THE WORD AND HIS MISSION

WEDNESDAY, FOURTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 41:55-57, 42:5-7,17-24; Ps 33:2-3,10-11,18-19; Mt 10:1-7

The Mission to Our Brothers and Sisters

The word of God is God himself, and our reception of the word of God is the reception of God into our lives. Our lives are therefore altered by the divine gift of his word, for faith in the word of God admits us into his life. The gift of faith makes us attendants to the Word of God, the heavenly bridegroom, and fills our minds with divine light and our hearts with eternal gladness. Through these changes that God makes in our minds and hearts through His Word, He also enables us to testify to His presence and activity among us. The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees noticed the difference in the life of the apostles and disciples of the Son of Man and demanded to know why. The Lord aptly explained that it is due to the new wine they have received. New wine here refers to the Word of God they are attending to in faith. Thus, the apostles and disciples were invariably testifying to the presence of God and his kingdom. It is always the will of God for His word to reach everyone, and He uses human channels to spread His presence. When we receive his gifts in faith, they transform us into gifts to our brothers and sisters. As we explained yesterday, the mission starts with the reception of the gifts. God transforms us on the job by remaining open to the attraction of the word of God we have heard and received. So, we start as attendants to the bridegroom, but the destination of the transformation is to become the bride of the heavenly groom.

The Gospel today again tells us of the sending of the twelve apostles to preach the Gospel to the house of Israel. In the mission of the apostles limited to Israel, we understand two things. The first is that God’s gift of his Son to man is to fulfil the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as we have been reading from Genesis. Through the natural or biological progeny of Abraham, he extends his gift of heavenly blessings to all peoples and nations. Thus, God fulfilled his promise to Abraham both physically and spiritually. Saint Paul asserts that salvation came to the nations through the Jews. The second, which is more important to us, is that our first and immediate mission when we receive the heavenly gifts is to testify before our immediate family and friends. The mission to our family and friends, or kith and kin as used in old English, is demanding and requires our sincere commitment to the Lord. Because these people know us very well, we need every grace of God to make an impression on them. Our conviction and the modifications the heavenly gift of God’s word produces in us are also easily noticed by those closest to us. Hence, to see the familiar faces of the apostles, fishermen, zealots, tax collectors, etc, casting out demons and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven must have made a great impression on their people. To know that their association with the Son of Man produced such a transformation in them must have caused many people to come to Jesus Christ. The same would happen if we retain the words we hear and the mysteries we celebrate in the Church, and practice them in our families and workplaces. We must always bear in mind that God gave his word to transform us and others through us.

God gave Joseph spiritual gifts. He testified about these gifts before Jacob, his father, and his brothers. The testimonies and the dreams he had of being placed over them were not pleasant to them. Hence, they hated him and sold him as a slave to Egypt. Because Joseph was sincere in testifying with his gifts and the dreams he had, God protected him and guided him until his prophetic dreams came to fulfilment. All that God gave to him above his brothers was for their salvation and the salvation of many people. He was a channel and an instrument of God’s salvation for many peoples and nations. “When the whole country of Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharoah for bread. But Pharoah told all the Egyptians, ‘Go to Joseph and do what the tells you.’ There was famine all over the world.” Joseph sincerely testified to the gifts God gave him to his family. God used the hatred and persecution that followed his faithful witnessing to transform and prepare him for the role he was to play for the salvation of his family, people, and nations. “Israel’s sons with others making the same journey went to buy grain, for there was famine in the land of Canaan. It was Joseph, as the man in authority over the country, who sold the grain to all comers. So Joseph’s brothers went and bowed down before him. There faces touching the ground.” His dreams were fulfilled to the letter, for the word of God must come to pass. Let us not be dismayed when our families and friends hate us because we remained faithful to the word of God. The joy and gladness of the eternal City of God will be ours. “May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you.”

Let us pray: O God, your Only Begotten Son came among us as our brother that you may commence the work of our transformation into effective and efficient witnesses of your love and abiding presence, fill us with faith that will help us to abandon our sinful relations and proclaim the eternal gladness you have bestowed on us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.