Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C: Jer 1:4-5,17-19; Ps 71:1-6,15,17; 1Corn 12:31-13:13; Lk 4:21-30
According to a report by organisation Persecution Relief, crimes against Christians increased by 60% from 2016 to 2019. And these attacks range from moral violence to psychological and physical violence. Examples abound.
A lady once told me how her fiancée insulted her and ended the relationship because she decided to stop sinning with him, and insisted they live uprightly by getting married. Another lady wasn’t offered job because she refused sex with her employer. In many places Christians are lynched and killed, with churches and religious objects desecrated, thereby causing many to live in fear and identity crisis.
And so I ask you: are you under attack? Are you persecuted because you’re a Christian? Or hated because you always stand for truth, righteousness and justice, and refuse to compromise? Are giving up or surrendering because the attacks are too much to bear, listen to me. Read slowly…
Jer 1:4-5,17-19
In the days of Josiah, the word of the Lord was addressed to me, saying:
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I have appointed you as prophet to the nations. ‘So now brace yourself for action. Stand up and tell them all I command you. Do not be dismayed at their presence, or in their presence I will make you dismayed.
‘I, for my part, today will make you into a fortified city, a pillar of iron, and a wall of bronze to confront all this land: the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests and the country people. They will fight against you but shall not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you –it is the Lord who speaks.’
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
1. Child of God, the bible passage you just read recalls the call of Jeremiah to the prophetic ministry- to be ‘a prophet to the nations’- at a time of great religious corruption in Israel. He was sent to correct the religious aberrations which has eaten deep into the fabric of society. Knowing the task before him, God promises to strengthen him (make him a fortified city, a pillar and a wall of bronze) because he would surely face attacks from those (religious leaders) benefiting from the corruption.
Jeremiah would be known as a prophet of doom because of his constant lamentations and condemnations. His mission would be described as ‘a successful failure’ because he succeeded in delivering God’s message, but his preaching fell on deaf ears and he was ridiculed, imprisoned, abducted and killed.
2. Today Jeremiah’s experience resounds our experience as Christians living in a world of religious decline and corruption. There are so many aberrations going on in and outside the body of Christ. Standing for the truth now is costly. Righteousness is now old fashioned! There’s persecution and attack on every side: from within and without. Why the so much confusions, you ask? Why does God permit his own to be victims of attack?
3. The attacks you face are willed and permitted by God. He says: they will fight against you but will not defeat you! That’s a certainty with promise attached. But for this promise to materialise, for you to conquer you must do two things:
a. Be courageous: the Lord tells Jeremiah ‘brace yourself for action‘ and Do not be dismayed at their presence! Why is your courage needed here? So that you would not entertain fears, because fear is a tool of manipulation and control.
b. Stand for the Truth (the Word of God): the Lord tells Jeremiah ‘Stand up and tell them all I command you’. You can’t conquer if you don’t stand on the indestructible quality of Truth rooted in the Word of God. Many things exists but not all endures or lasts forever. For this reason St Paul admonishes: ‘be ambitious for the higher gifts’, calling us to seek the things that lasts, and he identifies these things as Faith, Hope and Love!
TASK: Make up your mind to be brave in living out your Christian faith and beliefs: standing for the truth always in love. Remember the prophets did this and were attacked, Jesus did so and was attacked and killed also. Christians from time immemorial have been victimised but the faith lived on and the voice of the message was never silenced!
I pray and decree over you:
Have men conspired to attack and silence you? Listen: the Voice of God and the voice of prayers can never be silenced for the voice of God is full of power (Ps 29:2).
Have men decreed in secret to afflict you or lay snares for you?
Hear me the Word of God says in Lamentations 3:37: ‘Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?’
No weapons fashioned against you shall prosper in Jesus name. Amen.
They will fight against you but shall not overcome you, in Jesus name. Amen.
Yes, they shall gather, but not by the Lord and so they must scatter, in Jesus name. Amen.
Because the Lord is with you to deliver you.
