Bible Reading: Romans 5:12, 15, 17-21; Psalm 40; Luke 12:35-38
In today’s Gospel, Jesus exhorted His disciples to always be set, to be awake, to be prepared, to have their lamps lit, to be ready for action. In this context, He specifically told them to be ready for the return of the Master, just as servants who are waiting for the return of their masters.
Today, let us reflect on the theme of being ready, being set, being prepared.
Quite often when we have an agreement with someone, for instance, an agreement to go somewhere or start something, when it is time, we often say “we are not ready, we are still preparing, we are not set yet.” People are late for work, miss their trains or appointments, people come characteristically late to Church because they are not ready when they should be.
At a very practical level, the Gospel of today reminds us to always be very disciplined with our management of time and be ready in time for whatever we need to be set for. A sign of an undisciplined life is to always be late and stressed for time.
At a deeper level, I want to call our attention to three things we should always be ready for.
I. We must always be ready to witness to Jesus.
We must never say we are not prepared or ready to talk about Jesus, to explain our faith or share the Gospel with others. We must always be set, ready and prepared for this and embrace every opportunity to do this (1Peter 3:15).
II. We must always be set, awake and ready to resist the temptation to sin, to compromise, to conform to the world, to disobey God even in small matters.
We must never be caught unawares. The First Reading tells us that through one man’s carelessness, the whole of humanity fell. We must be careful of moments of carelessness. We ought to be awake, sensitive, discerning and on our guard.
III. We must always be ready to give an account of our lives.
We must be in a state of constant readiness to stand before God to render an account of how we have lived. We may not get an immediate warning when it is our turn. However, every day we live is an advanced warning to us. Hence, it is a great risk when each day, we are hoping it won’t be today because we are not ready, because our account is not yet balanced and is still very questionable. Let us make up our minds to set our lives’ record straight and put things right with God and be ready because we may think it is not soon but it may be sooner than we think.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on October 19, 2021