26th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sept.
28, 2003
Num
11: 25-29St. Clement, Plant City, Fla.
This weekend (Sept. 28-30, 2018), I was on a short
hiking-camping vacation and didn’t have a congregation to preach to at my Mass along the Appalachian Trail.
“The
spirit came to rest on them also, and they prophesied in the camp” (Num 11:26).
The
Israelites are in the desert, following their exodus from Egypt, heading toward
the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses. The people have been rumbling and grumbling
with discontent over the scarcity of water and forage and food, probably also
about the heat, the dust, the snakes and scorpions. Some of them are murmuring about turning
back, going back to Egypt—its gods, its slavery—rather than forward with Moses
and the Lord to a new land, a new life, hope and freedom. Moses has gotten discouraged by all the
griping, and he’s complained to God about the burden of leadership thrust upon
him by the Lord’s call. Remember: he didn’t volunteer for this job, and when
God called him he argued with God about that and tried to get out of it (Ex
3:1—4:17).
The
Lord responds now by calling more leaders to share the burden with Moses. 70 of the elders are called out with Moses
and Aaron to the meeting tent where the ark of the covenant is kept. And God comes down visibly in the form of a
cloud, settles over the tent and upon these chosen leaders. And they begin to prophesy.
To
prophesy means not to tell the future, but to speak in the Lord’s name thru
words or actions. These 70 elders may
have been singing the Lord’s praises in some fashion beyond their own control,
or dancing ecstatically, or speaking as in a trance, or displaying some other
unusual behavior of the religious nature.
For the Spirit of God had come upon them, and at that moment they no
longer spoke or acted for themselves but for God, as Moses had been doing all
along, and often his brother Aaron too.
Moreover,
the story tells us, 2 elders, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in camp altho they
were supposed to be at the meeting tent.
The Spirit of God fell upon them too, and they began to prophesy in the
camp. This caused some alarm, and Moses
was told. Joshua, Moses’s young and
inexperienced assistant, begged Moses to put a stop to this apparent breach of
his master’s authority. But with true
wisdom Moses recognized the action of God in those 2 elders, as in the other
70—or 68, if 70 includes the 2 absentees.
And he exclaimed to Joshua:
“Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit
on them all!” (11:29).
From
this episode we see that, in one sense, God’s Spirit works with human
cooperation, and in another sense it’s not bound or restricted by human beings.
The
Spirit of God comes only upon those whom Moses has designated. According to the passage leading up to this
morning’s reading, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Assemble for me 70 of the elders
of Israel, men you know for true elders and authorities among the
people, and bring them to the meeting tent’” (Num 11:16). Clearly Moses is to make the selection; and
our reading indicates that a formal list of some kind was drawn up: Eldad and Medad “had been on the list, but
had not gone out to the tent” (11:26).
The Spirit of God comes only upon those whom Moses has designated. God works thru his chosen leaders, whether we
mean Moses or, later, the apostles, or in our time the Pope and the
bishops. To apply this to a particular
contemporary discussion, the word “elder” in Greek is presbyteros, which
the Church has used since NT times to designate one of the 3 ranks of holy
orders: the diaconate, the presbyterate,
and the episcopate. Our English word
“priest” is derived from presbyteros, and “priest” is what we commonly
call those ordained to the 2d rank of holy orders. As God used Moses to designate the elders on
whom he would pour out his Spirit for leadership and authority, so does God
today use the leadership of the Church to designate who is qualified to serve
in holy orders.
At
the same time as the 70 elders at the meeting tent were displaying prophetic
behavior, Eldad and Medad, whom Moses had named also, were missing from that
assembly. We’re not told why. Perhaps they were sick, perhaps they weren’t
informed (maybe they didn’t check their email), perhaps they didn’t want to
take part. No matter. God’s Spirit finds them and lays hold of them
and virtually compels them to respond, and no human intervention will stop
that. In the same way, God’s Spirit
remains at work in the Church today among high and low to do what God wants
done—whether it’s calling someone for a prophetic ministry in society or
calling someone to challenge the rest of the Church to a better practice of the
Gospel. Lech Walesa in Poland and the
campesinos in El Salvador who stood up to political and economic oppression
were prophets. Martin Luther King and
the whole civil rights movement in this country, and Cesar Chavez and others
who demanded fair wages and conditions for migrant workers, were prophets. Those who organize politically, socially, and
culturally to defend and promote human life and human dignity are prophets. Those who demand that bishops and religious
superiors deal with predator priests, brothers, and nuns are prophets, and Abp.
O’Malley in Boston is being prophetic by moving out of the archbishop’s mansion
in Chestnut Hill and moving into the cathedral rectory in a downtown slum.
Moses’s
answer to young Joshua’s objections is, “Would that all the people of the Lord
were prophets!” All the people of the
Lord are supposed to be prophets.
Whether ordained or consecrated by vow or lay, every baptized Catholic
has received the Holy Spirit. Every
baptized Catholic has been anointed, like Jesus of Nazareth, as a priest, a
prophet, and a king—a sacramental fact pointed out when the celebrant of
Baptism anoints the just baptized person with sacred chrism after pronouncing a
formula that reads in part, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King,
so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.”
We’re
all charged to carry out our prophetic office as members of Christ’s body by
witnessing to our Savior Jesus. St.
Thomas Aquinas wrote, “To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of
every preacher and of each believer.”[1] The 2d Vatican Council teaches that all the
laity are witnesses of the faith, provided by Christ with the grace of God’s
word and “the sense of the faith.”[2] Sense of the faith is a technical
theological term, meaning the general agreement of Catholic Christians—not just
the bishops, but everyone—on matters of belief and practice across the
centuries and thruout the world. Members
of the Catholic laity exercise their prophetic office in accordance with their
varying degrees of competence and the particular circumstances of their
lives. They may teach catechism to their
own children or to others and teach them to pray. They may teach theology in schools and
universities. They may explain to others
in private conversation, public lectures, and the mass media what we believe
and what we do. They may offer guidance
on church matters to priests and bishops and their fellow laity.[3] They may take positions on matters of common
public interest (community affairs and politics) that accord with their faith
in Jesus as their Lord. Above all else,
they testify by the virtue of their public and private lives that Jesus is our
Lord and Savior. Moses remarked: “Would that all the people of the Lord were
prophets! Would that the Lord might
bestow his spirit on them all!” The Holy
Spirit that we’ve all received in Baptism, and most of us in Confirmation,
empowers us with courage, fortitude, and wisdom to be modern-day prophets.
[1] Summa III, 71, 4 ad
3; quoted by Catechism of the Catholic Church #904.
[2] Lumen gentium #35.
[3]
Catechism of the Catholic Church #906-07, citing various canons of the
Code of Canon Law.
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