HOMILY FOR THE 11TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR A.
THEME: All the Earth is Mine.
BY: Fr. Luke Ijezie
Exodus 19:2-6a
Resp. Psalm 100:1-2,3,5
Romans 5:6-11
Matthew 9:36–10:8
God owns us. We belong to him. The “we” here includes all creation. This is a fundamental message in the readings of this 11th Sunday of the liturgical year. Because we all belong to God, He does everything to keep us close to Him.
1. The special role of Israel as presented in the first reading from Exod 19:2-6a is not that she is the only nation or people that belongs to God. The text itself makes it clear in 19:5: “For all the earth is mine”. So Israel is not the only possession of Yahweh. Israel is rather chosen for a special mission as God’s special treasure, a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. Through her God’s salvation will reach the rest of creation. This is the best way to understand the text and Israel’s special election by God. Through Israel, God’s holiness and His shepherding care are made known and extended to all the earth. The psalmist of Psalm 100 invites all the earth to sing joyfully to the Lord because “He is our maker, we belong to Him. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture” (100:3). Here, the whole earth is regarded as the people of Yahweh. This is very instructive.
2. Because the whole world belongs to God, He does not hesitate in rescuing all from damnation. Paul addresses the issue in Rom 5:6-11 which is the second reading of today. God loved us so much as to send His Son to die for us even while we were still sinners. He did not save us because we loved Him but He saved us because He loved us with an everlasting love. It is a love beyond compare, to die even for those who oppose you. This Jesus did for us to prove God’s love. He has also left this to us as a model of loving, that is, loving all without discrimination. This is where the Christian religion becomes a great task: to love those who hate us and to even die for the sake of our adversaries. The point is that in Jesus God has made peace with the whole world. Our duty as Christ’s ambassadors is to announce to all that they are reconciled. This is to be done with love and in love.
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3. Because the whole world is the field of the apostolate, Jesus himself announces in the Gospel text from Matt 9:36-10:8 that the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. This means that the entire humanity constitutes the sheep to be brought back to God. It is a work that requires many labourers. The Christian missionaries are thus chosen to gather together the lost sheep.
4. What we learn from all these readings, specially, is that God loves every creature of His and invites us to bring the Good News to all. We have to bear in mind always that we Christians are not the only people of God. Rather, we long to His people, as the whole world belongs to Him as a single people. We must treat everyone as brother and sister since we all have the same God as Father and Owner. We belong to the same universal family of God.
May this thought through the abiding grace of God continue to guide our relationships and apostolates!
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