Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okami
1st Reading: Micah 2:1-5
If rich people steal the lands of others, their own land will fall to their captors
Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.
Therefore thus says the Lord: Now, I am devising against this family an evil from which you cannot remove your necks; and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be an evil time. On that day they shall take up a taunt song against you, and wail with bitter lamentation, and say, “We are utterly ruined; the Lord alters the inheritance of my people; how he removes it from me! Among our captors, he parcels out our fields.” Therefore you will have no one to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.
Gospel: Matthew 12:14-21
While Pharisees plot to kill him, Jesus goes on curing the sick, faithful to his calling
The Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, and he ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick until he brings justice to victory. And in his name, the Gentiles will hope.”
I want to begin this reflection by saying this prayer for you;
Anybody working against your progress, your success and happiness in life, the Lord of the host will rise against them. Amen.
Okay, maybe because I didn’t quote the Bible, Psalm 10:15 says “break the arms of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none.” The Lord will break the arms and strength of evildoers in Jesus’ name.
Good! Now I want to make my point. One of the problems we have is that we are quick to judge, pray and react without proper meditation.
In 2 Sam 12: 1-15, Nathan told David a parable, before the end of the Parable, David was angry and started pronouncing judgment not knowing that he was sentencing himself.
Most times we call God’s vengeance, God’s wrath, the fire of the Holy Ghost upon evildoers. Today, I want us to examine ourselves. Is there any way we also fit into the category of the wicked? Hope we are not even praying against ourselves, when God starts destroying the wicked, hope you won’t be among.
The first reading says “woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil upon their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it…
To this person God says evil is waiting for them from which they won’t be able to remove their necks…just as they have made others cry, they will also wail with bitter lamentation.
The gospel narrates how the Pharisees plotted against Jesus and planned to kill him because he cured a man with a withered hand on a Sabbath. Here lies the irony; they planned to do evil on a Sabbath day to the man who did good on a wrong day.
Dear friends, are you in this category?
Are you among those who use their wealth, power and influence to oppress and maltreat others and unjustly possess what is not theirs by right – land, title, contract, or position?
Are you among those who conspire to block the progress or blessing of another person and ensure he or she doesn’t rise?
Hope you are not among the accursed lecturers in school and bosses at work who pressurize their students and staff (respectively) to gratify their base desires before they can ever make a headway and as long as they refuse, they block their ways and make their fate miserable?
Are you among those who visit spiritualists and seek the ruin or harm of another on any ground whether vengeance or sheer malice?
Are you among the wives who maltreat, disrespect and oppress their husbands because they have been incapacitated by chronic illnesses?
Are you a man who treats your home with dishonour, frustrates your wife at home, emotionally disconnects from your children because of the Angel of destruction you have kept outside who ruins your destiny gradually with a ‘massage’ of misfortune and a romance that will end in your peril?
Are you one of those men who promise unsuspecting women heaven and earth just to have their ways, having satisfied themselves like Ammon in 2 Sam 13, you break their hearts or impregnates and run away as if you can escape divine justice? These are the reasons why many men are labouring under a curse of blood.
Are you a man who rapes, violates or corrupts the defenseless- your maid, your cook, your niece, the young girl who calls you ‘daddy’, you enjoy the funfair but your victim cries to heaven for vengeance and up till now you haven’t seen the handwriting on your wall- you need to look well.
Are you one of those who built their wealth and fortune by defrauding, cheating and crashing down the economic edifice of another?
Are you a pretty lady enjoying the care and wealth of a married man who has technically abandoned his family, broken his solemn oath before God in order to establish an explosive relationship with you?
Is their anyone under your manipulation up till this moment?
Are you a wicked boss, an unfriendly and intolerant master, indifferent and insensitive to the plight and misery of those around you?
Are you a wicked child? Defrauding your parents, deceiving them, torturing their emotion by indecent, immoral, arrogant and ungodly lives?
Dear friends, the mercy of God is still available and accessible, do not wait a bit longer, do not persevere in wickedness, do not wait for God’s wrath to overtake you, the punishment of wickedness always far outweighs the pleasure, one may enjoy the pleasure alone but the misery will always extend beyond one’s estimation even to the innocent.
If God should rise and punish the wicked, will you be among?
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okami at the Catholic Church of the Presentation, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria on Saturday, July 21, 2018