Homily for Ordinary Time – 14th Sunday Year A 2020
Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9.11-13; Matthew 11:25-30
Introduction
How do you comfort a nation in crisis? A nation like the people of Israel who had been conquered and taken into exile first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians? Well, if you are God, you send them a prophet to reassure them.
Like British Prime-minister Winston Churchill did with "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech in 1940; Like Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream Speech" in 1963; or like the speech President George W. Bush gave to the nation after 9/11 attacks. All these speakers attempted to reassure the nation that despite the crisis, the nation would survive and would be victorious.
Scripture and Theology
That is what Zechariah the prophet from whom our first reading comes is trying to say to the Jewish people. They had just returned from exile in Babylon and were trying to rebuild their temple, city and nation. But things were still pretty bad. Things were just as gloomy as they were here after Katrina and the desperation that was all over the place. Things were just as gloomy as they are now with both COVID and protests for racial justice. What does God tell his people?
And so, God sent Zechariah to preach a message of hope, saying:
- "Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!" Why would God ask the people of Judah to rejoice heartily to shout for joy when things are looking so bad? Was he teasing them? Was he being insensitive to their gloom? No. He had good news for them.
- "See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass." Yes, they were to rejoice because the Lord was promising them the coming of a king, a saviour. But he was to be a humble and meek king; that is why he would ride a donkey rather than a horse, the animal for battle.
- The prophet goes on to say of this new king: "He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; the warrior’s bow shall be banished, and he shall proclaim peace to the nations." This new peaceful king would throw away the tools of war, namely, the chariot, horse and the bow; for he is a king of peace.
- And finally, Zechariah concludes by describing the large territory to be ruled by this new king: ". . .from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth." This sentence should remind us of the line in the patriotic song America the Beautiful "from sea to shining sea", which describes the greatness of the USA. But for Zechariah, the dominion of the new king would be even greater, since it will encompass virtually the whole world.
So, who is Zechariah talking about? He is writing in the year 500 B.C. and no such figure shows up either during the prophet's lifetime or soon after.
We will have to wait 500 years for this prophecy to be fulfilled. And as you probably guessed, the king who fulfils this prophecy is Jesus of Nazareth. And that brings us to today's gospel passage from Matthew, where Jesus does something unusual in the gospels; he speaks directly to the Father in prayer, blessing him, thanking him. He thanks the Father for sending him to reveal God's will and God's love, not to the great and wise people of the world, but to the little ones, the humble ones just like him. This and many other passages confirm that Jesus is the king promised by Zechariah, the Son of David, who would continue David's kingdom and bring salvation to the world. For, "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
Moreover, the message of Jesus is one of comfort just like that of Zechariah to the people of his time. Jesus tells his disciples: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." He is relieving them of the burdens of sin and hopelessness that the people of Jesus' times faced, asking themselves, where is Our God, what is happening to us, where are we going, what should we do. And now Jesus tells them that he is the answer.
But then Jesus says something else that is interesting. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves." As we know a yoke is a burden in itself; it is that wooden beam that is tied on the neck of two horses so that they can work together to pull a load or farming equipment. So why should we take upon us this contraption that brings nothing but hard work, even if it belongs to the Lord?
Well, the last line of the gospel explains why. Jesus says: "For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” You see Christians are not exempt from the burdens and sufferings of this world. We too face illness and death, poverty and injustice, we are victims of man-made and natural disasters. The difference is that we face these sufferings while wearing the yoke of Christ, which comes with humility and hope, faith and love. For example although we get sick, suffer and die just like anybody else; we experience injustice, racism, murder, just like anybody else. But we do so in faith, hope and love, which are the yoke of Jesus.
Christian Life
My friends, like I said at the beginning, it is particularly during times of crisis that we need to hear reassuring words of comfort and hope. As Christians the one place we must turn to is the message of the gospel, not places that mislead us. It is the truth of the gospel that will set us free as Jesus tells us.
At the height of the COVID crisis, on March 27, Pope Francis celebrated a prayer service in an empty St. Peter's Square and Basilica. And in his homily he had two messages for us, one about our relationship with God and the other about our relationship with others.
First, he told us that a crisis like this one should help us our faith grow stronger rather grow weaker, because it lays bare our own pride and self-sufficiency. He prayed that this be the "time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others." And even as we work very hard to relieve suffering for example by taking necessary precautions or getting adequate medical care, we can comfort ourselves by the sure knowledge that our sufferings are only temporary. We know that what awaits us on the other side of this life is life with God for eternity. In fact, this might be a good time to remember that old devotional practice of joining our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ on the cross, to join them to his yoke as we carry ours, so that in some way, we contribute whatever little we have to the salvation of humankind. Our faith and hope in the Lord should carry us through whatever crisis we experience.
Secondly, the Pope told us that we must not think only about ourselves during times of crisis like this. We must be outward looking as well. He asked us to use this crisis to find "new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity” with each other. That is what Jesus teaches and that is how Jesus expects us to live. The Pope pointed to the medical, service and law enforcement personnel who have kept up serving their neighbours during this crisis, as of Jesus Christ, who washed the feet of his disciples. He also gave the example of fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers who are showing their children particularly through prayer and resilience, how to respond to a crisis like this one.
Conclusion
We are about to celebrate the Eucharist, the means of our salvation. The Eucharistic represents the death and resurrection of Jesus, his yoke. May this Eucharist send us out there to choose sacrifice over individualism, solidarity over prejudice, hospitality over hostility, fraternity over enmity, truth over lies, faith over doubt, hope over despair, love over hate.
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