Fourth Sunday in Course 2014
The Courage to Be Astonished
When I consider the words of the Holy Gospel today, I wonder if any of us can really understand the feelings that overwhelmed the Jews who heard Jesus preaching on this day nearly two thousand years ago. It’s a bit like going to church, Sunday after Sunday, all your life, and hearing some preacher read the lessons and then tell you that Father Mike once said that we should respect the authority of the leaders. Then a new pastor comes in and reads and tells you that bishop Jim once said we should respect the authority of the leaders. Then today this new guy you’ve never heard about comes in and says that He is the one the Bible is talking about, that the religious leaders are all bogus, that you should all do as He says if you want to be close to God. Then he wraps it up by laying hands on a bunch of sick people and all of them are instantly cured.
Just imagine that. And then imagine how you would feel when this revolutionary finished his talk. Faced with the potential overthrow of all your life-long religious beliefs, maybe you’d want to join the mob at Nazareth who wanted to run Him out of town and throw Him off the top of a cliff.
We are not tempted to do that, but that’s only because by the grace of God, we, or one of our ancestors, heard what Jesus said and repented of sin and accepted the graces of baptism and confirmation and the Eucharist, and started your family on a journey of faith that brought you here today. We are the children of the revolutionary reform that Jesus began two millennia ago. We are the offspring of the Love of God for the world.
In first-century synagogues, Jewish teachers would read or listen to the Scriptures, mostly the first five books of the Old Testament, and then preach. But when they preached, they did so like good scribes, good scholars of the Law. There were various opinions about Torah. In commenting on the eighth commandment, for instance, and the question about whether one should tell an ugly bride that she looks lovely, “rabbi Shammai said it was wrong to lie, and Hillel said that all brides are beautiful on their wedding day.” With respect to divorce, rabbi “Shammai held that a man may only divorce his wife for a serious transgression, but Hillel allowed divorce for even trivial offenses, such as burning a meal.”
Then here comes rabbi Jeshuah ben Ioseph who says that in the beginning, God created man and woman and the man should cleave to his wife and the two become one flesh and so divorcing one’s wife for any reason other than invalidity is a major injustice. He doesn’t footnote some older rabbi–His reference citation is the word of God in Genesis. In fact, He never quotes Hillel or Shammai or Gamaliel, only His Father in heaven. That is revolutionary. That makes people feel terribly uncomfortable, especially the other rabbis and scribes. That got this rabbi murdered. Tortured, executed as a criminal, dead, buried, but not for good, because this rabbi was divine. This rabbi cited God because He knew God the Father as only God the Son could.
This rabbi preached with exousia, with authoritative power. His hearers knew what He said was true because His words not only stirred their hearts with love of God, they also wrought miracles–driving out demons, curing paralytics, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and even raising the dead. To many of his listeners, He was proving Himself to be the prophet predicted centuries before by Moses. To those who allowed themselves after the Resurrection to be filled with His Spirit–the Holy Spirit–He was the God- man whom they would follow and preach and imitate all the way to death.
The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit; we’ll hear that Gospel during our next liturgical year. But Luke wrote in two parts. In the first part, He wrote about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, up to His ascension into heaven. In the second part, which we call the Acts of the Apostles, He takes the mission of Jesus to the ends of the know world. His disciples, especially Peter and Paul, do the same things Jesus did, and they preach and heal with authoritative power all over the Mediterranean. What Jesus did, and what the apostles did, is also what we must do. We are the Church in today’s world. We have been given the mission and authority to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to San Antonio and beyond. There are people out there who will never know Jesus Christ, who will never know the Father’s loving embrace, without you.
This leads us to consider the words of St. Paul to the church of Corinth, which we heard just a short time ago. Paul wants his listeners to be free from anxiety. Anxious folks are not very effective in spreading the Gospel. If you believe Jesus is saving you, is giving you the grace you need every moment, will give you eternal life, why are you fretful? For a full and fully effective ministry to unbelievers, he recommends his own celibate lifestyle. He tells us that marriage is good, but for followers of Jesus Christ, it is better if all one’s anxiety be directed toward doing the Lord’s work, and becoming holy in body and spirit.
So let me speak to the young unmarried here, and, through the rest of you, to the young unmarried that you know. Living in a religious community of celibate men or women is a good life. I lived it as a temporary professed and found it to be enriching and effective in spreading the Gospel. The life is good, but it was not my vocation from God. Consecrated life is a good life, full of great interactions with God–we call it public and private prayer–and great interactions with other people, religious, priests, deacons, laity. Paul is right. Celibacy frees you to witness in ways we married are unable to do. Religious poverty makes it easier to live among the poor and minister to them. Religious poverty gave us a hundred years of U.S. Catholic schools, gave a good secular and religious education to many of us here today. Religious obedience makes it possible to know God’s will without months of soul-searching, and has led the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Think of the great saints and near-saints of our time: Maximilian Kolbe, Mother Theresa, Mother Angelica, John Paul II. They forsook marriage to follow Jesus Christ and the world was changed. Even the humblest Carmelite in an out-of-the-way village convent can start a revolution of spirit all over the world. I speak, of course, of the Little Way of St. Teresa of Liseaux.
All of us are called to follow Jesus and Mary. Most in marriage, some in the priesthood, some in consecrated life. Remember always that we do not live for ourselves, any more than Jesus or Mary lived for themselves. We care called to lives of giving and service. So if you are searching for God’s path for your life, seek good counsel with wise advisors and pray. If you know someone who looks like a future priest or religious, encourage him or her to pray about that path. God will never be outdone in generosity.
