Where is the World Heading to?

  In our first reading today, we are told Ezekiel was sent to the people of Israel who had rebelled against God to let them know there was a prophet among them. In the second reading St. Paul was assured of sufficient grace to overcome his weaknesses in his effort to preach and live out the gospel of Christ. In the gospel, we saw how Jesus was rejected by his own people because he told them the truth. Many of us have rebelled against God by committing sin. Some of us have rejected the words of the prophets sent to us by God to teach us about the truth. Our world today is going against God’s teaching. Instead of asking for God’s sufficient grace to help us overcome our weaknesses, we are asking for approval of our weaknesses.

Please do not get me wrong. I want to express and teach what we believe as Christians. And to explain the response of the Bishops as regards the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriage. The church is not in any way attacking anyone or rejecting anybody but just proclaiming what we believe and teach. The Church loves and welcomes everyone and at the same time has the mandate to teach us how to live according to the standard of God given us in the Bible. What we believe and teach comes from the Bible, the word of God. The Bible is the word of God and not the word of human beings, and so no people or government has the power to change it. The Bishops in their response said that the same constitution that has legalized same sex marriages protects the church’s right to carry on with her historic teaching regarding marriage as a sacrament and between a man and a woman.

In May this year, Ireland voted for same sex marriage, in June this year, the US Supreme Court voted for same sex marriage. I also read from the internet that adultery has been legalized in South Africa, that in Germany, their National Ethics Council has called for an end to criminalization of incest between siblings after examining the case of a man who had four children with his sister, and that in Japan, the court rules that adultery is ok if it’s for business purpose. Furthermore, I read somewhere that some people are also claiming right that, relationships between adults and minors should be legalized; and marriage between humans and animal should be legalized because that is their own sexual orientation too. Where is the world heading to for God sake?

Surely, the devil is at work and he is succeeding quite fast in turning things around in his favor. If God and the devil were to stand in for an election in the world today, God will lose the election to the devil because he has more followers. We see moral cases that have been known for ages to be sinful are being accepted and declared legal in our society today. People are now rejecting the natural way God design things to be and are now accepting what is unnatural. Someone said that there are no gay genes and that God created Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve. Another person said that even the devil who is the king of all evils was attracted to the nakedness of Eve and not Adam. How come you were born that way? When no one in your family was like that all these years, until now. I think after redefining marriage, the next thing to do is to redesign the human body parts to enable same sex couples to be able to give birth to their own children without adoption. Because, adoption of children by same sex couples, is denying those children the right to grow and benefit from the natural family of man and woman. We are only thinking of our own rights as adults, what about the children’s rights. We kill some of them in the womb in the name of choice, now we are denying them the right to a natural family and giving them wrong sexual orientation all for our selfish interest. We call the attitudes of Islamic extremists and dictators barbaric but we call gay relationship civilization.

All of these changes are done in the name of modernism and civilization. God is older than time itself and he is the same at all times and civilizations. Whatever was wrong in the past is still and will remain wrong forever. Whatever is sin is always sin no matter what you call it. The Bible forbids all kinds of evil including: Adultery, stealing, killing, cheating, false witnessing, injustice, incest, same sex relationship and many others. Remember legality is not the same as morality. Slavery is evil even though it was legal, abortion and euthanasia are evils even though they are legal, and same sex union is morally wrong even though it has been legalized. According to the standard of God in the Bible, all these are evil. The Church does not condemn anyone, but she calls all of us to repentance of our sins. The Church has no right or power to change anything in the Bible because it is God’s word. Christianity is not democracy where you vote for what you want and the majority wins.

The founding fathers of this nation said it is a nation created under God. In our currency, it is written, ‘’in God we trust.’’ We are no longer under God but above him and no longer trust God to rule our lives. Are we now telling God that he does not have the right to tell us how to live the life that he gave us? Are we saying that what people say is more important than what God said? Where is the supremacy and sovereignty of God in our lives? Are we now backing down from what we believe from the Bible because other people will be offended? Are we now accepting and making legal what the Bible forbid? Remember what Jesus Christ said, ‘’ if you deny me before people, I will also deny you before my father in heaven.’’ The apostles said to the government of their time that they will rather obey God than to obey men. Are we going to deny Jesus because we are afraid to offend people by expressing our faith?

The gospel today tells us how Jesus was disrespected by his own people because they knew his background. And because of that reason, he could not teach and perform miracles among his people like he had done in other places. And Jesus said, ‘’ a prophet is only despised in his own country, among his people.’’ This means, familiarity breeds contempt. Many of us are guilty just as the people at the time of Jesus. For instance, many cradle Catholics Christians take their faith for granted and are not committed like adult converts to the faith. It happens in marriages and family life as well, where members get familiar to each other and begin to disrespect one another. This often leads to crisis and division in a family. In the same way, when we get use to sin, we loss the sense of guilt and see sin as a normal way of life. That is exactly what is happening in our world today with the legalization of evil practices by various governments. We have become too familiar with God that we no long see him as the God who can direct our lives. And so we want to decide how to live our lives. We are making decisions and voting against the commandments of God. The gospel is meant to change the sinner. Not for the sinners to change the gospel to suit their sins. We are voting God out of our lives. Can we survive without God?

As Christians, we must remain firm in our faith and proclaim the teachings of God, the truth of the gospel and nothing else. We must stand on the side of God and his gospel and not what society said is acceptable moral conduct. Obedience must be to God and not to man. May God grant us the grace to be committed in proclaiming and living out his gospel truth.

FOUTHEEN SUNDAY 2015