For Everything That We Do, God Has The Final Say

Leviticus 25:1,8-17
Matthew 14:1-12

Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Today’s first reading is from the book of Leviticus, one of the original five books or scrolls of Moses written down for the Hebrew people. To most of us who are reading this passage , it is very threatening because God is making a demand from the people with great authority and power that might have been so threatening in our world today. From the text we have, God’s people are asked to set aside a special year, a jubilee year, every fifty years by which a social balance would be restored with both land and labor. Anyone then who had to sell themselves into slavery to provide for their needs and the needs of their family would be set free. More so, all lands which were bought or sold since the last Jubilee year would be returned to their ancestorial origins. In other words, the jubilee year was to wipe the slate clean allowing everyone the opportunity to start over and by implication, the socio-economic balance would have shifted leaving many living in unjust situations.

Such a request would be thrown off the window and will certainly not be accepted because we all have worked hard to get what we have attained. But from a bigger picture, what we truly believe to be ours is given to us by God. Our greed, ambitions, insecurity, and possessiveness lie to us proclaiming we “own” our possessions. We see, therefore, from the book of Leviticus and from the beginnings of the Bible God’s immense care for the poor.  With Earth’s population and density approximately eight billion people, we now have a whole lot more people to look after, care for, and to share with. 

While using the same words we use at every Eucharist as we thank God for the gifts of bread and wine. I invite you today to think about God’s request as was laid out in the instruction in Leviticus.  do you really need all of them stuffs you have now?  How many things are you attached to and how many are you actually going to take home to heaven with you? How people have you denied of some little acts of kindness, compassion and love?

John’s heroic life tragically ended as a victim of humanness, weakness, and sinfulness of King Herod. Herod was a petty ruler, the pawn of an unscrupulous wife; highly gullible. he allowed himself to become enraptured by the party-dancing of Herodias’ daughter to the point that he publicly promised her anything – even swearing regarding his intentions!  Would he had offered himself to be beheaded in his own sense of the word. All said and done, but all I know is that nothing on this planet earth or in the multiverse belongs entirely to us and at the end of our lives we shall give account to the one has the last line as He has signed at the end of today’s reading, “I, the LORD, am your God.”

Fr Joseph Osho