31st Sunday, Year B: Homily by Fr. Isaac Chima
Theme: Obedience to God by loving Him and our neighbour.
Readings: Deut. 6:2–6; Heb 7:23–28; Mk 12:28b-34
Dear friends in Christ, one of the challenges Christians face today is total obedience to God in the face of the strong forces that promise to make their lives better if they compromise their faith in God and their moral standard. The hardships in our world are making the proposals of these strong forces highly appealing and difficult to resist for many people. These powerful forces are increasing in number on a daily basis and are getting the support and promotion of many governments in our world. What should Christians do?
When the Israelites were making their way through the desert towards the promised land, they encountered numerous challenges such as hunger, sickness, poverty, and attacks from powerful nations. One of the temptations they faced was to renounce their faith in the living God and embrace the gods of the other nations for solutions to their immediate problems in the desert. Of course, they heard how powerful those gods were in for providing the needs of their own people and in protecting them from harm. On many occasions, many Israelites bowed to those gods and, consequently, received harsh punishments from God.
In today’s first reading, Moses gathered the Israelites and told them that for them to survive and prosper, the God of their fathers was the only option they had; that they must fear Him alone and obey only His statutes and commandments. Such obedience and reverential fear were to be made concrete by their love and worship of Him with all their heart, soul, and might. He reminded them that only obedience, love, and worship of this God would bring them and their children blessings and protections in the land they were about to enter, rather than turning to the gods of the nations around them.
Dear friends, the hardships we face in this world often push us to think that renouncing our faith in Christ and living our lives according to the standards of the world or bowing down to some deities will solve our numerous problems. Those who promote anti-Christian ideas, atheistic doctrines, and idolatrous practices often present them as a solution to the challenges we face in this world. Some even claim that the Christian God cannot help us.
Through this first reading, the Church reminds us today that we are to worship only God Almighty, obey Him alone, and love Him with all of our hearts, no matter the challenges we face. She also reminds us, just as Moses did for his people, that it is only faith and worship of the true God that will guarantee us true peace, protection, and prosperity in everything we do. The things that the other gods promise and give are ephemeral and will only lead people into more problems; other gods cannot give us anything good.
With His answer to the scribe who questioned Him about the greatest of all commandments, Jesus reiterated the position of Moses that obeying, loving, and worshipping God Almighty with everything in us and in everything we do is sacrosanct for us; it is the first and greatest of all commandments and must be observed strictly. However, Jesus went on to tell that scribe and all of us that our worship and love for God Almighty cannot be complete and real if we don’t extend it to our fellow humans. In fact, it is in loving our fellow humans that love and obedience to God are made concrete, for “If anyone says, ‘I love God,‘ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (I John 4: 20). God created every human being in His own image and likeness, and God manifests Himself in each of us. If we are blind to the manifestation of God in the faces of our fellow humans, especially in the poor, the sick, the persecuted, the abandoned, and the dying, then we do not know who God really is. By loving God and our neighbour also, we not only demonstrate that we know who God really is, we also obey all His commandments.
The amazing response of the scribe after hearing how beautifully Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments gives us some food for thought. He said, “to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This simply tells us that all our duties to God and all our donations to the Church would be in vain in God’s eyes if we fail to do the same for our neighbour. May God open our eyes to see Him in our neighbour. Amen
Peace be with you.
Fr. Isaac C. Chima