Happiness Sunday
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4; 14-21
This is good news at its peak, everywhere in the whole wide world – “Do not Weep! The Joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). For many people are hurting religiously, spiritually, relationally, economically and politically. Religious fanatics have overrun the Middle-East, Africa, Europe, North America and a vast swathes of Asia. Suicide boomers – god’s army – are readily available marauding human societies unleashing death sentences wherever they can. Spiritual exploitation of the rich and the poor alike continues on a daily basis in the name of God and Allah by different religious leaders. Not left out are demonic attacks, possessions and manipulations. Relational bankruptcy assails families, communities and nations. There isn’t even peace of heart, despite one’s wealth or poverty because relational problems cut across the divides. The economic foundations of most nations have reached rock bottom: global economy has taken such a severe beaten that economic theorists are at sea as to how to address the quagmire! Pre-election and post-election violence and strife inundate many a country today.
It is within the above context that God speaks to us today. If our generation thinks it has seen it all and is worst of compared with past generations or at least that we are in such a bad shape that we are driven to despair, then the readings of today, especial the sentence, “Do not Weep! The Joy of the Lord is your Strength,” is an awesome welcome news! Even for those who think that the situation is still good enough, today’s readings are yours as well because everyone needs to be happy, no matter each person’s circumstances in life. Here and now, God raises saviors of our religious, spiritual, relational, economic and political situations, like Nehemiah (a politician) and Ezra (a priest and intellectual), to restore us and our societies to a glorious future. You and I – intellectuals, politicians, religious men and women – are those saddled with the responsibility of transforming our societies. There is no blame game, there is no finger pointing: if it is good, it is thanks you and me; and, if it is bad, it no thanks to our collective failure.
Our first reading makes clear, from a historical perspective, that calamities affect all and sundry, no wonder the King of Judah, alongside the commoners and intelligentsia, were all deported to Babylon. Today, as the restoration of Judah dawns, politicians, commoners and religious persons are also available to celebrate it. The process of restoration, like that of calamity, requires that all hands be on deck because everyone has a stake in it, not excluding the passive and holy people of the society. It is always wrong to sit on the fence because the repercussion of non-engagement affects everyone. The return from the Babylonian captivity is, foremost, a lesson in social cohesion and mobilization for the common good by every member of the society. The mindset for every social change has to be motivated by a very strong sense of hope, the believe that things can change for the better, if we work at it conscientiously coupled with the respect for the rule of law.
“Do not Weep! The Joy of the Lord is your Strength” presupposes that “joy” is the panacea to an inglorious past, not despondency; that the past is not the enemy of the future but its catalyst. When “joy” is the “joy of the Lord,” it becomes a second chance, an opportunity to make the difference one seeks, even if it were lost in the past. The “strength” that comes from “joy,” is the guarantee that God is ever willing to work with human beings, irrespective of their moral woes, to build a better and prosperous future. “Do not weep” is the trust that with God everything is possible, including physical restoration and forgiveness of past failures. The admixture of political, religious and intellectual leadership of our first reading, working for the restoration of Judah, invites every human being to be a stakeholder in crafting their future and not be architects of doom.
Today, the Holy Spirit, through the gifts he offers to every human being, turns us all into the messengers of joy through the use to which we put our talents and gifts. According to our second reading, there is no human being without some gifts to be deployed towards the creation of happiness. “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” The discharge of your duties and mine are the recipes for happiness in societies.
In order to concretize the role of every human being in the project for peace and happiness in human societies, the example of Jesus is given to us, in today’s gospel. The mission of Christ, which our gospel confirms, is the inauguration of a new era and dawn – “the year of favor from the Lord”. Jesus comes to a people, right in the synagogue, who needed to hear that their situations are forever changed for the better: the sick, possessed, poor, etc. Jesus’ declaration, after reading the prophecy of Isaiah, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” is followed with healings, if we read beyond verse 31. “The era of favor from the Lord” literally means that it is Jesus who brings about this new state of affairs: it is a favor coming from the Lord. This ties in with our first reading where God is the one who gives joy – “The Joy of the Lord is your Strength”. Moreover, with the coming of Christ, according to Louw and Nina Lexicon, “begins the era in which the Lord bestows his favor”.
Jesus makes a conscious effort, in our gospel, to quote the prophecy of Isaiah and by so doing identify himself as a prophet because the powers of a prophet are not hereditary like those of kings and priests, they have their origins in the gifts of the Holy Spirit which God gives to all liberally. A prophet is everyone who uses the gifts he/she possesses to improve the lot of the human family. The more prophets we have, the more comprehensive are the gifts of God to us for a better society and qualitative living. Although Jesus is no longer physically present among us as he was 2000 years ago, human beings, through the gifts we possess, are the Jesuses that heal through our works and expertise, we are the Jesus that teach the knowledge required for the transformation of our human society, the politicians who are to make just laws and govern our societies, market women, parents, indeed, everybody who works, irrespective of the jobs they have. In fact, there is no profession that does not turn into a vocation and the power of God to transform the human society when one realizes and recognizes the fact that whatever abilities human beings have both come from God and are meant for the improvement of the human society.
A fundamental role of the Holy Spirit, in the lives of those who allow him to work in them, is surely like that in the life of Jesus – to bring happiness and good tidings to humanity. Here is the summary of the work of the Holy Spirit upon those he possesses: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor”. Everyone who brings good news is animated by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus goes ahead to enumerate what constitutes good news: “He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord”. Our service of our brothers and sisters constitute the source of their joy and ours as well.
Curiously, God, in Jesus Christ, the maker of time and the dweller of eternity, talks about time – “today”! He says, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” What about subsequent days, and days beyond the day he read the prophecy of Isaiah at the synagogue in Nazareth? The Spirit of God in you and me immortalizes that “day” and makes it continuous with every act of liberation and happiness each one of us performs. “Today,” your every good and prophetic word and deed guarantee the perenniality of God’s actions and the fulfillment of God’s prophecy through Isaiah as Jesus concretizes it in our gospel. Human actions, your deeds and mine, are transformed into the actions of God because he wants the fulfillment of his words through what you and I do. Go, spread joy abroad today!
Assignment for the Week:
Find somebody sad and try to make him/her happy.
Culled from 2019