MORE THAN A SLAVE, A BROTHER!
-->
23rd Sunday Year C
September 8, 2013
MORE THAN A SLAVE, A BROTHER!
Today is a day of contrasts, tenderness, generosity, and
mercy. The Book of Wisdom (first reading) contrasts the ways of the Lord and
the ways of man. While we can fathom the “timid deliberations” of man, we
cannot that easily “conceive what the Lord intends.”
But although God’s ways are indeed, not like man’s ways, we
proclaimed the conviction of our faith together with tenderness right after the
first reading: “In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.”
But what does the conviction of faith in a God of mystery
and tenderness lead us to, we might ask? Let the second reading show us in
concrete … There goes Paul writing to Philemon, interceding with the same
tenderness of Christian charity, on behalf of Onesimus, once a slave, but now a
brother in the Lord.
I write from a place where I spent a great part of my
younger years, both as formand and formator, accompanying the young postulants
in their journey towards self-discovery for the nth time in my life as
formator. Many other groups have undergone the same process under my tutelage.
As I lead, I learn. As I foster growth, I grow, too. As I facilitate healing,
I, too, get healed. As I talk of transcendence, I, too, am gradually transformed.
As I talk about unfreedoms and other forms of interior slavery, I, too, become
like Onesimus, once upon a time a slave, but now a dear brother in the Lord.
The world is steeped now in myriad challenges. There is
trouble brewing in Syria which is not even a Christian country. There is
persecution going on everywhere where religious intolerance reigns supreme.
There, too, is a de facto brewing potential constitutional crisis in the
Philippines, brought about by revelations of massive corruption in the highest
echelons of government. The bigger crisis is not so much in corruption for that
is something we already knew was happening. It lies in the brazen lies and
denials and the cover-ups being done by the very same perpetrators, who are
hiding behind the intricacies of the law, to declare their “innocence” before a
people who by now already know better than to believe their shamefaced lies.
There is slavery of all kinds, even of the depraved kind.
Great crowds still continue to follow where the Lord leads, for we all long for
saving truth, and we all long to be delivered from these and other forms of
slaveries that bedevil us, individually and collectively. In the Philippine
context, although the Church has been and still is condemned for “meddling too
much in politics,” the reality remains that the great crowds still seek for
leadership, for guidance, for certain and strong and stable shepherding, to
lead our people out of this impasse of moral corruption. Many still condemn the
Church and hold her accountable for the rampant moral depravity in and out of
government, like as if the Church were responsible for what individuals in
government do.
Today, a day when we traditionally celebrate so tender a
feast day of so tender a Mother, Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of us all,
the Church continues to lead us. The Church calls us to be generous and reminds
us of two important things. First, we cannot be disciples of the Lord if we did
not know how to “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and
sisters.” Second, more than just freeing ourselves from natural affiliative
bonds of family, he counsels us even further generosity: “renounce all
possessions” as a precondition of discipleship.
Of course, we do not need to interpret all this literally.
But we do need to understand what it all means, what this generosity is all
about in the long run. And it is all about being free, not hindered, not bound
to, and not bogged down in earthly and material concerns. It all means not
being enslaved by anything material, anything that has to do with earthly human
bonds, including family bonds. It means being free from, so as to be free for.
Paul got it right. Philemon was getting it right, too.
Onesimus was once a slave, maybe even a slave to other stuff, and not just to
Onesimus. Paul declares him to be what we all already are, by baptism. By God’s
choice. By God’s call.
Let us be true to becoming what we already are. Let us be
tender in asking the Lord that we might become more of what He has already made
us to be. Let us be generous in our self-offering and even more generous in
giving up what we hold on to so dearly, so selfishly. Let us be true disciples
of mercy, instead of merely being crowds of mercenaries out to get what is best
for us from the wonder worker named Jesus.
For this is what He has mercifully given us … the reality
that we were “once slaves, but now brothers and sisters in the Lord!” What more
can we ask?
Comments