Text: 2 Kings 21:11-29 Mark 6:7-13

Theme: Falsely accusing one for one’s own benefit

Prayer: Our heavenly parent, we are here to meditate on your words.

Be with us, guide us through your Holy Spirit. Help us to renew ourselves
through your words. Amen
Dear beloved, According to the Vatican report 2021, Father Stan Swamy
was falsely accused of Bhima Koregaon violence which happened in 2018. Even
though he claimed that he was not present in the scene during the incident,
he was put behind the bars and made his mouth shut until he died.
In the old testament passage that we heard few minutes ago. Jezebel
wanted her husband to take over the vineyard which legally belonged to
Naboth, when this could not happen, She took an alternative way of helping
her husband by plotting a plan against Naboth. She got two persons to bring
charges against Naboth so that he could be killed followed by the king’s
takeover the vineyard.
Naboth was killed as he was accused of blasphemy. Although later
consequences were upon her and her husband, an innocent’s life had been
already gone to the crime which he never committed. Naboth Just got punished
for what he had not done as the consequences of one’s false accusations
upon him. Jezebel was not from a line of Israel, but was the king. He knew
that giving false testimonies was against law but he accepted those
testimonies just for the sake of himself and his materialistic benefits.
We see that King Ahab was placed to rule and serve his people but his
personal decisions led to few disasters. This is why Jesus made sure that
his disciples will have no or lesser materialistic interests like Ahab and
Jezebel had it extensively. Gautama Buddha preached that the desires are
the root causes of sadness. Jesus knew that if his disciples gain interests
upon the materialistic comforts, then his ministry and mission would go in
vain. The instructions given by Jesus is so clear that a called one should
stay away from the materialistic comforts.
Dear beloved, we come across these kind of incidents in our daily
lives. There is a quote by an anonymous person that is “a person who speaks
truth deserves death.” We are sometimes scared of being truthful as we
think we might lose something. We sometimes accuse someone to save ourselves
from certain situations. It is a human nature which is been evidential from
the beginning that is like Adam accused Eve. We accuse someone falsely so
that our intentions are fulfilled. But we need to consider that Jezebel and
King Ahab was punished by God in a violent way. The biblical verses that
was read today give us a caution for two things such as having too much
interests on materialistic comforts followed by throwing accusations on
someone for our own benefit.