Sunday Sermon@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!
Sunday, Third Week of Lent B (March 7/2021)
Your Daily Blessing: May God purify you and make you completely clean and holy. Amen.
Read Ex 20:1-17; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25; pray psalm 18.
NARRATION: Recently we saw a viral video of a priest in the United States raving mad about President Biden’s pathetic moral standing on abortion as a Catholic that now occupies the White House. He even indicted the bishops for their silence and indifference regarding those who claim to be Catholics but hardly follow any of her teachings. He then warned his parishioners who support abortion not to contribute a dime in the 10M dollars fundraising to build a new Church in his parish. After listening to him, you will understand what is called righteous anger and the real meaning of “cleansing the temple” (see the Gospel).
In today’s Gospel we see Jesus mad with anger to the point he made a whip with which he drove people from the temple. Ordinarily many of us are surprised that Jesus could be “angry”😀 (as if he is not truly human!).
The bible says, “he was like in all things but sin.” But the truth is that anger is a morally neutral emotion. Its moral value depends on what it was that made you angry. A saying goes that the stature of a man is discerned by what makes him angry. If he goes off his handle for every minor infraction, it could point to a moral lightweight. I know it is not good to be identified as “an angry man”. But we need to be angry for the right reasons.
Examples abound: In our context, we all need to be angry that our mothers, and daughters are raped and slaughtered in the farm or in their homes for no reason. We need to be mad that government of the day has looked away while herdsmen feed their cows the crops of poor hardworking villagers. We need to go berserk that our legislators have done nothing to help the people they represent at least to justify their humongous pay package. We need to be angry and protest on the street when we see pastors involve themselves in ritual killings all in the name of power or money. We need to be angry when we see little babies starved to death at the instance of the same pastors or men /women of God. The above examples have become common news items. We need to be angry that religion has been high jacked by some sick, avaricious and greedy people who have little or no idea what true worship of God entails. But Jesus was not just angry, he acted to change the situation. Therefore our anger avails nothing if we fail to act in order to change the narrative. Finally, we should remember that the true temple is inside of us. This lent, take a light and go around that inner temple, and purge it of anything that is unholy or unworthy of the dwelling place of God.
PRAYER: Loving Jesus, please help me see how I have misused the Church or defiled that inner temple you built by yourself. Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean.
No comments:
Post a Comment