[stephenkhoo]

Friday, 23 March, 2012, 4th Week of Lent
CONSCIOUSNESS OF ONE’S IDENTITY AS A PREQUISITE FOR FIDELITY TO ONESELF

SCRIPTURE READINGS: WISD 2:1, 12-22; JN 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

Doing good is difficult, but not so challenging, for when we do good, most people generally are grateful to us. But living a good, holy and virtuous life is very difficult because there are many people who do not wish to see us living a holy and exemplary life. There are many reasons why some people react to our virtuous life-style. As the first reading explains, our lifestyle can be a reproach to their way of living. We remind them as to how they should not live. Seeing us cannot but prick their conscience. But deep in their hearts, there is jealousy because they are unable to live the way they want to live. Hence, they hope that by discouraging and ridiculing us, they would at least find some consolation that others are just like them. Even in sin, we need company. It is not fun sinning alone. For this reason, it is said that sin always looks for company. Hence, quite often, they make lives difficult for ‘good’ people, hoping to prove that no one can live a godly life.

But most of all, they react in such a manner because they do not know their identity, unlike the just man who knows. Indeed, this was what they accused the virtuous man saying, “He claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord.” Indeed, in the Old Testament, the righteous and good man is called the son of God by election. Truly, because of his confidence in God as the Father of all the elect of Israel, the good man “proclaims the final end of the virtuous as happy and boasts of having God for his father.” Hence, such evil men, rather than be condemned, should evoke our sympathy, for they are foolish and misled, as the author of the Book of Wisdom remarked, “This is the way they reason, but they are misled, their malice makes them blind. They do not know the hidden things of God, they have no hope that holiness will be rewarded, they can see no reward for blameless souls.” Ultimately, by forgetting their calling as the people of the Covenant, they destroyed their happiness and peace.

Today, the scripture lessons tell us that when we are faced with opposition because of the ignorance of evil men, we must be true to our identity. The responsorial psalm assures us that God is with us. “If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies.” Again the psalmist declares, “When the just cry out, the Lord hears them, and from all their distress he rescues them. Many are the troubles of the just man, but out of them all the Lord delivers him.” So we must not be anxious or troubled when opposed by the enemies of God. Our task is to be faithful to our calling as God’s sons and daughters. In the gospel, we have an example of one who, in spite of such opposition, remained true to Himself, to His identity as the Son of God. Indeed, the first reading anticipates the passion of Jesus, which we will celebrate in two weeks’ time. In a prophetic manner, the author of Wisdom anticipates what would happen to someone who tries to live a just and holy life and “boasts of having God for his father.” Indeed, true to the prophecy, Jesus, who considered Himself as God’s Son, was rejected by wicked people and was tested “with cruelty and with torture,” putting “endurance to the proof” and finally condemned to “a shameful death.”

What was Jesus’ secret in remaining true to His beliefs and convictions? We are told that Jesus was very much conscious of His origin and identity. He told the people, “Yes, you know me and you know where I came from. Yet I have not come of myself: no, there is one who sent me and I really come from him, and you do not know him, but I know him because I have come from him and it was he who sent me.” Indeed, it was Jesus’ intimacy with His Father that assured Him of His identity. Jesus knew that He was one with the Father and therefore considered Himself as “Son.” He has the mind and heart of the Father.

Jesus could in the same breath speak of His mission and His being sent by the Father only because of His identity with the Father. So it was His conscious recognition of His divine origin and therefore His mission that Jesus was able to remain committed to His vocation. For Him to act otherwise would be to contradict Himself and be unfaithful to His being. This also accounts for why He did not flinch before His enemies, since His intimate relationship with the Father assured Him that His Father would look after Him and prove His enemies wrong. We can be sure that the responsorial psalm “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted, those whose spirit is crushed he will save. Many are the trials of the just man but from them all the Lord will rescue him.” was on the lips of Jesus when He was going through His trials and tribulations. As we come nearer to the liturgical celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord, the Church invites us to be conscious of our baptismal calling and identity. Unless we appreciate the dignity of our calling as Christians, we would not take our Christian life seriously. To be a Christian is first and foremost to be inserted into the paschal mystery of our Lord. It is an ongoing process of dying to self and rising to a new life in the Spirit. Besides living the new life of Christ, we are also given a mission to manifest the presence of Christ in the world. Hence, to recover our sense of mission, it is important that we become more aware of our dignity as the children of God and sons and daughters in the Son.

This consciousness of course can only come about in prayer and a deep relationship with the Lord. We must be careful that we do not think like the Jews who could only see the physical origin of Jesus but failed to perceive the deeper dimension of Jesus’ being. Their knowledge of Jesus was mere speculation; not a personal knowledge. They could only discuss about the origin and identity of Jesus. But they could not confess their faith in Him because, as Jesus said, “you do not know him”. Thus, it is important that like Jesus, we must be able to say that we know the Father personally, that we have come from Him. This is the true knowledge of God that the author in the first reading is exhorting us to acquire; a knowledge that enables us to say that we are God’s children.

But for us who are holding positions of authority, we have an even greater responsibility. For as leaders, parents or ministry members, we are called to represent Christ sacramentally as shepherd, teacher and priest. We are not only the children of God but we are called to collaborate with the Ordained Ministers to lead the people of God, to teach them and to sanctify them by our lives of love and service. Unless we are aware of the high dignity of our calling to be His witnesses, we will not act in such a way that is befitting of our identity. The loss of mission and zeal in the ministry and in Christian witnessing is always traced to the lack of consciousness of Christian identity and calling.

At the end of the day, we must remember that it is not what we do in the ministry that will make us good leaders. It is whether we are faithful to our identity as God’s children. For we know that Jesus’ mission at the end of His life was apparently a failure. In His death on the cross, it would seem that He had been defeated. Yet, what proved to be really pleasing to God was His fidelity to the Father unto death. By being faithful to His mission and to the Father’s will, Jesus proved Himself to be truly the Son of God, the expression of the Father. Hence, the Father vindicated His Son by raising Him from the dead. We too should simply try to be faithful to our identity as God’s sons and daughters, for only from this consciousness can authentic ministry and the work of witnessing flow from us. As Mother Teresa always remind us, ‘we are called to be faithful not successful.”