TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2023
TUESDAY OF THE THIRTY FIRST WEEK OF THE ORDINARY TIME YEAR A
Romans 12:5-16
Luke 14:15-24
LIVING ABOVE GIVING UNNECESSARY EXCUSES
In life, God offers us great opportunities to excel, to draw closer to him, to be successful and to gain life and progress in life. But our short-sightedness, brings in reluctance, and sometimes outright rejections of God’s initiative and invitation. Consciously, we make excuses, adduce reasons and satisfy our selves with such reasons and excuses to our detriment sometimes.
The gospel of today presents another grave tendency of our human nature and something that we are fond of doing. Jesus tells a parable of the man who prepared a banquet and invited many. But people at the last hour began to make excuses, “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it; please, have me excused.’ “And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; please, have me excused.’ “And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. ’
The great point in his parable is that God chooses, calls, and invites us to a life of glory depicted by the banquet but we make unnecessary excuses. We reject God’s invitation, we object, we defile and prefer our own fate. The question to ask ourselves today is, is this gospel still relevant in our time today? That is, do we still make excuses for not attending God’s invitations?
Of course, Yes! And even now it is worse. And I will add that we make unnecessary and unfounded excuses even now. God’s invitations still abounds. He invites us to worship, Sunday Mass, to bible study, to catechism teachings, to prayer meetings, to conferences, to seminars, to love and show love to others, to be charitable, to forgive someone, to help out in a task, to lend a helping hand, to visit the sick, to pray for a brother or sister in need and all the host of others invitations. How many of them do we attend to?
Most times we falter, we refuse the invitation of God and we excuse ourselves. How cogent are those excuses before God?
When we actually check well why we falter, refuse God’s invitations and make excuses, we will discover that our motivations most times, or the reasons for our actions are nothing but so much attachment to self gains or self pride. We focus most times on ourselves, our comfort zone, our interests, our personal gains, ourselves. We reason that anything that removes us from our comfort zone, anything that demands our little sacrifice, or that tasks our efforts is resisted, and removed from the scheme of our lives. We become self conceited, self enveloped, and selfish.
Against these, the first reading calls our attention to the ideals that endears us to answer God’s call. It is precisely service, humility and recognition of our gifts and willingness to use our gifts for the service of others. These are the underlining virtues that help us answer God’s invitation.
Saint Paul therefore offers us pockets of advise on how to avoid excuses by telling us: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practise hospitality.”
Our resolve to avoiding offering excuses when God calls is therefore enhance by practically engaging in good works and thinking towards this line.
Lord Jesus, we try to evade you call by offering unnecessary excuses. Help us never again to offer excuses when you invite and call us to a task, a mission or to work for you. Grant us the docility of heart and to be able to grow above self, to love doing your work and to commit ourselves to the ideals of establishing and working for your kingdom through Christ our Lord.
Fr Norbert Uchuno
