TO BE TRAINED IN THE HANDS OF JESUS

We are in the twelfth Sunday of ordinary time. Today’s gospel is about Jesus’ personal instruction to the apostles. In His instruction Jesus encourages the apostles to be courageous in proclaiming the gospel. In the three years of His active ministry on earth, Jesus taught many things privately to his disciples especially to the apostles. Jesus was unveiling the mystery of God’s salvation plan to them through His private instruction to His disciples. The mystery of God’s salvation plan (i.e. as sin and death entered the world through one man Adam, Grace and life flowed to the world through one man Jesus) is beautifully explained by St. Paul in today’s second reading Rom 5:12-15. The apostles and the disciples would bear witness to this after the resurrection of Jesus. It is they who take this good news of God’s salvation plan that is accomplished Jesus to the whole world. Therefore, they need to be trained, formed and tamed meticulously. Jesus as their master trains them through His instruction. To say it in today’s language; it was like Jesus forming the seminarians, the future priests and bishops. Whatever they hear from and see in Jesus now in a closed room or in a private circle should proclaim them from the housetops and in the streets to bear witness to Him (Mt 10:27). When they do this they should be bold enough, to confront the liars and the haters of truth because what they proclaim is a truth.

The opponents of truth will give trouble to the truth seekers, but will not dare to strike them at once. They always try to find some loopholes from the side of honest man to bring disgrace thus lead them to their fall. This is what exactly happened to prophet Jeremiah. In the first reading, Jeremiah is saying to Yahweh that his own friends who enjoyed his company are seeking his downfall by patiently waiting to find error in him (Jer 20:10). The truth that Jeremiah proclaimed was not receptive even to his own friends. They want to denounce him. But Jeremiah places his trust in Yahweh that his friends who turned to be enemies would never succeed in their plan, they will stumble and fall because he considered this moment of trial as a test from Yahweh to show his uprightness and faithfulness to Him.

In today’s world the truths are spoken only in closed rooms and honest people are placed in the margins of the society. The media that supposed to be the light to world by revealing the truth are now succumbed to lies and corruption. The voice of the upright are shut. The message that we can draw from Jesus today is to be courageous to proclaim truth in an open circle. We need to bring forth the honest people to the centre of the society. Above all we need to be agents of truth, prior to which we need to be formed, trained and tamed by Jesus. Let us place ourselves in the hands of Jesus to be trained in His values so that, we may proclaim those values not only in word but also in deed. When faced with trial seek the assistance of the Lord to confront them as a test from the Lord.