Sunday of the Word of God: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sermon by Emmanuel Suntheni OSB – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday of the Word of God – Year C
Sermon and Christian Act in The Word
Theme: The Word of God is the Liberator of Ignorance! Meditate on the Word of God now & then!! Tools for Good Work! Just do good and be good!
Point of Reflection: The centre of our Christian life is the Word of God. The Liturgy of the Word for the third Sunday of the Ordinary Time begins the journey through the ministry of Jesus. Its initial step portrayed in the reading from the Gospel of Luke looks at the very start of Jesus’ mission, which reveals that one of the chief goals of his work was to liberate the people from ignorance. This liberation is only found in the Word of God, and today, the Mother Church celebrates the WORD OF GOD SUNDAY. How often do we read and meditate on the Word of God?
First Reading: Nehemiah 8:2–4, 5–6, 8–10
Psalm: Psalm 19:8–10, 15
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12–30
Gospel: Luke 1:1–4, 4:14–21
Sermon (Reflection): Today’s passage from the first reading (Cf. Nehemiah 8:2–4, 5–6, 8–10) gives a glimpse of the work of Ezra. Even though exile had ended almost a century before, things were going badly for Judah and its inhabitants. Religious confusion, lawlessness, religious indifference, and adaptation of pagan practices and customs were rampant. Religious reform was desperately needed. This could be our point of departure as Christians today, we are desperately in need of reform in our way of living. One of the reforms in our daily Christian life is to meditate on the Word of God daily.
Reflecting on Nehemiah’s passage, Ezra’s reform begins with a great public ceremony. He gathered the people and publicly read out to them the text of “the Book of the Law”. This was the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) which contained a comprehensive outline of the Jewish identity and its unique way of life. The people’s response to what they heard was a solemn “Amen”, followed by an act of worship. They received and accepted the words of the Torah as God’s word and God’s law. This is the question to us Christians as we celebrate the Word of God Sunday, do we know that the Word of Life is in the Bible? Do we accept the Word of God by deeds and acts? Our Christian way of living must reflect the Word of God.
Today’s second reading continues with the presentation of how Paul dealt with the problems of divisions and misuse of the charismatic gifts in the Corinthian community. He explained that all gifts, though different, are complementary and indispensable. To explain this, he used the image of the human body which consists of many different parts. Each of these parts is designed to perform a unique function, but only together can they make the entire body function properly. Furthermore, Paul points out that some organs in the body that are perceived as weak and less dignified receive even greater attention than others. These simple images and statements serve to make several crucial points regarding the life of the Christian community.
First, Paul teaches the Corinthians that through baptism and the gift of the Spirit, they became members of one body. No matter what their former ethnic or social status, they now form one new organism. Their individual gifts serve to make this new body function as one, in harmony. The diverse gifts and ministries in the community are a result of God’s purposeful design for the Church. They are meant to be complementary in mutual service. As Christians, let us use our gifts and talents in harmony.
Second and last, St Paul aimed to create a sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility, combined with pride and contentment with what each received. He also intended to lead them out of their narrow-minded focus on individual self-importance towards a liberating, broad perspective of their life as organic members of one community. Paul knew that such knowledge if acted upon, would put an end to divisions and unhealthy competition. This is a calling to us Christians, to live in solidarity and mutual responsibility, we should not allow divisions of money, anger, and jealousy to rule our parishes, dioceses and countries.
A quite reflective message of today’s sermon-reflection is from today’s gospel reading which consists of two distinctive passages. The first contains the opening lines of Luke’s Gospel, where the author defines his purpose and method. He intends to write a coherent and systematically arranged account of Jesus’ life to set the faith of his patron, Theophilus, on firm foundations. Theophilus simply means, “the lover of God: By virtue of our baptism and by being catechumens, we become lovers of God and being a lover of God, means we need to love the Scriptures, today is the Word of God Sunday, and as Christians, we can ask ourselves: do we love reading the Scriptures? The Scriptures liberate us from ignorance of Christ. As Christians, we need to constantly meditate on the Scriptures.
The second passage of the Gospel of today narrates the very first event of the public ministry of Jesus which took place in Nazareth, his hometown. Speaking in the synagogue, Jesus publicly presented the program for his ministry using the prophecy of Isaiah as his reference (Cf. Is 61:1-2). After the introductory two lines, this prophecy describes Jesus’ mission in five, purposefully arranged, lines. The first and the fifth lines define Jesus’ mission as the proclamation of the good news and God’s year of favour. The second and the fourth lines focus on the liberation of captives and the oppressed. The third and central statement describes Jesus as bringing “recovery of sight to the blind.” Thus, Jesus’ chief mission will be to liberate the people from blindness. This is exactly what was already stated about him in the prophecies of Zechariah and Simeon (Cf. Luke 1:71; 2:32). Jesus came to bring people out of their ignorance to the liberating light of the knowledge of God, the ways of God’s kingdom, and God’s plan of salvation for humanity.
As Christians, we need light from the Word of God, in one way or another, all of us, are blind. We need to regain our sight, and the only way of getting the sight is to meditate on the Word of God. As a Missionary Benedictine whose principal patron is St Odilia or Ottilien (the name Odilia means “daughter of light”) who was born blind and was neglected by his father, but with prayer and constant union with Jesus Christ, she gained sight during her baptism. Today, it can be our baptism that we regain both our spiritual and physical sight through the Word of God. It is only through prayer and constant union with God that we can regain our sight and move from darkness to light as St Odillia.
Christian Act in Word of God “Tools of Good Work”
The only way to understand the Word of God is to live by the Word of God, and thus, living a good Christian life, and this is well reflected as having tools for good work. Having the Word of God at our disposal as Christians, we must always be grateful to God and greatly appreciate the grace of knowledge and understanding of God, and his ways, revealed to us through Jesus and Scripture. This revelation continues in our midst through the Holy Spirit and the Church. As Christians, we have been provided with all the tools and these tools are found in the Bible, Church doctrines and writings of Saints.
One of the Saints who has written about Tools of Goods works from the Bible is St Benedict. This reminds me of the homily by Abbot President Jeremias OSB during his canonical visit to Inkamana Abbey (November 2021) where he articulated very well the good works of every Christian as stipulated in chapter 4 of the Rule of St Benedict. He said, “let us walk in the light of the Word of God … the tools for good works are short statements of how we are to live our lives as Christians, and therefore as monks, the Tools of Good Works are guidelines of living a good Christian life.” What we need now, is just to live a good life. St Benedict in his rule for monks and nuns, he has explicitly outlined and dedicated a whole chapter of tools of Good Work to the transformational living of every Christian. (Please read the Rule of St Benedict Chapter 4 at the very end of the Sermon as it is in the Appendix 1)
Reflecting on the Tools of Good Works, there is nothing in these first 45 verses that the normal Christian should not strive to live and be liberated from ignorance and live a very good Christian life, it is not enough to be a Christian but we must be good Christians by meditating on the Word of God like in a form of Lectio Divina which is one of the pillars of living Benedictine life as well for every good Christian. Today’s Scriptural reflection calls us to examine what use do we make of the knowledge and resources offered to us by the Scripture, the Church, and St Benedict. Let us walk in the light of the Word of God.
Action: I will walk in the light of the Gospel and in my daily prayer, I will consistently express my gratitude to God for revealing himself and his Son to me, and for giving me the Scripture and the Church to guide me.
Prayer: Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of your Word, the Scriptures. We are nothing without Your everlasting Word, and we thank You for revealing Yourself to us in the Scriptures and instructing us on how to live a truly human and Christian life following Your ways. You have laid down the path that can lead us to you, keep us on those paths and give us a sound understanding of your ways. Let your word be the lamp for our feet every day We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Appendix 1 – THE RULE OF ST BENEDICT
Chapter 4: The Tools for Good Works
1 First of all, love the Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength, 2 and love your neighbour as yourself (Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27).
3 Then the following: You are not to kill,
4 not to commit adultery;
5 you are not to steal
6 nor to covet (Rom 13:9);
7 you are not to bear false witness (Matt 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20).
8 You must honor everyone (1 Pet 2:17),
9 and never do to another what you do not want done to yourself (Tob 4:16; Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).
10 Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23);
11 discipline your body (1 Cor 9:27);
12 do not pamper yourself,
13 but love fasting.
14 You must relieve the lot of the poor,
15 clothe the naked,
16 visit the sick (Matt 25:36),
17 and bury the dead.
18 Go to help the troubled
19 and console the sorrowing.
20 Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way;
21 The love of Christ must come before all else.
22 You are not to act in anger
23 or nurse a grudge.
24 Rid your heart of all deceit.
25 Never give a hollow greeting of peace
26 or turn away when someone needs your love.
27 Bind yourself to no oath lest it prove false,
28 but speak the truth with heart and tongue.
29 Do not repay one bad turn with another (1 Thess 5:15; 1 Pet 3:9).
30 Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently.
31 Love your enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27).
32 If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead.
33 Endure persecution for the sake of justice (Matt 5:10).
34 You must not be proud,
35 nor be given to wine (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim 3:3).
36 Refrain from too much eating
37 or sleeping,
38 and from laziness (Rom 12:11).
39 Do not grumble
40 or speak ill of others.
41 Place your hope in God alone.
42 If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself,
43 but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.
44 Live in fear of judgment day
45 and have a great horror of hell.
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