11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) : Monday 17th June 2024

In reading 1 Kings, Ahab desired Naboth’s vineyard, but Naboth refused to give away his ancestral heritage. Jezebel orchestrated a scheme, leading to Naboth’s false accusation and stoning, allowing Ahab to seize the vineyard. The reading in the Gospel today seems to teach us to be passive pacifists. On the superficial  level, Jesus seems to be advocating to just give in to everyone who asks material favours from us and offer no resistance. Does this mean we just simply lie down and allow ourselves to be walked on like a doormat? We can certainly argue that we cannot be the aggressor.

However, if all that we can see is passivity to aggression, then we have not gone deeper. We see Jesus’ response is to save. The cross is to shame the aggressors of their act. We are in this world but not of this world. In other words, the things we have in this life are not permanent and therefore we should not cling to them. We learn to give things away without hesitation. This calls for a spirit of detachment.

Material things exist in so far as to help us in this pilgrimage of life but we should not allow them to hinder us on our journey to God. Only through the spirit of detachment can we truly free ourselves from the load that we are carrying and open ourselves up to the liberating spirit of God.

Lord, liberate us from the fear of going the extra mile.