26th Sunday, Year B: Homily by Fr Isaac Chima
Theme: ‘Stop being stumbling block to yourself and others’
Readings: Num 11:25–29; James 5:1–6; Mk 9:38–43,45,47–48
Dear friends in Christ, the readings of today’s liturgy caution us to guard against jealousy, intolerance and giving of scandal. In a special way, Jesus invites us to excise from us anything that will lead us or others to eternal damnation.
At the center of the reflection of today is Jesus’ invitation to his disciples to cut off from themselves anything that will lead them or others to scandal. A little exposition of the etymology of the word ‘scandal’ will help us to understand this passage. The word ‘scandal’ comes from the Greek word ‘scandalon’, which means ‘a trap or a snare laid for an enemy’. In the New Testament Greek, it was used metaphorically to mean ‘a stumbling block’. Thus, Jesus was calling his disciples to cut off from themselves anything that will be a stumbling block to their attainment of the promised kingdom of God and anything in them that will be a stumbling block to the same goal in the life of others.
As we all know, human beings place great importance on the integrity of their bodies and, as such, nobody would like to lose any part of his body or organs. Everybody would like to carry his body intact to the grave.
However, as we have seen, it does happen that a part of the body or an organ in the body may become so bad or diseased that it becomes a threat to the life of the person who possesses it. In such a case, the recommendation of a doctor would be amputation of that body part or the excision of that organ in order to save the life of the individual. It may be the hand, leg, eye, ear, kidney, liver or the heart.
Since staying alive and healthy is a beautiful thing, hardly has any patient preferred death to the loss of any precious part of the body or an organ. This means that no matter how much we value our body parts or organs, keeping them intact when they have become bad is not as important as staying alive. People are always disposed to lose their diseased body parts or organs in order to save them from death.
It is this same analogy that Jesus paints for us in today’s gospel in reference to anything in us that is capable of threatening our eternal life or the eternal life of others; He is referring to anything in us that is capable of threatening the growth and welfare of the people around us, both physically, economically and spiritually; anything in us that is capable of being a threat to the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.
Physical life is important and sweet, but it cannot be compared to the eternal spiritual life. No matter the extent one goes to save his physical life, he will surely die one day. So, if human beings can go to the extent of cutting off their hands and legs or plucking off their organs in order to save their physical life, Christ expects us to do same or even more at the moral and spiritual levels to save our life after here on earth. He said: if your hand, foot or eye should cause you to sin (to fall, to scandalize), cut it off. It is better for you to enter heaven without hand, foot or eye than to have them intact and be thrown into hell fire.
Dear friends, our duty today is to look into our lives and discover those things that are leading us to fall into sin. It could be our friends, our desires, activities, occasions, it could be our attitudes (jealousy, envy, gossip, anger, intolerance) or whatever. The clarion call of Christ today is that anything whose presence in your life poses a threat to your possession of eternal life should be cut off.
The readings of today also asked us not to be stumbling blocks in the growth and welfare of others. The first reading and the gospel identified envy or jealousy and intolerance as attitudes that place us against the genuine growth of the gift of God in others. By being jealous or envious of the gifts and good deeds of others, we make ourselves worthy and ready tools in the hand of the devil to disrupt or impede the growth of the gifts of God in others and, at the same time, an opposition to the building up of the kingdom of God through others. By being intolerant to those who don’t belong to us, to the weak and those who need our encouragement and fraternal correction to develop, we become a stumbling block to their little beginning.
Dear friends, rather than being intolerant, we are called to help in building others up. We should learn to give others a chance to develop. However, we must understand that being tolerant doesn’t mean condoning evil. It rather means fraternally correcting and accepting those who don’t measure up and also being patient with their slow growth.
By oppressing our workers, by denying those who depend on us their rights and just wages, as we read in St. James today, we become a stumbling block to their economic growth and welfare, and to the general welfare of those who depend on them. Sometimes, unjust treatments lead workers to sin. For example, some of the workers end up in violent reactions towards their managers or plotting and executing evil ways to get what belongs to them. The difficult situation which unjustly treated workers are exposed to can lead those who depend on them to evil lives as a way to make ends meet. The ripple effects of unjust treatment of workers cannot be overestimated. So, St James warns us today against oppression, suppression, and unjust treatment of those who depend on us.
Lastly, Jesus tells us that we can also be a stumbling block to children when we teach them bad things, when we show them bad examples, and when we fail to teach them what they are supposed to know. Failure in the good upbringing of a child will definitely expose that child to a bitter future. In that case, that person has become a stumbling block to the good future of that child. It is our duty to take good care of children in all ramifications of life. Let us be careful with what we teach them either by our actions or our omissions
Let us ask the Spirit of God in today’s Holy Mass to help us to cut off those things in us which are capable of being stumbling blocks to us and to others in our quest to build up the kingdom of God on earth and to inherit the eternal life in heaven.
Happy Sunday
Fr. Isaac Chinemerem Chima