Readings: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21.
Grace, mercy and peace to you my dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. Today is the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.
On September 30, 2019, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter titled “Aperuit illis”, which establishes that “the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God.”
The Holy Father wants us to set time aside to ponder on the inexhaustible riches of the Word of God, which we often do not recognise or are too busy to pay attention to.
In the First Reading of today, the priest Ezra proclaimed and explained God’s Word from early morning until noon and the people stood in reverence and listened attentively. They were not moving up and down like some of us do today. They paid full attention.
They even wept because their hearts were opened and they pondered on what they had just heard. They wept because the Word of God is not a dead, dry letter. It is Spirit and life. (Responsorial Psalm). They wept because they understood the Word, it convicted them and they didn’t harden their hearts.
In the Gospel, we see Jesus functioning as a reader. He opened the scroll and read about Himself. On that day, the Reader was the Word; the Word made flesh read the Word made into a book. The listeners saw what they had always listened to. A mystery unfolded in their sight. Their eyes were fixed on Him (not on their cell phones)
As Catholics, we are encouraged to always pay attention when the Word of God is being proclaimed. At each Mass, we should ask ourselves: What have I heard, learnt, gained today? It is not enough to attend Mass; we must come as people coming to meet with, worship and hear from the Lord.
We are also to devote time to the study of God’s Word. Through God’s Word, we encounter the Lord. He speaks to us; we are purified, and we grow spiritually.
Let us also draw lessons from the portion of the scroll that Jesus read. He read the Prophecy of Isaiah (61:1-2), which announces the agenda, the mission, and the manifesto of the Messiah. On that day, Jesus read His own Manifesto. He read His purpose.
I. Jesus tells us about His mission. This is a mission He continues to carry out today. He has come to set free, to bring good news, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring God’s favour. For anyone here who feels as if they are in one captivity or the other – such as the captivity of guilt, self-hatred, despair, feeling unloved, the captivity of envy and bad temper, addiction, habitual sin, unforgiveness, bitterness, demonic manipulation – Jesus says He has come because of you, if you will come to Him, confess, repent of your sins and surrender to Him to set you free and help you to express life in a new and fuller way.
II. We have listened to the Manifesto of Jesus but what is our manifesto? What do we live for?
What difference do we want our existence to make in the lives of people and the world?
What is our life’s mission [mandate]?
These are questions for us today.
III. All of us, because we are united with Christ through Baptism, also share in His mission. His mission is the mission of the Church and we are the members of that Church. We may ask, in what ways are we sharing in this mission?
Better still, in what ways can we share in this mission?
What can we do to proclaim liberty to captives, to proclaim the good news, to set the oppressed free, to mediate God’s favour?
Lord, how would you want each of us to be part of this mission?
IV. In 2022, I preached on liberty to the captives. Today, perhaps we can look at proclaiming the Good News to the poor. Anyone who has no knowledge of the Lord or has no relationship with Him is poor.
What Good news are we called to proclaim to them?
•That God loves them with an absolute love and sent His Son to die for them.
•That Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
•That they matter to God and He longs to have a relationship with them.
•That the meaning, joy, peace, answers, love, truth, forgiveness/ mercy, deliverance and salvation they seek is in Jesus.
•That there is hope in life for them and an assurance of eternal life of joy in heaven through Jesus.
Let us join the pastoral mission of Jesus by first believing this Good News, by coming out of our shadows and caves of indifference and lack of evangelical zeal. Let us unroll our scrolls and proclaim Jesus as our Jubilee hope.
Sermon preached by Fr Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on January 26, 2028