Ephesians 4:7-16 / Luke 13:1-9
Paul talks about Christ: Through him the body is built up in love.
The first frame of a Peanuts cartoon shows Charlie Brown staring at a tool box, saying to himself, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” The second frame shows Lucy entering and saying to Charlie, “What’s wrong, Charlie? You seem sad.” The last frame shows Charlie answering Lucy: “I am sad! I want to build a workbench, but I don’t have a workbench to build it on.” The point of that cartoon, when applied to Jesus and his mission, is clear. Jesus is our “workbench.” Before he entered the world, we had no workbench to build the workbench we would need to rebuild the world. Jesus became that workbench.
Thanks to Jesus and his incarnation, we now have what we need to rebuild our world.
****
What are we, personally, doing to help rebuild the world into the kingdom of God? “All of us have a message to deliver; all of us have a song to sing.” John Powell
***
As we look at our world, we may notice a certain disparity. There are the first world countries, i.e. the developed countries, and then there are the developing countries, and then there are the third world countries. Some people have come up with this weird idea that God had blessed the first world countries and left out the underdeveloped countries. Maybe that idea is implicitly connected to the age-old thinking that misfortune has a certain connection with sin. It is because of this sin that a person or a nation forfeits God's blessings.
In today's gospel passage, Jesus out-rightly rejects this sort of thinking. Yet Jesus went on to say that if His listeners do not repent, then they too will perish. In other words, a person or a nation that rebels against God is on the road to disaster. Even for our nation, we may have come this far because of a strong pragmatic direction and determination.
Yet we also cannot deny that God has blessed our nation with progress and stability. Hence we have to always look back at the spiritual values of faith and morality. For us Catholics, the urgency is even greater.
As the 1st reading puts it, each one of us has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it. We should not be tossed one way or another and carried along by every wind of false teaching or deceit. Rather we should live by the truth and in love so that we shall grow in all ways into Christ. May Christ be our only way and our only goal.
Let us pray: Lord our God, it is heartening for us to hear that whether we are known and influential in this world or not, whether our talents are many or few, we are all important to you and you need us to build up the body of your Son. Thank you for this trust and make us capable of building unity and community through the graces and gifts with which you enrich us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
