It is All About Freedom, the Clashes between Wisdom and Intelligence, Curse versus Blessing!
Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-27
How did curses come about, since the very first chapter of the first book of the Bible begins with creation and the exclusive presence of God’s “blessings” for his creatures? An enemy didn’t cause it, we did – you and I! How difficult is it to realize how blessed our countries are, especially Nigeria, yet we are incapable of enjoying peace and harmony; worse still, we couldn’t even pull off an election yesterday, Saturday, February 16, 2019! How annoying that building a wall of separation to the south of our border amounts to national emergency, when gun violence and death is just considered normal! When exiting the European Union is a sign of difference, and those working for commonality are seen as threat to identity! When the extermination of anglophones in Cameroon gets blind eyes turned to it, as long as western businesses go on unabated!
It is all about freedom, the clashes between wisdom and intelligence, curse versus blessing! Our first reading, Psalm 1 and gospel today make manifest that there are two paths in life, good and evil paths. The allegory of trees far away from sources of water, thereby languishing for want of water, and those on a river bank luxuriously growing up, set the stage for the understanding of the power of choices human beings make, and how they have to live and deal with the consequences of those choices. The choice or freedom to divorce oneself from God and create other gods for oneself is at the origin of the conflict between good and evil, wisdom and intelligence, curse and blessing.
Our first reading talks about the human decision to call the shots for itself, without regard to its maker; it is the decision to be master of oneself, an auto-creation of one’s destiny with absolute neglect of one’s creator. This is what Jeremiah and the author of Psalm 1 mean, they are not talking about trees but about human beings: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord”. It is pure robbery to take by force, what is not yours, to harvest where you’ve not planted. Yet, the experiences of colonialism, capitalism and military dominance have shown, in the words of Thrasymachus – that “might is right!”
God’s silence in the face of robbery and exploitation only reveals the power of freedom, the freedom to reject God. The flip side to this use of freedom is the invitation and creation of curses and the journey away from the “source of water” and sustenance – God himself. The exercise of freedom as the rejection of God is the calculated attempt at creating an alternative pathway, other than the blessings of creation by the Creator. It is fancifully called “intelligence” based on discovery and technological advancement. Yes, Africa was discovered, and Christopher Columbus discovered America; but no one asks how what is not already in existence could be discovered!
The very first beatitude of today’s gospel teaches us the reconciliation of the human divorce with its creator: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours”. “Poverty” here has nothing sociological about it. Human life on earth is meant to be dependence on God and the building of the “kingdom of God,” not human empire. “The kingdom of God is yours” is a declarative statement, that here and now, you are with God, should you accept dependence on God. It is attachment to God that makes one enjoy the fresh water of growth, the sign of blessing that our readings talk about.
Unfortunately, our reality today is comparable to the last beatitude of today’s gospel: “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” When the measurement for advancement is not the human anchor on its maker, the protection of life from inception to natural death, rather, when human achievements are signs and evidence of treading on the path away of evil. Yes, our technologies that promote legal division, robberies and conscious negation of God are inventions of curses and a show of human intelligence not the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is the acceptance of God’s plans for his creation and creatures. “Blessing” is the acceptance that God remain on the driver’s seat.
Of course, even human freedom will come to an end; human intelligence will meet its Waterloo someday: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”. The advancement in science and technology is yet to find the secret to death, it has not succeeded in averting it from the experiences of human beings. Indeed, human arrogance will come to an end, when all that we have invented cannot save us; when we are confronted with the distortion of Wisdom, the knowledge of God, and we are helpless! It is only when earthly successes lead to the resurrection from the dead that they are worth the trouble.
In all our show of strength and intelligence, let us be careful not to find ourselves outside of God’s kingdom. Let’s be careful of human platitudes which lack bearing on God’s wisdom. Let us seek God’s wisdom while our sojourn on earth lasts, because the resurrection from the dead is an exclusive reserve of those who are anchored in God, and not God’s divorcees!
Assignment for the Week:
Find time to take stock of your actions that are against “blessing” but on the side of “curses”!