THE DISCIPLE OF CHRIST, A PROPHET FOR TODAY.
August 30, 2020
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - A.
“All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me” (Jer
20:8). We live in a world and in societies where the word seems to have lost
its sacredness. Many people seem to be in conflict with truth, justice and law.
Under certain skies, they think that some people, especially the politicians,
are in conflict with the law. There are many who hate the truth. To live in
peace and happy with them, never talk about legality, justice, rule or law, and
above all, make yourself, like them, enemies of the truth. Lying for some has
become an art and a second nature. They lie to others, and as if that wasn't
enough, they lie to themselves.
Besides, there is also the danger of believers, men and
women of God who pledged to silence. In front of everything that happens in the
societies and communities where they live, they are in a kind of stillness that
at the limit apparent a guilty silence.
The liturgy of this 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A reminds
us of our mission in the world and especially our prophetic vocation. On the
day of our Baptism, the priest spoke these words to each of us, “You are
henceforth a member of the body of Christ, and you share in his dignity as
priest, prophet and king.” These words and this prophetic anointing come with
an obligation for each baptized person. This is a great challenge which will
necessarily involve suffering. In reality, one cannot truly resemble Christ
without suffering and without having like him the courage of truth.
Today's first reading presents us with the quintessential
image of the prophet, Jeremiah, and it tells us what lies ahead if we truly
want to live out our vocation as prophet in a world struggling with the truth.
We see Jeremiah moaning over his fate. After allowing himself to be seduced by
the Lord, the prophet confesses, “All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me.” The Lord made Jeremiah his spokesman. But the prophet by
accepting this mission became the object of insults and much tribulations. This
is so, simply because he has become the bearer of a word which is truth, and
truth, by nature, is opposed to falsehood. So, all those living in the untruth
oppose the prophet because of his word of truth.
The prophet Jeremiah, like many great prophets of Ancient
Israel, will be murdered. His lamentations are the cry from the heart of a man
who did not know how to keep silent in the face of injustice, of sufferings of
the weak and of falsehoods, when others try to set that up as a norm. The life
and vocation of the prophet Jeremiah teaches us that to be a person of
conviction and faith, a man or a woman of God and a believer, is to accept to
accomplish a mission and an ungrateful ministry that could cost us everything,
even up to our dignity. But above all to do so with courage and absolute
fidelity.
One cannot truly be a prophet without be confronted to tribulations.
The Lord Jesus in the Gospel will make this even clearer. He told his disciples
that the only real condition to follow him is to have the courage of the cross.
The word of the Lord is truth and life. Therefore, one cannot be a Christian
and hide in lies or live in conformism. Jesus himself was never a man of
conformism. He was rather a nonconformist, one who had the courage of his words
and above all the courage of the truth. The cross is thus a sign both of Christ
himself and of the faith of Christians.
In life, there are always people like Peter who seem to love
Jesus more than he loves himself. In fact, these are people who love Christ and
profess their faith to him, but hate the vocabulary and language of the cross.
For them, the Christian life should be conjugated without the suffering. This
is a breed of Christians who never take a stand for what might cost them. And seeing
that justice and truth are the things that cost the most, they sound absent subscribers
where the truth is at risk. To these ones, as he did with Peter, the Lord says,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God
does, but as human beings do."
Beloved, having chosen to follow Christ, and to be disciples
and bearers of his word of truth, do not think as ordinary people do. Let us
have the courage of Jesus, let us fight for the right and the true. It is
called accepting one’s cross and follow him. And the Lord will insist, saying,
there is no advantage in living in conformism, and by the standards of this
world. Instead, let's live in the truth, even if it would cost us. This is also
our vocation as prophets. As St. Paul urges us in the second reading, let us
have the strength and courage to present our bodies and our whole person, “as a
living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” Let us transform the way we look
and see life. Christianity and martyrdom should be synonymous for us.
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