Wednesday 19th week Year A By Tobe Eze

Wednesday 19^th week Year A

First Reading

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Gospel

Matthew 18:15-20

THEME: BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER.

Someone should tell me why Moses should not have cursed the people of Israel. He was on his own making effort to please the Lord and the sins of his people made him not to enter the Promised Land and still he did not complain. Why? When I was small, I went to someone’s farm in my village to get something for our goats to eat. When I was doing that, a fowl passed and out of children’s stupidity, I used my sickle to throw on the fowl and surprisingly the thing got the fowl and killed it. When the owner came out, after barking at me and every other thing, she said, if not because we are related, I would have dealt with you. She considered the relationship between us and pardoned me for my stupidity.

If I should relate the story above with the first reading, I think, it was because Moses knew that the people of Israel are still part of him that he kept quiet and did not complain and submitted to his fate. Sometimes we are meant to endure things because of the people involved. In my local dialect obu munyi munyi no nee ite ahu (it is only water that is boiling in the pot). If we are related, we should endure each other sometimes.

Looking at the gospel, since the first reading talked about enduring, if the person proves to be incorrigible, we should approach him/her for dialogue, if he/she persists, we can then involve others, if that did not solve it, we can involve the Church, if it does not work, then we should not kill the person but take the person as a gentile. Gentile does not mean you should see the person as a devil but the person who should be pitied and prayed for. We should pray for our relations for the mad person has no shame rather relations and blood is thicker than water. Thanks.