GOD REWARDS GOOD AND PUNISHES EVIL.
September 29, 2024.
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B.
“Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you
belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” (Mark
9:41)
An Estonian proverb says: “Who is good will be rewarded.” A
Chinese proverb adds: “Good will be rewarded with good and evil with evil; it
is only a matter of time.”
There is a very famous psychological theory that is used in
education, mostly as a teaching method. It is about rewards and punishment. It
is also well known as operant conditioning. Operant conditioning, sometimes
called instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning, is a learning
method that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior. Through operant
conditioning, behavior that is rewarded is likely to be repeated, while
behavior that is punished is prone to happen less.
Simply put, it is about provoking the apprentice to value
good and achieve it always and flee from evil in all the possible ways. Good is
rewarded. Evil is punished.
A great saint, known as Apostle of Charity, St. Luigi Orione
made it a calling: "Do good always. Do good to all. Evil, never to
anyone." God created us good and therefore wants us to aim at doing good
always and everywhere and to everyone. The Lord loves goodness in the heart and
actions, but he hates evilness.
Today's first reading and Gospel teach us God's way. He
rewards good and punishes evil. On the journey Jesus undertook to Jerusalem
that will lead him to the Cross, many lessons are taught by the Lord about true
discipleship. After teaching about humility and childlikeness last Sunday,
today, he combines two lessons in one. The Lord speaks of the danger of
fanatism and the reward awaiting goodness.
The first lesson finds a similitude in the first reading. In
the Gospel, the main protagonist is John, with words that are the anthem of
fanatics or radical people closed to themselves in their religiosity and
seemingly honesty, and jealous of anything that others could do better than
them or like them: “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” This could be
summarized in a simple sentence: Who is not with us or one of us is against.
Those who do not do like us, walk with us, or follow our way are our enemies
that we should combat. This is radicalism.
In the first reading, it was quite the same reality. When
the spirit of Moses was given to the seventy but two who were not at the
gathering with them received it as well, the reaction of Joshua the radical
disciple of Moses was: “Moses, my lord, stop them.”
Jesus, like Moses, will teach his disciples, and we with
them on the danger of fanatism. And their answer was also equal. To Joshua,
Moses said: “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord
were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!” And to
John, Jesus replied: “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty
deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not
against us is for us.
Belonging to the Lord is not a matter of bearing a name:
Christian or being a disciple. The first stage of true discipleship is to be
able to do like the Lord does, to do good always, to do good to all, and to
harm no one.
Many are they, who bear widely written on their front head
the name of Christian, but whose lives and actions are in complete opposition
with the way of the Lord. While some others don't even come to church, or
attend mass only occasionally behave better and live rightly according to the
Gospel principles.
Good action is not too much in amplitude or length. It is
sometimes in the simple and basic things of life, like giving a cup of water to
one who is thirsty, feeding someone in need of food, or clothing the one who is
without clothes, visiting a sick or elderly person. To do those things, there
is no need for a certificate of belongingness. It just requires a disposition
of the heart.
The Lord, in the Gospel, goes further with the second lesson
to his disciples, a call to not be an object or cause of scandal. He says:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be
better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown
into the sea." For sure, scandals are obviously to happen. But we
Christians, should not lend ourselves to be the cause. There, our belongingness
should be felt. Thus, the strong words to cut off and pluck out. A call to
dissociate or detach ourselves from evil ways. The Christian life calls for a
firm and total detachment from evil and attachment to good. The one we profess
and follow is the per excellence good. So, in everything, we should aim at
imitating Him.
James will exhort us to make use of all we possess as wealth
in going good, otherwise, our possessions will contribute to our loss.
In the end, one uplifting message which is also a calling
and a warning, God will reward all our good actions and punish all evil. Every
single good we do is like an investment for our future glorification in God.
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