Homily
for Tuesday of the 20th Week in Ord. Time Year B, Fr. Udoekpo, Michael
v Ezek 28:1-10
v Ps/Deut 32:26-27ab, 27cd-28,30,35cd-36ab
v Mtt 19:23-30
In
Humility the Lord Is the Source of All We Have
Today’s
scripture readings continue from where we stopped yesterday with emphasize on
humility, poverty, especially of the spirit, faithfulness to God and making
good use of our wealth, and all the riches that God has blessed us with.
Prophet
Ezekiel, a mortal, humble messenger of God, was in the forefront during his
time in calling and challenging his contemporaries to a life of faithfulness,
humility and obedience to God. He has done this by preaching, speaking out and
acting prophetically in different ways to communicate God’s displeasure to
arrogance, and disobedience of Israel to God.
In the past few days, we saw him symbolically
carrying his exilic baggage and making a hole through the wall. Yesterday, he
was asked to symbolically not mourn the death of his wife and not trim his beard.
Today,
he mocked and challenges Israel not to pretend to be “god” or “wise”, if they
do not trust and worship the God of Israel. Disobedience and unfaithfulness, or
any form of idolatry, like worship of wealth and money, surely, will lead them
to exile, through the hands of foreigners, like the Assyrians, and the
Babylonians etc.
What Ezekiel
preached to his generation in the first reading, Christ does the same in today’s
Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 19:23-30), that “it will be hard for one who is rich to
enter the Kingdom of heaven” and that “it is easier for a camel to pass through
the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”
The
point that the Lord makes here is the need for humility, faithfulness, and good
use of all that the Lord has blessed us with. It include reaching out to the
poor and the needy with all our talents and gifts, knowledge, wisdom, and
skills. Nothing should ever separate us from the love of God, nor should we
allow riches, or material things to replace our worship of God, who as the
responsorial psalm would insist, “deals death and gives life (Deut 32:39c). He
is the source of all that we have.
Reflection
Questions
1.
Do we see God as the source of all that we are and have?
2.
How often do we reach out to the poor?
3.
What are modern idolatries and what have we done to avoid them?
