Sermon: Having invested in man his image and likeness God will not abandon the work of his hands

The theme of the thirty-first Sunday whose readings are Wisdom 11:22-12:2; Psalm 145; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10, tells us how God expresses his love for man through mercy. In his dealing with man, God untiringly draws man back to him whenever he goes astray. He does this through a loving correction which betrays man’s understanding without claiming his due possession of man, but giving him freedom. Hence the readings present God’s love for what he has created as a redemptive love through mercy. There are two factors which are very interesting as man contemplates God’s love for him. God being absolutely transcendent, infinitely above all that he has created, man at times fears that God may despise what he has made as unworthy of his attention. That is why man feels so consoled when he discovers how God takes interest in each creature in his providence. His attention to man, whom he has loved so much as to make him in his image and likeness, makes man feel uneasy as the psalmist tell us: “O Lord, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them?” (Ps.144:3) And man has reason to wonder at his situation before God. The human person is destined to eternal happiness in God’s plan. But man having the freedom to choose life or death he often rebels against God through sin. But God without bypassing man’s freedom continues to guide him toward eternity. Thanks to his divine pedagogy, God seeks for an opportunity to attract man to opt for love instead of egoism. Obviously, God’s love for us his estranged creation is self-abasing. It is graphically depicted in the sacrifice he made on our behalf. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). As the head of all things, he humbled himself in such a way that the human mind couldn’t even bare the thought of it. It is therefore in front of such a great challenge that man has found himself generation after generation. All along, man has tried to respond in faith trying to hear the inner voice of God, and hopefully accepting the friendship that he offers. As for our generation, we look at faith as a personal adherence to God and a free assent to all that God has revealed. It has come to our mind that we must entrust ourselves fully to God; since we find it different from any faith we place in a human person. Our faith is in God alone. It is a gift offered to us by God. Whether it is heard from the Church, or from a burning bush, or in a still, small breeze, faith is pure gift. With this gift of faith, God opens a dialogue within us. Our faith invites a deeper discourse with God. Such a conversation did not end with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Everything under the sun was created by God and tell the story of its creator, all that exist therefore, can lead us closer to God during our earthly search for God. St. Augustine seems to tell us that it is a long journey in his book Confessions Vol.1: ‘Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.’ Since God’s love has been made known to us, it’s up to every individual to either pursue a personal relationship with God or else reject him outright. The only barrier between us and God’s love is our own freewill. “Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it’s up to him and only him to decide which he wants to be.” Says the novelist Ayn Rand. Given the reality we live in today, it is obvious that, our reason leads many to denigrate and try to even eliminate the importance of spirit, dismissing emotions as mere psychological phenomena. And that reinforces the sense of hopelessness and despair that drive people to fanaticism. When this happens the ideology fills peoples’ spiritual and emotional needs. Unfortunately, this make people think that they have the right way of understanding the world. Such people are hard to change. Consequently, we are entering a new era often called post-modern at crossroads. While we’ve developed technologies and our facilities of reason and rational thought, we have yet to truly address the question of meaning and humanity. It is true that reason may lead us to post-modernism, and scepticism, but these do not answer still the question central to our humanity. What sense and meaning does it have? The French philosopher Joseph De Maistre gives us a peace of advice: we have to get the fact that we are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. This will help us to understand our position in the most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things; as free human beings who must value the divine guidance. Ends