Mission Sunday

Isaiah 45:1.4-6

Psalm 96:1 and 3.4-5. 7-8.9-10a and c (R. 7b)

1 Thessalonians 1:1-5b

Matthew 22:15-21

HOMAGE TO THE ONLY GOD

Last Week Sunday, we were offered God's food, fats and blood for our Salvation. We were invited to a life of transformation where we become the transforming smoke of the fats which where burned during the Communion Sacrifice (cf. Leviticus 3).

Today is Mission Sunday, and today are Mission is to give homage to the only true God. Pope Francis in his Message for the Mission Sunday says;

Mission is a free and Conscious response to God's Call.

Today we are called to Listen to the Call to Mission. We are to realize that God can choose and call even foreigners to be Messiahs for us. With this we must realize that God is indeed the only God and there is no other god. Today's first reading which is Isaiah 45:5 and 1 Corinthians 8:4 makes it clear.

Isaiah 45:5
“I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me;

And

1 Corinthians 8:4
"Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.

Indeed besides him who is our God, there is no god. In our God we see our Mission. We serve a Triune God. Only one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

It is in the Trinity that our Mission begins. God the Father who is the Creator of everything called everything into existence through his Word, God the Son. The Father is always Calling, He is calling you and me, he calls us into existence, into Salvation.

Now as the Father Calls, his Word who is eternally begotten is been sent, God the Son is always responding to the Call of God the Father. It is through the Word ,God the Son, that all that are in existence responded to the Call of God the Father.

So as the Father calls out of Love and the Son responses with Love, the Breath of Love who proceeds from the Father and the Son, inspires. In short, the life of the Mission.

As the Father Calls and the Son is been Sent and he responds, the Holy Spirit as the eternal Love existing between the eternal Lover (God the Father) and his eternal Beloved (God the Son), becomes the life of the Mission and God is hence identified as Love. This is what the Mission of God is all about.

So in the First Reading, God spreads his Love to even a foreign King know as Cyrus who did not even know him who is the only God. He chose Cyrus as his Messiah for Israelites his beloved who where in exile at Babylon.

Cyrus does not know God, Cyrus, the outsider of the religious people Israel did not know that there is a God, like, God, but God chooses him for his mission. Even if Cyrus did not know about God. God's power, God's salvation, especially for his people will be made manifest through Cyrus. Under Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, the Babylonian captivity of Israel ended.

In the first year of his reign he was prompted by God to decree that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt and that such Jews as cared to might return to their land for this purpose. Towards the end of today's first reading, God seems to be telling Cyrus that, the wonders that he will be doing come from him.

So if people see the wonders that he will bring about, he should remember, it was God who called him. He is God, He is the Lord, and besides him, there is no other. Cyrus will do a lot of good but God is reminding him that he is not him.

"I have grasped your right hand to subdue nations... I call you by your name, I surname you, ...I am the Lord..., I Clothe you.

In short all that God tells Cyrus is that he is not god, but only he the Lord is God.

The background for understanding today's second reading is Paul's mission to Thessalonica as recorded in Acts 17, and how they where accused of breaking Caesar's edicts by claiming that there is another king, Jesus (cf. Acts 17:7). So Paul makes it clear that their conversion is as a result of the life of Mission, the Holy Spirit. Thus God has chosen them already for his Mission.

Finally in the gospel, Jesus Christ reminds us that God's image and likeness is with us, and that we should render to God alone the worship that is due to him. As the Pharisees and Herodians sought to trap him, he asked them to give him one of the coins for paying the taxes and they did. The question he asked them was whose image and description is on this? And they answered Ceasar's.

As Jesus asked them whose image and inscription is on the coin, we are reminded of the fact that God created us in his image and likeness. Thus on the face value, giving to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's and God the things that are God's means doing your civil duty as a Christian as well as worshipping God.

However, the heart of the Matter is that the Emperor is not a god, and it is only the Lord who is God. The Inscription on the Coin was "Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus." Thus they viewed the Emperor as a son of a deified Augustus, the emperor is a son of a god. But as today we have heard, there is no other god besides our God.

By Sylvester Amakye-Quayson

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