Monday, October 1, 2018

Homily for 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sept. 28, 2003
Num 11: 25-29
St. 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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