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Daily Scripture

+ 20th Week in Ordinary Time

I’ll do it myself.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-11 Psalm 23:1-6 Matthew 20:1-16

Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: because my shepherds did not look after my sheep, but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep, I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. [Ezekiel 34:10]

There is much talk about a vocation shortage—fewer young men entering the seminary and fewer still persevering to ordination. Not withstanding some notable exceptions this has resulted in the lowering of standards for ordination. Moreover, priests and candidates for the priesthood are being ‘imported’ from other countries whose needs are as urgent as ours.

The prevailing accent seems to be on the need to have a sufficient number of priests to ‘say Mass’ and provide for the sacramental needs of the faithful. But surely in the light of the Second Vatican Council, priests need to be more than presiders at Mass and providers of the sacraments, as important as are these roles.

The earliest experience of the Church can be instructive in this regard. The notion of presbyter provided the early church with presiders for worship and leaders for base communities. Celibacy was not an issue and there was no clerical caste. The gifts of the faithful were recognized in such a manner that men and women, married and single fulfilled the spiritual needs of the community including the sacramental needs.

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the notion of shepherding people (sheeple?) the need remains for qualified men and women to minister to the needs of the community.

Ezekiel warned the priests and assured the people of Israel that God would find away to pasture his people.

Ezekiel’s words need to be taken to heart again and in fact we already see that God is indeed providing a way through the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women, married and single, who are tending to the needs of the faithful.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Wednesday August 15, 2007

Hold on to your Family Heroes

Who among us does not possess an encyclopedia of family stories; stories that take us to another time and place; stories that make us laugh and stories that make us cry. Whatever the gathering, a wedding or wake, occasioned by a photo album or wall gallery; a super 8 millimeter film, video or DVD, the stories unfold. I like to call them grandma and grandpa stories because they take us farthest back into history. We may tell the same story with a different twist. The details are not as important as the message and its meaning. After we have listened for a while, someone may sit down at the piano or pick up a guitar and grove into an old tune that matches the event or the times in which the stories originated.

Sooner or later in their telling, we may be introduced to a family hero. Every family has at least one—an aunt or uncle, an ancestor who faced a particularly difficult challenge with exceptional strength, courage, and grace. Although they may not have been perfect, they are our heroes. After all, saints were not always saints! We need both the heroes and their stories because they empower us to greatness in difficult times.

Although written long after the great exodus, the Book of Wisdom is a kind of hero story about our ancestors who were delivered from Egypt. It’s about their faith and courage. It is interesting that the Greek word used for ‘faith’ is emunah which is related to the Hebrew word for ‘Amen’. It denotes conviction and courage and the hope that God would be faithful to them. Even more than this, it was the gut conviction that God was already fulfilling a promise about what would happen in the future. I suppose it’s something like smelling the sweet fragrance of a rose that has yet to blossom.

According to an ancient Jewish midrashic legend, when Moses raised his staff and extended his arms over the Sea of Reeds, the sea did not divide as described in the Book of Exodus or as portrayed in Cecil B de Mille’s production. It was not until the first man had jumped into the water that the promised miracle happened and the waves receded. Of course, this cannot be documented or proven (that’s what makes it a midrashic story) but it does make a case for that proactive faith to which every believer should aspire. It is this quality of faith to which the author of the Book of Wisdom called his Jewish compatriots living in Alexandria during the first century before Christ. The Jews were heavily influenced by Hellenistic thinking, ready to abandon their tradition in favor of a philosophy more to their liking.

The Letter to the Hebrews pursues this same notion of faith using the Greek word, ‘hypostosis’, defined as the absolute assurance that what God promises, God will fulfill. The author then goes on to extol the faith of Abraham who without a second thought and without knowing where he was going, left everything behind and followed the inspiration of God to venture out in search of a new land. By faith, although they were too old, he and Sarah received the power of procreation and were blessed with a family which blossomed in the great progeny of Israel—“as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” They believed and they were justified before the Lord. And so to this day, we claim Abraham and Sarah as “our ancestral parents in the faith.”

Luke understood the exodus as a prefiguring of the Christian Passover with Jesus as the hero of the story. Jesus leads us daily through rough seas and provides a dry path on which we can travel safely. We need to live in the conviction that he was there and that he is here. We need the conviction of our ancestors—that kind of faith that keeps us alert and ready to recognize his coming into our lives, indeed, his presence here and now. With his grace to uphold us, there is nothing we cannot endure.

When we come into this assembly, we bring our encyclopedia of family stories, be they stories about grandma and grandpa or perhaps figures from our extended family—ball players like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig; poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins and others who captured the mystery of life leaving us with anthologies that buoy up the human spirit so that we might be able to look beyond our noses to see reality through the lens of faith. Our heroes do not have to be saints. Isn’t it interesting how even after a rogue passes away, we find something nice to say about him at his funeral!

When we come into this assembly, we connect our family stories with the God story and with the Jesus stories or perhaps with Mary or one of the saints. This is called in our tradition, the “Communion of Saints”.

Every day is a challenge but every day is also a gift. Faith makes all the difference in the world. Even in the face of disappointment and even death itself, faith helps us not just to believe but to know that failure is never final and death is not the end; that the regeneration of the spirit is endless and that life continues as we pass into the bosom of Abraham and into the heart of God.

Perhaps one day you and I may become someone’s hero!