YOU SHALL NOT MOLEST OR OPPRESS AN ALIEN

HOMILY FOR THE 30^TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

A woman had told the story of how a man she called her husband molested her. It started with the man beating and insulting her, and telling her she had nowhere else to go. It came in the form of drugs he introduced to her and supplied her with to keep her from getting sick. Whenever he wants to force the woman to go against her own will, he would withhold the drugs until he got what he wanted. He constantly talked to her in a manner that made her constantly lose her self-esteem. She had a son who was got out of wedlock, and who the woman had tried not to disclose her past she considered shameful. This man would always threaten his wife whom he molested with this secret that if she resists him in whatever means he would disclose it to the boy; and that was the last thing the wife wanted. She had no one to lean on. She kept on managing.

The man also physically abused this young boy that he wondered if really he was his father. Due to the woman’s character which she swore to protect, she managed and covered these misdemeanours. This man would always portray himself to visitors as a quiet and gentle man that no one thought of him in that direction. These happenings led the boy to several suicidal attempts as a result of his health. He was diagnosed as having lobe epilepsy as a result of the trauma in the hands of his father. When the woman saw that she was about to lose her son, she was pushed to seek for help. She went out of herself, disregarding the shame she always had, disregarding the name she always protected, and went to a spiritual director and counsellor. She encountered God and her life and the Son’s life changed for good. Surely, the man had to face the law. How often do we suffer because we are silent, silenced by many forces, silenced by empty threats, silenced by the fear of the unknown and the fear of shame?

The First Reading (Exod. 22:20-26) of today starts with a clear assertive statement: you shall not molest or oppress an alien? It continued: you shall not wrong any widow or orphan. The question becomes: who is an alien, widow and orphan? Aliens are foreigners who live in the midst of Israel and enjoy certain rights. Since they do not enjoy full rights on a par with Israelites, they are often victims of oppression. And so, aliens are the people living more or less permanently in a community other than their own. Widows are the women who have lost their husbands. Orphans are the persons who have lost their parents. Hence, they can all be termed the weak members of the society. However and extensively too, the weak members of the society can also be persons who face one form of abuse or the other, those who have no one to report to or to hear them out, those who are under threat, those who suffer silently yet wish to come out from such, those who have been traumatized by one thing or the other.

There is a much larger way we can explain who an alien is, and this brings me to our lead story. An alien can be one excluded from certain privileges and opportunities and who has been denied certain rights. An alien can be one who has been estranged from realizing himself, suffers degeneration and inhuman treatment, and fearful to break the bonds that imprisons him/her. He dies slowly yet no one knows what he suffers within himself. He comes out and portrays that he is ok, yet goes inside and suffers insomnia. Many have lost their lives through such alienation. Indeed, many of us have suffered from various cases of molestation, oppression and abuses, and in such occasions, we become aliens to ourselves, aliens to our esteem, aliens to our vocation, aliens to our profession, aliens to our life aspirations, and aliens to our visions and ambitions. Many have fizzled out of existence as aliens to themselves not realizing their God-given potentials. It is true that a true Christian is one who loves everyone sincerely and does not support any form of molestation and abuse, neither does he/she practice it. But it is much truer that a truly strong and just society provides and cares more for its weakest members. Come to think of it what happens then when the Church participates in dealing with her weak members and inflicting pains on those whom she ought to fight to defend?

God hates oppression. There is a divine involvement in oppression. God makes an option for the poor. There is no double ways about it. God gives Israelites condition of allowing them dwell in the land of promise. In the oracle of Jeremiah 7:6, the Lord says to the people: if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place...then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. The Lord was hot on Israel in Ezekiel 22:7, the reason being that they treat father and mother with contempt, the sojourner suffers extortion in their hands, the fatherless and the widow are wronged. There are more strict laws in the Bible to ensure the protection of the poor. In Leviticus 19:10, the Lord instructs that the vineyard owners must not strip their yards bare neither must they gather the fallen grapes. These ones are t o be left for the poor and for the sojourner. In Deut. 24:14, there is an instruction never to oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns.

The divine involvement in oppression becomes harder if the person oppressed cries out to God. If ever you wrong them and they cry to me, I will surely hear their cry, my wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword, then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans (Exodus 22:23-24). That woman got her help because she went out of herself. When we cry out to God, he surely responds. In the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus asked a very direct question and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night? (Luke 18:7). The Psalmist confirms it in his psalmody: in my distress, I called upon the Lord, to my God I cried for help. From his temple, he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears (Psalm 18:6). When Job suffered and wanted to lose his feet, Elihu rebuked him and his three friends and reminded them of God’s way: that God hears the cry of the poor and the afflicted (Job 34:28). In Gen. 4:10, the voice of the poor Abel cried to the Lord from the ground, and he heard it.

What is it that can lead us to molestation and oppression others? It starts from our ego. It starts when we fail to control our thirst for self-importance. It starts when we see ourselves as gods to be worshiped. It starts when we see others as nothing. It starts when we forget that we too have our limitations and mistakes. It starts when we believe and convince ourselves that the whole world must revolve around us. It starts when we view our fellows as items for merely satisfying our pleasures. It starts when we see people around as instruments for massaging our ego. If we try to control the early beginnings, then we stand on a better plane to fight against the oppression of the poor, the strangers and the aliens; then will these cases of physical, emotional and sexual abuses rampart in our society be drastically reduced until they are ceremoniously annihilated.

The catalyst to enhance such control is LOVE. This is what Jesus summarized in the Gospel (Matt 22:34-40) as the greatest of all the commandments. It is dual: the love of God and the love of neighbour. Love must be derived from God and extended to man. One who loves God keeps his commandments. One who loves his neighbour does not molest or abuse him/her. Love is divine. Love does not molest, does not threaten, does not intimidate, does not bear grudges, does not frustrate. Love uplifts, saves, elevates and enlivens the spirit. We must dare to love. In love are many challenges. However, love anyway. One last thing: do well to use this week to apologize to that person whom you have molested, oppressed or abused. As you do this, may love accompany you and may this week be filled with love for you from God and from your neighbours. Amen. God bless you.