Homily For The 6th Sunday In Ordinary Time Year B.

 

Leviticus 13:1-2. 44-46; Psalm 32:1-2.5.11; 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45.

“JESUS MY RESTORER!”

By: Rev. Fr. Charles Onyeka Ezejide.

·      Today, the Church celebrates the 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B. Today is the last Sunday before the season of Lent. Gradually we are putting ourselves in the mood to journey with the Lord for forty days in the desert; praying, fasting, and giving alms. 

·      As God’s children, from our busy schedule, we set aside at least Sundays as the day of the Lord and we come to worship him, thank him for past favours, and draw strength for new tasks and challenges.

·      Today the Lord wants us to reflect on the theme “Jesus my restorer”. He restores us to wholeness, he restores our lost glories, and he reinstates and integrates us into his belove family even when the world has robbed us of our dignity.

·      The first reading (Leviticus 13:1-2. 44-46), a seemingly weird passage to be found in the scriptures, gives us an insight into what lepers go through, the torture and the pain of separation from the human society which kills them faster even before leprosy itself.

·      There was a conspiracy of wickedness on how lepers are to be treated by society. At that point, the one who should be your friend and consoler - the Priest, is then the one who pronounces your “death” sentence and puts the leper in solitary confinement.

·      Friends in Christ, the lepers were dehumanized as if they deliberately chose to make themselves lepers. They were to stay in confinements, wear torn clothes, and even if they must move around, they must ring the bell announcing their arrival at any public place.

·      Dearly beloved in Christ, men and women created in the image and likeness of God were treated like animals and denied the company of the human community that could aid their recovery.

·      In the gospel reading (Mark 1:40-45), Jesus changes the narrative, he shows himself as the true high priest, not the one who discriminates but the one who unites, not the one who rejects, but one who is compassionate and restores, he carries our burdens and heal our diseases (Matt. 8:17).

·      He heals the leper in the gospel reading by breaking the barriers that have kept lepers and other humans away from each other. Jesus was not afraid because he possessed the power to heal and to make whole again.

·      Jesus extended to the leprous man a divine touch, a healing touch that restores and reintegrates. He restored the dignity that was lost by the solitary confinement and dehumanizing affronts heaped on him by members of human society. Jesus healed him true and true.

·      Dear friends, notice that the leprous man having suffered grievously, told himself that once he encountered Jesus his story would change. He waited on Jesus, begged him, and knelt before him to receive his healing. When Jesus saw his faith, he had compassion on him and healed him.

·      Jesus is not man, healing and restoration are his mission (Lk. 4:18), he freely granted the leprous man his request, and he made him whole again. He made him a human being again. The world may break us or hold us down, but we must go to Jesus to restore us to wholeness because he is our restorer!

·      Friends in Christ, we too must learn to constantly go to Jesus on our knees. We must have the requisite faith, believing that he will do for us whatever we ask him. We must also avoid the biggest kind of leprosy of sin. When we sin, we ostracise ourselves from the presence of God and the presence of man, we are not proud of our sinful deeds and so we hide from God and man (Gen. 3:10).

·      Jesus uses the same system that held lepers as unclean persons, dehumanizing them to reinstate them. He said to the leper, go and show yourself to the priest because only the priest had the power to declare him fit to mingle. We too must come out of our leprosy of sin and wickedness into the loving embrace of God, we must go to the priest and renounce our sins through sacramental confessions to be restored into the family of God.

·      In the second reading (1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1), St. Paul encourages us to be good Christians by trying to be at peace with all men and with God. We are encouraged to live a life that glorifies God. For the many times, we have segregated and discriminated against people, we must now renounce those moments and try to make amends.

·      The second reading charges us to be imitators of Christ. We should be helpers and not lepers. What will Christ do? Christ is the prince of peace, he is a God of justice, he is the friend of the poor, he is the friend and consoler of the sick, these are all and many more Christ expects of us as we imitate him.

·      The world is full of various kinds of leprosy threatening to hunt the children of God down, we must consistently remain in the community of God to be protected and defended. Hence, we must say like the Psalmist today “You are a hiding place for me, you surround me with cries of deliverance” (Ps. 32:7).

·      May the good Lord bless his word in our hearts through Christ our Lord, Amen!

·      Happy Sunday!!!