Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B
Theme: Having An Extra Knowledge
By: Rev Fr Livinus Igbodekwe
Homily for Sunday September 12 2021
There are pieces of information that belong to common knowledge while others belong to uncommon knowledge. The public knowledge is called opinions while the deeper knowledge is called real knowledge. If common knowledge is enough there will be no need to go to school. We go to school to get the extra knowledge behind things we know in a common level. For instance, we know that rain falls but we may not know why and how it falls, and so on.
In the same token, there are pockets of information we don’t just get by scratching on the surface. For instance, the knowledge about God. “Deep calls unto deep” says Scripture. All about God is deep because God is mystery. The Jews had a common knowledge about the coming Messiah.
The messiah, according to their public knowledge, must descend from David, be a conquering king whose sword must force the enemies of his people to submit. But there is something deeper than that which they don’t appreciate – that the Messiah will suffer not only from his enemy-nations but from the hands of his own people. They will plough at his back, slap on his face and draw at his beard, yet he will remain unvengeful but calm and silent as a lamb. This picture is weird to a Jew even to the Rabbis. The extra information must be cracked open only by the light of the Spirit because only the Spirit knows the deep things of God. It took a Simon Peter to travel faster in the Spirit’s frequency to grab the extra information about Christ. And for this uncommon grace, he received an uncommon reward as the Rock upon which the Church of the Christ would stand strong.
The Second reading as well reminds us that faith does and requires “extra”. We all know our faith from our catechisms but not all live the faith. Living the faith is believing and living the extra – going the extra mile – to do something. Faith just doesn’t only command or say, faith does something. Jesus commends people whose faith he sees. Faith can be seen. It is a personal deed. It is seen in good works. The divorce of faith from good works kills faith itself. You can’t just tell someone to clothe well when you know he or she lacks clothing or tell him or her to feed well when you know he or she has no food. Faith says – give food; give cloth. That is faith in practice- a faith that is visible.
Dear friends in Christ, let us know the extra about our Lord and do the extra deeds that the faith we have in Him urges us to do.
Happy Sunday to you all!