If You Want to Make Heaven, Become a Child!
Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37
Election fever envelops many countries at the present time, whether they be Nigeria, Canada, United States or Cameroon. Heavy campaigns and character assassinations are going on, but the future of the human person, as a religious being with an immortal soul, doesn’t make it to the list of priorities in the various manifestos one sees. What matters is economics and power, power at all costs, and money in whatever way possible. In an election year, even God is up for sale because churches and church goers are not spared the rhetoric of money and conscience manipulation: conservatives against progressives, plutocrats’ money versus poor people’s votes, the war of the genders against media propaganda, everything is skewed on human ideologies! Interestingly, children’s voices are not heard in all these, yet they too are human beings!
Our first reading provides the important lesson for imitating a child – innocence! The plotters of the destruction of the virtuous and righteous of our first reading are adult, especially adults who have run amok, otherwise, why should the death of anyone, not least that of the righteous be pleasurable to someone? Well, citizens of Nigeria, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo can give first hand testimonies to such senseless kills on daily basis. That people sit to plan the elimination of other human beings, just to ridicule the hope of the righteous, beats the imagination hollow! Jesus juxtaposes this cold-blooded-assassination plot with the innocence of a child who simple seeks to live and be happy.
This Sunday, Jesus makes a case for the relevance of becoming a child if any society must be virtuous and realize the true meaning of life as a journey to God and not away from God. A child, as far as Jesus is concerned, teaches everyone the wisdom of living on earth because a child has no political ambitions, no gender preference because it was born with a gender and doesn’t need to fabricate one, and is receptive to whatever formation available, preferably the acquisition of wisdom: a child is a receptacle for wisdom not for abuse of its humanity. But why the example of a child, because “Wisdom” leads to God, and human plots are against God! An illustration with a GPS machine helps, I suppose.
For traveling purposes, GPS is a useful tool to have: it helps one to navigate one’s path to one’s programmed destination. God has a destination (Heaven) in view for human beings, and WISDOM is God’s GPS for attaining God’s programmed destination – Heaven. The book of Wisdom, our first reading, presents life as a communal journey which needs its own guide/GPS – Wisdom. It grapples with the question of the meaning of Wisdom – is Wisdom human customs and traditions or the Torah (the Law of God)? The just man is the subject of attack because “he reproaches us [the unjust] for transgressions of the Torah [God’s Law]” (Wisdom 2:12). This is a polarized society, one group (unjust) invents its own guide for life – injustice, the other (just) has God’s Law as its guide. The decider of where Wisdom is located is the weapon of the unjust – capital punishment meted out to the just-one; why? because he claims that another life (Heaven) awaits him – “according to his words, God will take care of him” (Wisdom 2:20). What an irony – the killer of the just-one does not realize that he will also die some day!
On the one hand, Jesus justifies to the destiny and claim of the just-one (first reading) when he says: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again” (Mar 9:31): death is only a step towards a resurrection – dying to rise again. The disciples of Jesus, on the other hand, prefer the glamour (GPS) of life to the discourse on death and resurrection – “for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest” (Mar 9:34).
A preoccupation with earthly glory blinds one to true Wisdom – God’s Law! This is the case in the first reading, the commandments of God is so inconveniencing that it is better to eliminate the keepers of God’s commandments – the just-ones. It is certainly the case in the gospel, Jesus’ disciples worry more about greatness instead of God’s will for their lives. James, in the second reading, provides us with a silver bullet, a recipe for social ills – “Wisdom” as God’s Law!
“For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind” (Jam 3:16). The rejection of Wisdom – God’s Law – is the origin of all evils. Disdain for God’s commandments offer the devil a fertile ground to breed evil, not only in human hearts but in the society as well: “[t]hose conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1-2).
The havoc wrecked by the unjust (first reading) will eventually ask for your head and mine, if we do nothing: we already see it in legal abortions, divorces, euthanasia, same-sex unions, economic wars, etc. No one knows which laws will be passed tomorrow, but your courage and mine can bring some sanity to our world, when we oppose sin and crime! In preparations for elections, in daily decisions and choices, you and I must make a difference by being on the side of God, and not the world! According to St. James, “[s]uch [legal] wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish” (James 3:15). Here is what we gain when God’s Law reigns supreme: “the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (James 3:17). This is what it means to become a child – wisdom!
Assignment for the Week
Can you stand up for your faith, even if your head is asked for this week? Maybe a simple sign of the cross in public? Refraining from swearing for the week? Give up pornography and substance for the week? Make God’s Wisdom real in some way this week!