Sunday readings in brief: Mission Sunday (29th Sunday Year A)
Is 45:1.4-6; Ps 96; 1 Thes 1:1-5; Mt 22:15-21
“What is my mission?”
Dear friends, today is the 29th Sunday in Ordinary time, and the World Mission Sunday. The English Dictionary defines Mission as “a special assignment that is given to a person or a group of persons”. An assignment is a task that when fulfilled brings about the desired results. Today is World Mission Sunday a day when we are reminded of our mission as baptized people, that is, to bring Christ to all people around us, but also to remember and pray for all the missionaries working all over the world. Being a missionary myself, today is a day of reflection about my mission.
God did not create any human being accidently no matter the circumstances of his or her conception. All those who are conceived are conceived with a God-given mission to accomplish in the world once they are born. This can be ascertained by the fact that all of us even the unborn are unique. As far as we know, no one carries similar fingertips to anyone else ever born in this world. More importantly, for us Christians, by virtue of our Baptism, we have been made partakers of Christ’s mission to bring salvation to the world. The Late Pastor Myles Monroe wrote in his book Release Your Potential that all of us are born with a key to open a certain door in the world and if we die without opening that door, it will remain shut forever and the world will never see or benefit from what is inside. In other words, all of us are born with the potential to become what God designed us to be.
This means that no matter how unworthy we think others or we are we all have a mission to accomplish. Today we are all invited to evaluate and see whether we are carrying out the mission that God has given us in this world. Are you as a parent doing what a parent is supposed to do so that your children may grow according to God’s will? You the ministers of the Word of God and Sacraments, are you carrying out your mission diligently and with unwavering commitment that transforms life. You teachers are you giving the correct information to the students so that they can transform their lives. You service providers, do you exercise the duties of your career with dignity and respect for those you serve? You political leaders, do you care about the people you lead and use your position to bring peace, justice, and development to your people?
If you check right, your box then today is your day to celebrate being a true missionary. If your box is crossed, today is also your day to repent and start doing what you were sent to do in the world.
From the first reading, we hear how God used a foreign king Cyrus to liberate the same people he had taken captive. This tells us that God can use anyone, including our enemies to bring salvation to us. There is a Gospel song in Swahili that says “Anayekudharau siku moja atakusalimia kwa heshima” literally translates means “those who look down upon you will one day greet you with respect”. King Cyrus may not have realized that God was using him to bless the very people he had made suffer. People who hate you and say all kinds of lies about you may find themselves singing your praises without them knowing. Those who have made you lose hope may one day be the stepping-stone to your success. God will bless you through them. His blessing may come disguised. The people who pull you back and discourage you in your mission may not be bad at last, they help you to push harder and make your muscles strong. Those who are holding your legs as you climb may not be pulling you back but rather depending on you to climb. If you give up pushing and fall back, they too will fall.
In a rare tone, St. Paul praises the Church in Thessalonica for their steadfastness in faith. Paul expresses great respect to them because they had not only heard the Word of God but were also living it in virtue. Paul invites us not to be only the hearers of the Word of God but also doers. The Word of God we hear every Sunday is supposed to make us better people. It is we who need to allow the Word to transform us and make us better every day. If we don’t, we remain the same as the stones in the river which are forever dirty and slippery despite the river passing over them every day for many years.
In today’s Gospel, we see how the Pharisees joined forces with the Herodians, their colonizers and enemies to trap Jesus. They say a common mission may bring together even the worst of enemies. To accomplish their common goal of stopping the mission of Jesus, these sworn enemies joined hands. They schemed an almost perfect trap to catch Jesus. What they did not know was that their cleverness would only reach so far. First, they shower Jesus with compliments only to get his attention in order to trap him. Asking Jesus whether to pay taxes to Caesar was right or wrong; they thought they had cornered him with the intention to discredit either his messianic claim or risk offending the Roman authorities. If he said it was right, his fellow Jews who were enslaved by the Romans with heavy tax burdens would not be happy with him. A messiah was supposed to bring freedom to his people not to support the slave master. If he said it was wrong, they would report him to the authorities for inciting an upheaval against the government.
Just like Jesus, we too sometimes find ourselves cornered in our mission. People who have sold themselves to the devil will always try to trap us to stop us from carrying out our mission. These people are not strangers but people around us who without knowing have become agents of the devil. They change camps whenever it is convenient for them and their mission to destroy. They lay traps on our way to catch us with our words or actions so that they can discredit us. We could also be agents of the devil without knowing. The only way to know this is by evaluating our attitude towards other people who are trying to live their vocations in life. If you realize that other people’s good accomplishments, bring you sadness instead of joy, and jealousy instead of motivation, I can be sure that I am on the devil’s payroll.
In his answer, Jesus shows that human powers cannot be contrasted or engaged in any competition with God. “Whose image is this”? After all, everything that exists, belongs to God. Men have made monuments for themselves, which have nothing to do with God. Giving them back to them what belongs to them had nothing to do with Jesus’ mission. As a missionary, I have come to appreciate the fact that no mission can bear fruits unless the missionary is ready to be contradicted without giving up. The process of transforming people’s lives is slow and tedious. Only those who offer themselves as the instruments of the holy spirit in the mission bring positive change in the lives of the people. Otherwise, we may only be filling positions and consuming resources they did not lift a finger to source for them.
My dear brothers and sisters, we cannot mix the mission that God has given us with any of our earthly businesses and expect to please God. God’s mission ought to be the only mission we have in our lives. Trust me, God’s mission is all we need to have. If we have missions from someone else, then we cannot expect God’s help to accomplish them. God’s mission is always characterized by love and a quest for the common good as opposed to individual gains and fulfillment. As we celebrate this Mission Sunday, let us ask ourselves what God has given me to accomplish during my short stay here on earth. Let us be careful because the devil is always looking for agents to carry out his own mission of destruction, hatred, discouragement, and the like. Am I the God’s or devil’s agent?
Have a blessed Mission Sunday.
Fr. Lawrence Muthee, SVD
SVD JAMBO KENTAN 