Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are reminded of the responsibilities and the obligations that each one of us have received from the Lord, in our various vocations and callings, in whatever it is that God has called us to do with our lives. All of us have been entrusted by the Lord with various gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities, through which all of us can carry out God’s good works and proclaim His Good News in the midst of our communities and among our circle of friends and to all those whom we encounter in life. Each one of us are given the trust to do what we can with those gifts and abilities, to glorify God and to do His will, just as our Scripture passages today have told and reminded us.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis of the story of Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob who also known as Israel, and in this case, Joseph had been sold off by his own brothers who resented him for having dreamt of things that indicated that they would all bow down to him and subordinated themselves to him. Little did they all realise that Joseph had actually been blessed with the gift of vision from the Lord, a gift that God would make use of in guiding Joseph in preparing the path for them, for his whole family, to be safeguarded and provided for many years in the future, when great famine would rampage the whole known world back then.

Despite having been betrayed and sold off by his brothers to the slavers of Midian, and brough to Egypt against his will, Joseph was guided and protected by the Lord, who helped him in his hour of need, when he was imprisoned for having been falsely accused of impropriety by one of the Pharaoh’s officials named Potiphar, even though Joseph was innocent of the crime he was accused of. Joseph was freed from prison and given very important positions in the Egyptian kingdom after he managed to interpret correctly the dreams of the Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. God, Who has given Joseph the gift of dreams and the interpretation of dreams, helped Joseph to leave behind his difficult years of slavery behind, and to regain his honour, freedom and life back.

It is on the backdrop of these events that we heard of today’s first reading passage, that when the seven years of great famine came after seven years of great abundance just as what the Pharaoh’s dreams had foretold through Joseph’s interpretations, the whole family of Israel, the family of Jacob and his sons, suffered the same famine, and in the threat of being exterminated due to the adverse conditions, the brothers of Joseph came to the land of Egypt, doing exactly what they had been shown doing in the dream of the once young Joseph. Joseph tested his brothers and wanted to see their sincerity and in order to be reunited with his beloved younger brother, Benjamin, hence, Joseph, as the Regent of all Egypt and the second most powerful person in Egypt, arranged for the things to be carried out as they were.

In summary, after going through all these things and carrying out his plans, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and told them that everything that they had done, all were done in the end to fulfil God’s will. God sent Joseph ahead of his family, and all of his brothers, so that he could prepare the place for them in Egypt, a fact that none including Joseph himself could have known or foretold. We can clearly see through this example that God has always watched over us, and entrusted to us at the same time, the calling and the vocation, the responsibility and the charge to do what He wants us to do with our lives, in whatever opportunities and places, areas and circumstances that we have been placed in.

This is just like how the Lord Jesus in our Gospel passage today having sent out His disciples to carry out His works among the people, choosing twelve among all of them to be His chief disciples, as the Twelve Apostles, who were introduced to us all by name. Each and every one of them had been entrusted by the Lord with a certain mission, and later on, except for the traitor Judas Iscariot, they would go on to proclaim the truth and Good News of God in various places, in distant realms and facing many struggles and encountering successes both. Through them and their dedication, the Lord has performed many great and wonderful works, reaching out to many people throughout the world, revealing the salvation and love, and the many promises that He has always reassured His people, His faithful ones.

That is why today, all of us who have heard these words from the Scriptures and received these reminders from the Lord are all encouraged and exhorted to do what we can in order to follow the Lord to whatever and wherever that He is leading us towards. All of us have been entrusted with the various gifts, talents, opportunities and blessings from God, and it is now up to us whether we can make good use of all of them for the sake and for the good of everyone all around us, such that in everything which we say and do, we will always bring glory to God, and we will be good role models and inspiration for one another. We must remember that each one of us have the capacity for great and worthy things, as well as for wicked and vile things, and what matters is our choice and the decisions that we make, on whether we want to follow the Lord and obey His will, or whether we prefer to walk down the path of sin and disobedience against God.

Let us therefore spend some time today to discern our path going forward in life. Let us think carefully how we should carry on living our lives, in our every actions and works, in our every words and deeds, so that we will always strive to do God’s will at all and every possible opportunities. Let us all make good use of the talents, abilities and gifts, the many opportunities and blessings that we have been given that we may always be filled with God’s grace and love, and be ever closer to Him, worthy of His saving grace and Presence. May God bless our every good works and efforts, our every good endeavours for His greater glory. Amen.