My thoughts for Sunday, September 27, 2009
Numbers 11:25-29
Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14
James 5:1-6
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
No matter how good a leader is, many people will grumble and complain about his leadership. The Israelites in the desert constantly grumbled at Moses’ leadership. Occasionally there was outright rebellion. God, seeing Moses' frustration, decided to lighten the burden of leadership by pouring out the divine Spirit of Prophecy also on seventy elders who would share Moses' authority.
Two of the elders were not present at the ceremony, but received the Spirit anyway. When they began prophesying on their own, Joshua, Moses' young assistant, became envious. "Moses, stop them!" he cried. To Joshua's surprise, Moses praised the two, and told Joshua he wished everyone had that gift.
In the gospel Jesus teaches the same lesson. When a few of His disciples complained to Jesus that some, not of their company, were driving out demons, Jesus, like Moses, rebuked His followers for being so exclusive. "Whoever is not against us is for us" became Jesus' rule for His Church.
When I was a kid, many pastors did not welcome help from the laity, other than altar boys and occasionally a sacristan. Often, they did not even allow their priest assistants to use their talents and their energy to the full. Nowadays, with the current priest shortage, the help of deacons and lay ministers and pastoral assistants is absolutely essential to the smooth running of a parish.
The reading from the book of Numbers makes it clear that prophecy, the carrying of God’s message to the world, is not the special task of only a few people: Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! If only all Christians felt a commitment to bring God’s pardon and God’s kingdom to all we meet!
The Gospel takes this point a step further. Not only must God’s truth be spread through all of God’s people; it must also be spread by those who are not of our company.
While there is truth in all the world’s great religions as well as in its secular institutions, only the Catholic Church is host to the entire Truth, as given to us by Jesus Christ, Himself. But we still hold out hope for reconciliation because as Jesus declared: "Anyone who is not against us is with us."
Through our Baptisms we are all filled with certain graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit, one of which is the same Spirit of Prophecy (or Evangelization) that was poured out on the 72 elders in the desert. All who are baptized in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are with us, not against us.
Vatican II documents state “Since the whole Church is missionary, . . . the work of evangelization is a basic duty of the People of God. . . . Therefore, all sons of the Church should have a lively awareness of their responsibility to the world. They should foster in themselves a truly catholic spirit. They should spend their energies in the work of evangelization.”
Vatican II, Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church (1965) 35-36
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