Readings: Genesis 18:1-15; Resp: Luke 1; Matthew 8:5-17
The First Reading of Today narrates the story of the kindness of Abraham and Sarah to three divine visitors.
Kindness is also evident in the way God treated Abraham and Sarah. Abraham laughed when God renewed His promise some months before this particular encounter. Today, Sarah also laughed at God’s promise. One would expect that God would have revoked His promise but He didn’t. This is evidence of God’s kindness. He doesn’t treat us as we deserve.
In the Gospel, we have the story of a kind centurion who came to beg Jesus on behalf of his servant. The Roman law allowed a slave owner to treat slaves like property and even kill a slave who was ill and unable to function. This centurion loved his servant and was kind to him (the servant). He treated the servant as a human being with emotion, a story, a purpose, a human being deserving of love, respect and compassion.
Jesus showed kindness to this centurion by saying, “I will come myself and cure him.” He didn’t judge the centurion as an enemy but as a person in great need.
The episode gradually shifted from a display of kindness to a demonstration of great faith – an uncommon faith that astonished even Jesus.
Today, let us just meditate on the virtue of kindness.
Our world is full of people who are unkind, cruel, brutal, heartless, gloomy and mean, people who lack compassion and treat others with disdain, people who laugh at others, judge and mock others in distress, people who refuse to lend a helping help and withdraw a friendly smile from others.
Let us ask ourselves, “How kind are we to others, to strangers, to people who are different from us, to members of our family, to people who serve us, to people who attend to us, to people who we meet every day, to people we work with, to people we live with, to people who are below us in rank and status?”
Holy Spirit, teach us how to make the world better by just being kind to people, without discrimination.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on July 1, 2023