From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2013
The first reading of Eleventh Sunday in ordinary time is taken from 2 Sm 12:7-10, 13. While it shows us the weakness of human nature, at the same time it shows the infinite mercy of God. David acknowledges his sin and asks for God’s mercy and forgiveness. God’s forgives him and vows never to repeat that sin again.
The second reading is from St. Paul to the Galatians- Gal 2:16, 19-21. Paul is speaking here of justification and faith. In Christian theology justification is God’s act of removing the guilt and penalty of sin while at the same time declaring a sinner righteous through Christ’s atoning. In Protestantism, righteousness from God is viewed as being credited to the sinner’s account through faith alone, without works.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians distinguish between initial justification, which in their view occurs at baptism, and permanent justification, accomplished after a lifetime of striving to do God’s will.
Most Protestants believe that justification is a singular act in which God declares an unrighteous individual to be righteous, an act made possible because Christ was legally “made sin” while on the cross (2 Cor 5:21). This is contrary to James 2:24-26. “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. But faith without works is dead.”
In Romans, Paul develops justification by first speaking of God’s just wrath at sin (Rom. 1:18 – 3:20). Justification is then presented as the solution for God’s wrath. One is said to be ‘justified by faith apart from works of the Law.’
The Gospel is from Lk 7:36—8:3. It shows the mercy of God for sinners and the willingness and eagerness, with which God welcomes back the sinner. A Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at table.
Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee. Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.”
Mary Magdalene was believed to be a reformed prostitute and is identified as the woman who ‘was a sinner at the house of Pharisees, who washed Christ’s feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and anointed them. Christ then forgave her sins.
The lesson we learn here is forgiveness, a decision to let go your sins and never to repeat them again as we see in the first reading and the gospel. David and Mary Magdalene never repeated the action they were accused of. It was wrong for David to kill Uriah and take his wife.
For unfaithful partners in Kenya where marital infidelity is as intertwined as nyama choma, also known as mpango wa kando, it would mean that forgiveness must go with justice. It means doing justice to your partner and your entire family that you will never cheat on your partner anymore.
In Kenya men are the ones closely linked with big percentage of mpango wa kando than women. A 2008 study carried out by Spylink International, a private investigation outfit based in Kenya, revealed that marital infidelity was on the rise with men taking the lead with 75 per cent share of cheating, while women at 25 per cent in 2002. By 2008 this figure rose from 25 to 45 percent of women cheating on their men.
The study pegged this scenario on “changing lifestyles, and women’s empowerment through higher education and knowing “their rights.” Hard economic times implied that more women were exchanging their bodies for material favours. The survey, however, revealed that “as the data stands, women in Kenya will be “leading the infidelity game by 2010.”
Even worse was the fact that 99 per cent of married couples cheat on each other, with Nairobi, of Kenya’s eight provinces, leading with 60 per cent of unfaithful men, and women at 40 per cent.
Nyanza comes second with 55 per cent of men and women at 45 per cent. Western and Rift Valley take fourth and fifth slots respectively, with men taking 65 per cent, while Coast came fifth with men leading with 60 per cent.
In Eastern province, unfaithful men stood at 70 per cent and 85 per cent in case of men in North-Eastern, a region where women are socially, culturally and economically suppressed.
Central Province was the surprise package with women taking a 60 per cent stake a head of their men.
This trend has led to single women in Kenya. A survey released few years ago by consumer market research firm Ipsos-Synovate, shows that 44 per cent of women dislike infidelity among men.
In terms of the state where the government is to ensure that all the citizens have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all, the forgiveness would also mean doing justice.
You must do justice on social and economic inequalities, nepotism, negative ethnicity, human rights abuses, and assassinations, tortures among other ills as recommended by The Truth Reconciliation and Justice Commission (TRJC) in their report.
The report recommends that the head of the state and other departmental heads apologize to Kenyans and then for justice to be done it recommends that actions should be taken. IDPs must be reallocated, people who lost their dear ones be compensated.
TRJC was set up following deadly post-election clashes five years ago. After those elections some 1,500 people were killed and more than 600,000 forced to flee their homes. Some IDPs are still in the camps and people whose dear ones died have not been compensated.
TRJC mandate was to investigate and recommend appropriate action on human rights abuses committed between Kenyan independence in December 1963 and the end of February 2008 – including politically motivated violence, assassinations, corruption and land disputes.
It recommends that those with alleged involvement in the Wagalla massacre should no longer hold any public office. The killings occurred in 1984 during efforts to disarm ethnic Somali clans in the north-east of the country. Survivors say close to 5,000 people died.
When justice is done it is when the forgiveness will bring a kind of peace that helps the victims go on with life. Forgiveness here means that you are now at peace with yourself and the community. Click here to read Pope John Paul II Message for the World Day of Peace 2002.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002