Reflection on Today’s Readings, Tuesday of 21st Week in Ordinary Time, Year I, and the Martyrdom of John the Baptist, August 29th, 2023
Texts: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Psalm 139:1-3,4-6; Matthew 23:23-26 

The challenge before us today is to answer the question, “who do I serve, God or man?” However, what we say does not matter, the answer is in the air. St. Paul shows us today what it means to Serve God. He reveals it in the first reading as the secret of his undaunted Spirit; it was the conviction that he was Serving God, not man.  He set his priority right. Opposition could not dampen his courage and determination because of his conviction that he was serving God. He teaches us to press forward in bad times and good times as one serves God. 

Paul’s conviction that he was serving God obliterated falsehood and deception and makes of him devotion to the truth. In his words: “For our appeal does not spring from error or uncleanness, nor is it made with guile; but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts.”  

God is a witness to the service to Him 

Serving God implies we are always before Him and He is seeing us; He is a witness to the service to Him. Paul’s understanding of this is clear in his words: “For we never used either words of flattery, as you know, or a cloak for greed, as God is witness; nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you or from others”. Do we have the same understanding? If we do, we will give up deception, flattery, uncleanness, vain glory and the likes.  

Some of us put on mask as if we are serving man. If no man sees us, we are satisfied. This is because we look at man as the witness, one whom we serve. The scribes and Pharisees fell into this category of people. Hence, Jesus rebuked them thus: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith”. He charged them thus: “You blind Pharisee! first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” 

O Lord, you search me and you know me

We know for sure that mask is nothing for God. Today’s Psalmist affirms it thus: “O Lord, you search me and you know me. You yourself know my resting and my rising; you discern my thoughts from afar. You mark when I walk or lie down; you know all my ways through and through. Before ever a word is on my tongue, you know it, O Lord, through and through. Behind and before, you besiege me”.
John the Baptist, whose memorial is today, is a testimony that serving God inspires devotion to the truth. John the Baptist committed himself to telling both low and high the truth. He finally died for telling the truth. He indeed believed he was serving God, not man. Opposition could not also dampen his spirit.  

Prayer 

O God, who willed that Saint John the Baptist should go ahead of your Son both in his birth and in his death, grant that, as he died a Martyr for truth and justice, we, too, may fight hard for the confession of what you teach. Amen (Collect) 

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke