Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings have a theme that many of us might not be able to discern from them. This theme is that mankind need to be able to put their trust in God, and trust in what God had planned for them, obeying and listening to His will even as we proceed with our daily life. This is what we can imply from today’s readings, as evidenced from the reading on the tale between Abraham and Ishmael in the first reading, and from the parable on the building of a house in the Gospel.

In the first reading, we heard about how Abraham, then named Abram, who was in a way desperate to have the heir which God had promised him and who was yet to come through his wife, Sarah, then named Sarai. Therefore they devised a shortcut to that matter, by the giving of Sarah’s slave named Hagar to Abraham as a wife, so that she might bore for the sake of Sarah and Abraham a son.

In order to understand this practice, we must understand the customs at that time. It was commonplace at that time for a man to take more than one wife, and it was also common that a woman gave her slave to her husband so that her slave might act as a proxy to produce a child for her, if she was childless or unable to provide a son and heir. The son or child born to the slave would then be legally the son or child of the woman and not that of the slave.

This is the way of the world designed to solve the problem of inheritance and other things, but certainly as we can see, what Abraham and Sarah had done, was because they did not completely trust in the promises of God, which He would do through Sarah, when she was already old and beyond child-bearing age, she would bear a child, the promised son, whom we later know to be Isaac.

We may think that Abraham and Sarah were being disobedient and sinful by doing what they have done, in the matter of Hagar and Ishmael, but in fact, they were after all still human beings and not superhumans, and therefore they were still prone to making mistakes and sin. And God did not punish them, nor did He punish Hagar and Ishmael for what had happened, but instead, He showed forth His mercy and let the son to live and blessed him.

In the Gospel today, all these can be linked clearly to what Jesus had told His disciples and the people, using His parable on a man building his house on a firm rock foundations, and another who builds his house on a shaky foundation of sand. If we truly hear the word of God, believe in it and place it firmly in our hearts and minds, fully believing in Him and trusting in Him, then certainly we will not be shaken.

Those who trust in God are like those whose house are built on firm foundation of rock, unshakeable and firm even in the midst of the greatest challenge and disaster. God will not abandon them, and He will remain ever faithful. We can indeed trust in the love and protection of God, and God will never fail us. On the other hand, those who trust in men are like those who built their houses on shaky foundation of sand.

If we look at the case of Abraham and his sons, we would know that after Ishmael was born through Hagar by the shortcut which he took, Isaac the promised son would be born through Sarah, which was the concrete sign of God’s everlasting faithfulness and His firm steadfastness to His promises. And conflict soon arose between the two sons, and the conflicting parties, and ended up with the exile of both Hagar and Ishmael.

This conflict is a reminder that human affairs and depending on human power is not something that will bring about true stability and firmness, and as we know by human nature, it is inevitable for mankind to turn against one another in such situations, bringing much sorrow and divisions. Is this the path that we want? Certainly not.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, what today’s readings teach us is that, all of us ought to heed what Jesus had said to us, and whatever He had taught us through His disciples and through what we have received through the Gospels and the teachings of the Church. Let us all put our trust in God and not in the feeble power of men. For God’s strength is everlasting while the power of man is just temporary.

May Almighty God bless all of us, strengthen our faith in Him and give us all the courage to trust in Him and therefore receive from Him the gift of everlasting life. Amen.