25th Sunday
in Ordinary Time
Sept. 23, 2012
James 3: 16—4:3
Ursulines, Willow
Drive, N.R.
“Where
jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice”
(James 3: 16).
James
could be describing American politics—even tho our recent campaigns are fairly
tame when contrasted with some in the 1st 2 generations of our Republic.
He
could also be describing the Church:
rectories, chanceries, parish councils, even religious houses. In fact, given that James was writing to
Christians in the 2d half of the 1st century, he was describing the Church, perhaps one specific local church. Paul had to deal with the same or similar
problems in Corinth, and at the end of the
century Pope Clement was still addressing factions and infighting in Corinth.
There
have been periods in church history when James’s more dire laments also have
been verified: war and killing
(4:2). If we broaden the consideration
beyond the Church, as I suppose James intended, then in our own day we witness
horrible killing and war in support of the pursuit of wealth, power,
nationalism—and even in God’s name, ostensibly; but, I dare say, truly with
“passions” and “envy” (4:1-2) and “selfish ambition” (3:16) more at play than
love of God.
I
trust that killing isn’t an issue in the convents of the Ursulines. But can we deny that jealousy and selfish
ambition lurk in them? They’re certainly
alive in monasteries, rectories, chanceries, and other church bodies, I’m
afraid.
And
we know from personal experience, as well as from church history, that jealousy
and selfish ambition—in cleric or nun or layman—is destructive of good order,
as James says (3:16), in the community
and in our hearts. Passions “make war
within your members” (4:1).
Passions—jealousy, envy, ambition, etc.—disturb our interior peace, and
if we express those passions outwardly—thru gossip, thru criticism and
complaining, thru self-centered behavior, for instance—they also disturb the
peace of the community.
James
points toward a better way of thinking:
“wisdom from above is pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of
mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity” (3:16). This is similar to the catalog of fruits of
the Holy Spirit enumerated by Paul in his Letter to the Galatians: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (5:22-23). Those attitudes, those behaviors, those
virtues, expressive of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, build up the
community and effectively preach the Good News of Jesus.
They’re
also expressive of the kind of ambition that’s authentically Christian, the
kind Jesus commands in today’s gospel:
the ambition to be 1st or greatest among his disciples, viz., the
ambition to excel at selfless service of all God’s children (Mark 9:33-37).
Lest
you think there’s only ambition or cold aloofness in chanceries, let me share
with you a tidbit revealed by Whispers in
the Loggia on Friday about Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort
Worth, who was just announced as the new bishop of Orange, Calif.
(where he inherits the Crystal Cathedral).
In Fort Worth
“he’s the bishop who’ll travel 600 miles in a weekend for a full slate of
Masses and Mexican festivals, returning home only to run out again for a
late-night bite with a youth group who sent him a text that they were at a
nearby Denny’s.”
Doesn’t
a bishop’s accessibility to a youth group by text suggest an attitude of being
a servant to his flock? Thanks be to
God! Would that it were more common in
church leadership.
It’s
easy, of course, to look at chanceries and complain. Maybe even at provincialates. Listening to James, tho, we need to look at
ourselves. James chides his readers for
asking for—praying for—the wrong things:
“to spend it on your passions” (4:3).
We could, instead, pray that we might recognize and lay hold of
opportunities to serve one another with patience, generosity, gentleness,
constancy, and sincerity (or even a late-nite bite). We could pray that, if there’s to be ambition
or rivalry in the chancery or the rectory or the convent, it be ambition and
rivalry to be of most service to our sisters and brothers.
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