SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A

By Fr Munachi Ezeogu, cssp

Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time - on the
Epistle
Home > Homilies > Year A > 6th Sunday Gospel

Among the Mature We Speak Wisdom

Sirach 15:15-20 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 Matthew 5:17-37

There is a crisis of faith in the Church. Many Christians today,
including practising and committed Christians, have only a shallow
knowledge of the teachings of the Bible and the Church. In today's
second reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul touches on
one of the key causes of the problem, as well as what we can do to
remedy the situation. The problem is the one-size-fits-all teaching that
goes on in our churches, and the remedy is to return to teaching smaller
groups of believers according to their various stages in the journey of
faith .

Preaching in church is a very challenging activity. In school, pupils are

grouped according to age and class. In church everybody is in the same
class, the toddler, the child, the teenager, the young adult, their parents
and grand-parents. The preacher addresses all these people, who
naturally belong to different age and class levels, all at once. What we
get from the pulpit is usually a one-size-fits-all teaching that does not
specifically target the needs of any one of the age groups. If the
preacher addresses his message to the specific needs of kids and those
who are new to the faith, adults and veterans in the faith will find it
boring. If the preacher focusses on the needs of adults and those who
are mature in the faith, the younger ones find it equally boring. What
can we do about this problem?

We can learn from the example of St. Paul and the early Christians. Let
us connect what he told us last Sunday with what he is telling us today.
Last Sunday, we read: "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I
did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words
or wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:1). Today he goes on to say, "Yet among
the mature we do speak wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:6). We can see that
Paul always adapted his message to suit his audience. To those new in
the faith he avoided lofty words of wisdom, but to those who are mature
in the faith, he spoke the mature language of philosophy. When Paul
said that he was all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22), he meant
that he adapted his teaching to suit the faith needs of each group that he
addressed.
 We see this more clearly in his reprimand to the Corinthians, "I fed you
with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.
Even now you are still not ready" (1 Corinthians 3:2). Just as a human
person first needs milk and then solid food, so also in the spiritual life.
It is the desire of the shepherd to see his sheep graduate from drinking
only milk to eating solid food. Likewise, it is the desire of the Church to
see her children grow up to become mature Christians, enlightened and
empowered to explain the Church's teaching to others and lead them to
the faith. It can be frustrating when, year in, year out, believers keep on
needing milk instead of growing up to eating solid food. On this, the
Letter to the Hebrews written two thousand years ago speaks to
Christians of our times:

We have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have

become dull in understanding. 12 For though by this time
you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you
again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need
milk, not solid food; 13 for everyone who lives on milk, being
still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14
But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties
have been trained by practice to distinguish good from
evil. (Hebrews 5:11-14)

What then can we do to facilitate our conversion from milk to solid

food? First is to recognise that the once a week homily we hear on
Sundays is not enough. We need to join an association of Christians
who are serious about growing up in the faith. Such associations include
small Christian Communities, Bible study and prayer groups, and other
associations and sodalities that provide occasion for ongoing education
in the faith. For God has called us not only to believe in the Gospel, but
to grow in the Gospel to the point where we become teachers of the
Gospel.
SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A
By Fr Munachi Ezeogu, cssp
Homily for 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time - on the
Gospel
Home > Homilies > Year A > 6th Sunday Epistle

Matthew's Valentine Message

Sirach 15:15-20 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 Matthew 5:17-37

A young man who goes to his parish priest and says to him, "Father, is it
a sin for me to sleep with my girlfriend? The priest shakes his head and
says, "Nope." The young man goes, "Cool!" And the priest adds, "So
long as you are actually sleeping." In love relationships there are often
more questions than answers. And so on this eve of Valentine's Day, a
day in which we celebrate human love, it would be appropriate to ask
ourselves, "What does the gospel we hear in church today say to us
about this most important human value of love which we are
celebrating.

Valentine or Lovers' Day is now celebrated almost everywhere in the

world. Love happens and is celebrated everywhere in the world. But
whereas in the developed world people tend to think of only one person,
their special man or woman, as their Valentine, in the developing
societies of Africa Valentine is understood and celebrated in a more
embracive way. People give Valentine cards and gifts to their parents,
their sisters and brothers, their parish priests and their teachers.
Valentine has indeed become a universal affair. Has today's gospel
anything to say to us about Valentine?

First of all, we must point out that today's readings were not chosen
with Valentine in mind. So any relevance to Valentine is coincidental
rather than intentional. All the same I believe that Matthew's gospel,
which we read today, has an important message for us on Valentine's
Day. Let us go to verses 23-24 which says:

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you

remember that your brother or sister has something against
you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be
reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer
your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)

This passage reminds us of two important truths that we tend to forget,

namely (i) that your lover is also your brother/sister, and (ii) that your
partner is usually a good thermometer for gauging your spiritual
temperature.

The early Christians used to refer to fellow believers who shared their
faith in Christ as brothers and sisters. So your partner is also your
brother or sister insofar as he or she shares your faith in God. Your
partner or lover is also your companion in the spiritual journey to God.
A good love relationship should recognize this spiritual dimension and
make room for its adequate expression. Yet some couples tend to share
everything except their spiritual lives. They make arrangements to wine
and dine in a good restaurant, or to go and watch a good movie together,
but they rarely think of going to church to worship God together as part
of their Valentine's Day celebration. But people who know that their
partners are also their brothers and sisters in the faith always make
room for praying and sharing their faith together as an important way of
supporting each other spiritually.

In fact your partner is so spiritually relevant to you that he or she often

serves as a good thermometer for gauging your spiritual temperature.
Many people never come to see how patient or impatient they are, how
caring or self-centred, how responsible or irresponsible they are until
they enter into marriage or a meaningful friendship. In is not an
overstatement to say that if you are not doing well in your love life you
are probably not doing well in your spiritual life either. How can you
say that? Well Jesus just told us that if you brought your offering to
God's altar and there you suddenly remember that your partner has
something against you, drop your offering there beside the altar, drive
home (since he or she did not come to church with you, to start with),
make it up with him or her, then come back to the church, pick up your
offering where you dropped it, and then proceed to offer it. Otherwise,
if you went on and offered it without making it up with your partner,
you might as well be making an offering as unacceptable as that of
Cain. In other words, you can offer an acceptable offering or worship to
God only when are reconciled with your neighbour, and your number
one neighbour is your marriage partner.

Another passage in today's gospel that is relevant to Valentine, the Feast

of Lovers, is this:

You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit
adultery." But I say to you that everyone who looks at a
woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in
his heart. (Matt 5:27-28)

This passage brings up the important question of the distinction

between love and lust which many people today find difficult to make.
The gospel prescribes love and proscribes lust. What is the difference
between the two? In plain words, love asks "What can I do for this
person to make him or her happy?" Lust, on the other hand, asks "How
can I use this person to derive as much pleasure for myself as possible?"
Examples of lust abound. Here is a rare example of love:

Jacob and Anna had been married for nine years going on ten. Both
wanted to use their tenth anniversary to show how much they loved
each other. But they were poor, very poor. For three years now Jacob's
grocery business had steadily dwindled to a shadow of what it used to
be. Jacob had sold his radio and Grandfather's clock and the only thing
he still had as a reminder of past affluence was his ivory pipe which he
still stuck between his teeth all day as if he was smoking, although there
was nothing in the pipe. He could no longer afford the tobacco. Even
Anna missed the rich aroma that used to fill the house whenever her
husband smoked. It made her so proud of her hero. Jacob was also
proud of Anna. In spite of the hardship in the family she was still the
most beautiful woman in the neighbourhood. Her rich golden hair was
still the envy of other women and the pride of her husband.

As the anniversary drew near Jacob and Anna each wanted to do

something special to make the other very happy on their anniversary. So
Anna went to the local hair shop and asked how much they would give
for her hair. In a few minutes, her beautiful hair was gone and she had
twenty-five extra dollars in her purse. She covered her now clean-
shaven head and headed straight to the tobacco shop where she bought a
packet of quality tobacco, the type her husband used to smoke when he
was rich, and headed home. Meanwhile Jacob had an idea. He went and
sold his ivory pipe in the antique shop and bough an ivory hair band for
his wife. At the dinner table they exchange their tenth anniversary gifts,
tobacco from Anna to Jacob who had sold his pipe, and the ivory hair
band form Jacob to Anna who had cropped her hair. That is love. Each
had only one question in mind: What can I do to make him or her
happy?

With love like that between Anna and Jacob, you can be sure there is
one word that is not in their dictionary, and that is "divorce." Jesus'
strong condemnation of divorce makes sense for people who are in a
truly loving relationship. For people who are united by lust rather than
love, it just doesn't make sense. Our prayer today as we celebrate
Valentine's Day is that God help us to become truly loving men and
woman able to maintain a lifelong relationship of love like that between
Jacob and Anna.