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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.

Feast of Epiphany

Sunday January 6, 2008

Looking for a God with Skin

It has been sixty years or more since Pope Pius XII in his scholarly encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, affirmed his full support for the use of literary and historical criticism in the interpretation of the Bible. This document has served as a Magna Carta for Catholic biblical studies up to the present time. In essence, Pope Pius said that the Sacred Scriptures were to be interpreted within the context of the events occurring at the time in which they were written and in light of the literary styles used by the inspired authors of the Bible. In effect, this brought Catholic biblical studies into the main stream of biblical scholarship and paved the way for the incredible renewal that has taken place among Catholics “in the pew” since Vatican II.

Despite this revolution of thought and the new direction of biblical studies that followed, there is still a strong tendency to treat the Bible in general and the infancy narratives of Jesus’ birth in particular as if they were journalistic accounts that in modern times might appear on the evening news.

Second only to the story of the birth of Jesus in the “stable” at Bethlehem, the journey of the magi has captured the imagination of believers down through the ages to this very day. In fact, many church sanctuaries this weekend will display three gold crowns or three containers symbolizing the gold, frankincense and myrrh presented by the “three kings” to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. “We have seen his star in the east and have come to adore him.”

I was completing my final year of theological studies at Darlington Seminary in 1961 when one of our esteemed professors, old ‘Doc Shea’ dismissed the whole notion that there could be any interpretation of the journey of the magi other than the literal. His resistance was based on the fear that anything short of the literal acceptance of the moving star and the three kings would call into question the very truth of the inspired Word of God and even the divinity of Christ.

Biblical “literalism” continues to plague bible study groups and some commentaries even to this day, to say nothing of politicians and pundits of creationism.

When you stop and think about it, such literalism detracts from the authenticity of the full biblical revelation in the same way as if we were to read the great poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins or the Harry Potter series as a newspaper account instead of reflections on the deepest mysteries of the soul or the unveiling of hidden truths buried in the depth of the human spirit.

The feast of Epiphany is not so much about three kings or astrologers as it is about the search of all people of every age and rank for an experience of a God with skin; a God whom we can touch; a humble God who speaks our language from east to west, north to south; a God of our heart and soul; a God whose dominion is in this world but not of this world.

On the other hand, it is more about astrologers and us being sought by God. It is about a God of unfathomable love revealing a mystery, in the words of St. Paul, “hidden through the ages and now made manifest”—the introduction of a new cosmology of the heart that enables us to find God incarnate once again in every man and every woman.

The Gospel writers had it mind to write down stories about the life of this man of God, filled with God, Son of God, who tore down the barriers that had been established by the “religionists” and self-righteous legalists and politicians of his time.

Epiphany is a feast of inclusion not of exclusion. It is the manifestation of a God who is indiscriminate in his or her love. It’s about a God who will not rest until all hearts rest in God. It is about a mission entrusted to us “to build up what the nations destroy.”

Matthew’s Gospel is a celebration of the enfleshment of God in Christ in whom there is no east or west; no difference between Jew or Greek, male or female, black or white, Arab or African, Japanese or Guatemalan. All are one and when we finally come to the realization that our global village is precisely that, then perhaps we will come to terms of peace without weapons of war, open up our storehouses of food, sit down at table and break the bread and share the wisdom that enables us to see one another as brothers and sisters vested by God for the good of all humanity.

It is interesting in Matthew’s Gospel, the Magi are described as arriving from the East in search of the “newborn king of the Jews.” The title is not mentioned in Matthew again until the wooden placard is placed above the head of Jesus as he hung upon the cross. Matthew makes it clear that the power of God will be revealed but only in powerlessness—the powerlessness of a baby born in lowly state among shepherds and the powerlessness of a man executed for blasphemy.

And so Epiphany is calling out for humanity to join the ranks of those who seek to give voice to God’s agenda not through dogmatic exclusivity or vacuous claims of a franchise on truth but through an unambiguous commitment to the human right of every citizen of every nation to enjoy the fruits of the earth and the work of human hands without discrimination.

No one who brings food to the starving can be an enemy of God. All who open their hearts in generosity to those utterly bereft in soul and spirit are on God’s side.

The biblical ‘star’ remains but it is not in the cosmic heavens. It is in the concrete words and works of the believer. The gifts we offer are not gold, frankincense and myrrh but our works of justice and charity.

When we have taken this feast to heart as individuals and as a Church, “wise men and women” will continue to come from afar in pursuit of the star and we will indeed be recognized as God with us, Emmanuel.

Click website link for a meditation for Epiphany. It will help to put things in perspective. Click ‘Ride into Space,’ turn your speakers up and enjoy! Photos provided by NASA.