Homily- Tuesday of the 17th
Week in Ordinary Time, Yr. B. Fr. Udoekpo, M.
v Jer
14:17-22
v Ps
79:8,9,11,13
v Matt
13:36-43
The Lord Remembers, and Keeps His Covenant with Us,
forever,
Jeremiah, having called Israel in yesterday’s reading(Jer
13:1-11) to repentance and not to be like a rotten sash/loincloth, prays to God
today not to abandoned or cast Judah off completely. He is a prophet, an intercessor and a mediator. Full of emotions and
feelings for his people, Jeremiah, who suffered so much, who actually saw the
temple of Jerusalem on fire in 586/7BC rhetorically prays to God:
” Is Zion loathsome to you?
Why have you struck us a blow that cannot be healed?.. We wait for peace, to no
avail, for a time of healing, but terror comes instead. We recognized, O Lord,
our wickedness, the guilt of our fathers; that we have sinned against you.”
Full of sympathy,
empathy and hope for his people, he continues to appeal to God, saying, “for
your name’s sake spurn us not, disgrace not the throne of your glory, remember
your covenant with us, and break it not.” Which covenant? His covenant with
Abraham (Gen 15, 17, 22), Moses (Exod 19-24) and David (2 Samuel 7) and their
descendants.
God promised Abraham that his seed, his descendant will
be as the plentiful as the star and the sand of the seashore. The Sinaitic
Covenant, though conditional later looks back at that of Moses, and of course,
forward to Davidic covenant, that Israel, the seed David will be bless forever,
especially those ones that obey, listened to him and trust in the Lord.
Of course, these seeds of Abraham and David are those
which have been sown by the New Moses, the Son of Man in today’s parable in the
Gospel of Matthew 13:36-43. They are expected to do well, to grow and to listen
to the word of God. The weeds that may tend to disturb the seed, the
righteous, will be collected and thrown into the burning fire at the end of
time.
Noticeably, the future languages and sentences of hope
for the good seeds are obvious and point to the fact that the Lord will never
abandon us nor break his covenant against the remnant, and faithful Israel.
Of course, every age has its own challenges. That of
Israel might have been the loss of the temple and experiences of exile as a
result of disobedience and idolatries of their time. Ours today may also come
in different forms of materialism, modern subjectivism, secularism, terrorism, indifference
to common good and social justice, and
threats of this ongoing- virus, to name, but a few.
In the midst of all these, the Lord will never abandon
us. He will, as Jeremiah 14 has said, remember his covenant with us forever.
Reflection Questions
1.
How do we play our
parts as believers, knowing and hoping that the Lord will remember his covenant
forever?
2.
Do we see ourselves
as the seed planted by the Lord to grow, keep, hear and teach his word, or the
weeds that distract others from hearing and keeping God’s word?
3.
How often do we try
to keep our promises with the Lord, or , like Jeremiah, intercede with sympathy and empathy for our
communities?
