Coffee With God

Reflection: Luke 12: 54-59

Today the Church celebrates the optional memoria of St. Pope John Paul II. To the students of Journalism, one of the first things taught is to develop a “Nose for news.” It is innate nature of humans to be inquisitive. But some are too nosey to know everything that happens in the neighbours’ house, but surprisingly, could be totally ignorant of what is happening inside their own houses. The Gospel presents a similar situation. Jesus confronts the crowd and challenges them: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky to predict the weather; but then, why do you not pay attention to interpret the signs of the times?” The contemporaries of Jesus fail to interpret his words and miracles as the sign that the kingdom of God has arrived. People would not accept the teachings of Jesus. They went into a denial, encouraged perhaps by the non-responsiveness of their own leaders. Ordinary people always looked up to their leaders for opinions and followed what the leaders suggested. To think independently was not common. People are more often swayed by what they want to believe than by how they read the evidence. Jesus was convinced that the Jewish leadership was dishonest – they knew the significance of the teachings of Jesus, but they behaved as if they didn’t know. That’s why Jesus calls them “hypocrites”. The problem was similar at the time of Luke’s community. Luke calls on them to recognise the presence of the Kingdom. The acknowledgement and recognition of Christ is hard to happen. Think of the present times where places that had been cradles of Christian faith in the past have turned into places that do away with even the name of God. In spite of knowing God as the author of life and the universe, the devil teaches the world that denying God is something fashionable. There is a tendency to destruction, war, hatred and division in us. It is the tendency that the enemy and destroyer of humanity – the devil – sows in our hearts. There is always the struggle between grace and sin, between the Lord who wants to save and pull us out of this temptation and the bad spirit that always throws us down. It’s important to know what’s going on inside of us. Gospel challenges us to evaluate the happenings around us and learn to discern what is good for us – good for our life in faith. Pope Francis suggests a few tips for us to go into that interior of us. He says, “Before the end of the day take two to three minutes to ask myself: what are the important things that happened today inside of me? Both the bad and good things …Who helped you do these things? Find out what is going on inside of us.