DAILY HOMILIES #collaboration

Like these workers in the vineyard, what separates us from each other is unimportant. There is no need to look down on anyone or take anyone to be a god because even if it seems we are better or worse than others, we are all equal before God. Jesus has said it all: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”

As ministers of God, we must preach with the examples of our lives. Until we cease to be beneficiaries of corruption like Amaziah, the priest, we cannot speak truth to power. Until we practice the detachment Jesus recommends, no one will take our sermons or communiques seriously. As St. Paul says in today’s second reading, we have been called “to be holy and spotless”, not necessarily to make it big in life. Let us repent from worshipping money, whether as ministers or laity. Let us return to practising the Gospel values and apply poverty of spirit.

The essence of the Christian life is COLLABORATION, not COMPETITION. Why engage in a fight with someone who in a few years from now would become dust just like you under the ground? What is the point of boasting or treating people like garbage when we do not know what tomorrow holds?

“Who is God? He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Seek no further concerning God; for those who wish to know the great deep must first review the natural world. For knowledge of the Trinity is properly likened to the depths of the Sea, according to that saying of the Sage: And the great deep, who shall fathom it? Since, just as the depth of the sea is invisible to human sight, even so, the godhead of the Trinity is found to be unknowable by human senses.” There is no way I can explain how there are three persons in just one God in a way that you will understand. So instead of attempting to explain, I can tell you why it is impossible to explain: God is greater than what our human brain can carry. Before attempting to understand God, believe first. God is one, yet He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our Psalmist today sings: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name through all the earth.”

Like the workers who were recruited for work in the vineyard at different times of the day, we are not all gifted the same way, we were not all born the same day, and we did not come to know God the same day. However, in the end, we all shall be rewarded not according to how much work we have done but according to what is rightfully our due.

We cannot preach a united Nigeria on our pulpits if we as men and women of God cannot see eye to eye. We must kill our pride lest it tears us apart. Jesus said it that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. We must stop fighting each other and begin to realize that as ministers of God, we can never be superior to one another. We are nothing but mere instruments before God.

Jesus sent them out two by two. As far as winning souls is concerned, no one ever succeeds alone.