FREEDOM WITH BOUNDARIES

Reflection for Wednesday of 5th Week in Ordinary Time
(Gen 2:4-9, 15-17; Mk 7:14-23)
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The ‘content’ of man is being unveil. His ‘nothingness’ has dust as its substance. Man was not called into being from a void! God transferred His breath of life into the physical structure. Thus man carries within him a life from God, which cannot be reduced to dust of earth. Then God placed man in a community-living by putting him in the garden of Eden, within a determined space. Finally,  He imparted on man another peculiar greater gift: Freedom!

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden...” Now man is empowered to make his own choices. It was as if God subjected Himself to respect every choice man makes. Man did not create his own freedom,  he received it graciously from God. Like every other gift, he must use it responsibly. Hence God added, “But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” This injunction placed boundaries to man's freedom; that he might use his freedom responsibly. In other words, human freedom must respect the will of the creator, I.e. the orderliness placed in creation. Freedom without boundaries or responsibility will return creation back to chaos or nothingness!

Therefore, Jesus insists that what goes into a man cannot defile him. It is the disorder or sin that comes out of us that defies. These unclean behaviours are as a result of the misuse of our freedom. A person is defiled when he or she is no more free according to the will of God, and thus unfit for Heaven.

Fr Jude Chinwe Nwachukwu, C.Ss.R
Immaculate Conception Parish
Iba Estate, Lagos
Wednesday 13th February,  2019.