Homily for July 12, 2018.
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16
From our Gospel passage yesterday, we can already see that the vocation of the labourer is truly not an easy road to take. It is even further compounded by the fact not God does not call the qualified. After asking that we pray to God to send labourers into the harvest, Jesus empowered the twelve disciples by giving them authority over unclean spirits, diseases and sicknesses but that wouldn’t be enough.
Dear friends, anointing without wisdom is like buying a race car and using to carry yams from the village farm to the market square through an untarred and unmarked bush path dotted by pot-holes. For us Christians to really labour for God, we must not depend only on prayer, we must match the world wisdom for wisdom. We must be as intelligent and smart as serpents but with a pure motive of the innocent dove.
In Luke 16:8, Jesus made a comment that “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” if this was true in the time of Jesus, it is even truer in our generation. To win a soul in this twenty-first century, one must be as creative in approach as the serpent did to Eve in the Garden of Eden.
The serpent did not come to Eve shouting, insulting or cursing, he did not come with miracles neither did it come claiming to be anything other than a concerned friend who wanted Eve to have something she never had before. The serpent did not say directly to Eve: “I want you to disobey God and be expelled from this garden.” The serpent came in a very subtle manner. For its gentleness and “trick-ishness,” Jesus accorded it the title: “wise.”
Today, we need to go beyond the traditional methods of evangelization. We need to devise and develop new ways of communicating the Gospel to a world that has virtually lost touch with the reality of God’s existence. In Nigeria my country, there are more churches than factories, more prayer houses than functional hospitals, more miracle-centres than educational facilities yet the level of societal vices obviously tell a very different story. Whatever it is we are doing with the sporadic multiplicity of churches, it appears to be not working!
Going further, Jesus warns us ahead of dangers to expect in the course of labouring for him. A person going to harvest cassava using the traditional methods and hope he or she would not sweat in the process is only joking. Too often the drive for comfort and luxury become great obstacles to the mission of pure grass root evangelization. We have seen many who began well but fell off along the line in a bid to establish earthly kingdoms or rather, in a bid to avoid persecution, in a bid to make the cross lighter.
Jesus told us we shall not find it easy but today, we want it easy by all means. Jesus told us we shall have to flee from one town to another but today, we are building mega-cities. Someone sent me a photo on WhatsApp recently with the image of Pete Edochie the popular Nollywood actor, and a write up saying: “Your Pastor has more than 10 armed bodyguards and you bought his sticker and placed on your door for him to protect you. My dear, you are the reason why Jesus wept!”
Let us Pray: Lord Jesus, give me the wisdom of serpents and the innocence of doves in order to labour rightly for your kingdom. Amen.
*Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. God bless you. (Thursday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time. Bible Study: Hosea 14:1-9, Psalm 51:3-17, Matthew 10:16-23).*
Fr. Abu
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