proclaim the truth without compassion and understanding. They appear to be harsh, judgmental and impatient. While the message is certainly from God, perhaps, the instrument in this case is faulty. Prophets should of course proclaim the Word of God honestly but it must also be done charitably. We must speak in such a way that we do not compromise the truth and yet be kind in our words. Whatever it is, we must remember that even if such prophets do not sound pleasant to us and can even put us off, what is important for our own growth is to focus on the truth and not so much on how it is said or even who said it. Only the truth sets us free, regardless how it is proclaimed or by whom it is proclaimed.
Finally, let us pray that we ourselves might be prophets as well. We need not always proclaim the Word or speak against evil, like the great prophets in our history. For most of us, our prophetic role is not so much always to speak against evil and injustice but simply to live a prophetic life of love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness. By living such a life, we become the greatest prophets of God because the real testimony is not so much through words but through our lives of love and compassion. In this way, people will recognize in us the presence of God. Touched and inspired by our lives, they too will become the prophets of God. When that happens, then all of us become prophets to each other. This is but a fulfillment of our baptismal promises. In baptism, we are all called to be the prophets of God in the world. Thus, God is made known through us and consequently His love and justice will prevail in the world.