The Ọfọ sculpture has a strong significance in Igboland. It stands for several values, including authority, truth, and justice. In some areas, people magnify it to stand also for purity, and that’s understandable given that purity and truth are inseparable qualities. My father is currently the oldest person in my kindred, and by that fact, he should, traditionally, hold the “Ọfọ” title. This symbol entitles him to sit, as a traditional judge with other elders, and adjudicate all matters of interest between individuals of the kindred. The responsibilities of such an office are enormous, including that the elder has to be exemplary, fair, and trusted to discharge the duties of the Ọfọ holder. These qualities are not transferable; people patiently cultivate them over time just as a farmer plants a seed in the garden, which sprouts, grows, and matures to produce fruits for people to eat.
This analogy of the qualities of the Ọfọ title holder and the farmer who plants seeds in the garden relates to my reflections this weekend. From the Book of Sirach (27:4-7), we read that the fruit of a tree shows the care it has had. In the same way, the qualities of people who hold the Ọfọ title derive from several years of experience and life and how these individuals, who have become elders, have shaped their attitudes and character to reflect trusted judges and elders, whose words could become precedent in law for others to cite with justifications. Today’s gospel (Luke 6:39-45) upholds these premises when it acknowledges that “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its fruit.” It continued that “people do not pick figs from thorn bushes, nor grapes from brambles.” And concludes with the affirmation that “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks,” showing that the words we speak embody who we are, and stand for or against us.
Jesus Christ had put those words clearly (ipsissima verba) in stone, and they captured my interest in how they challenge our daily interactions with ourselves and others. The climax point is that we have one life to live, and that’s this one each of us has. If the claims people make of a reincarnated body have evidence, those alleged persons who reincarnate do not begin a previous life; everyone starts afresh and has to justify how the needs of present realities and circumstances should reward or punish the life they have. In today’s second reading (1 Corinthians 15:54-58), St. Paul wants you and me to know that death is an inevitable reality, and when it happens, each person is answerable for what they do with the gift of life they’d received. Therefore, while we hang out and transition, every step toward death, let everyone, like the Ọfọ titleholders, shine like lights in the world as we hold on to the word of life in truth and love (Philippians 2:15-16).