CYCLE II: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 9TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (1)

CYCLE II: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 9TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: HERODIANS AND PHARISEES IN OUR MIDST!

BY: Fr. Ben Agbo

HOMILY: * 2 Peter 3: 12 – 18, Mk 12: 13 – 17.

Herodians and Pharisees were guilty of behavioral excesses and artificialities – vices that denied God his due respect and gave human beings (especially the leaders and the rich) undue praise and adulation. Flattery, sychophancy and hypocrisy were their trademarks. In today’s gospel Jesus sees a deadly combination of flattery and treachery in their hearts: ‘Seeing through their hypocrisy, he said to them….”Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”. Yes loyalty to authorities and loyalty to God can coexist together without conflict. You can tell a king the truth without being disloyal to him.

Today, we have so many Herodians and Pharisees in our midst all over our secular and ecclesiastical governmental positions. They tend to over honour the Emperor, President, Governors, Bishops, etc at the expense of telling them the sincere truth. It is such people for instance that kept telling our old confused President to continue running election and declare himself winner against all opposition even when the 3 things he set out to achieve have continued to nosedive under his feet; anti corruption fight, insecurity and economy. They have continued to support him to turn the Nigerian government into a Fulani owned government ( security wise, legislative, judiciary and everywhere) defying all federal character policies and declaring the Fulani herdsmen as “sacred cows” in Nigeria.

We must encourage everybody to eschew hypocrisy and live holy and saintly lives while we wait for the day of the Lord so that he will find you at peace. We must remain loyal to our leaders but remain more loyal to God by telling them the raw truth without insulting them or disobeying them especially in the Church of Christ. Let the “Pharisees and Herodians” in our midst kindly go and sit down somewhere!

May God bless you today!