FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
8 JULY 2018
Biblical
prophets have never filled out application forms to get the job of being a
prophet. Most were like the prophet
Ezekiel, sent to speak the truth in God’s name to his own people who had
rebelled against him. God frankly admits
that those who will hear Ezekiel’s word are hard of face and obstinate of
heart. They will refuse to listen and
reject him. The success of Ezekiel’s
mission will not be determined by how many people listen and respond. The success will be determined by Ezekiel’s
faithfulness in speaking the truth in God’s name.
Jesus
Christ not only speaks the truth in God’s name.
He is the eternal Word Made Flesh, Incarnate by the power of the Holy
Spirit and having taken flesh in the womb of Mary, the Mother of God. Yet, when he returns home after proclaiming
the Kingdom of God and bringing back a twelve year old girl from the dead, his
homeys reject him! Even though they may
be astonished by the words he speaks in their synagogue, he is too ordinary for
them to put their faith in him. They
know him too well. He is an ordinary
carpenter in the same social class as they are.
They call him the son of Mary. They
may be raising questions about the legitimacy of his birth. Or they may be insulting him in avoiding the custom
of calling a man the son of his father.
Instead of believing in him as the Son of God, they believe only in their
own mediocrity. They cannot imagine God
working through this person whom they had known since his birth.
In truth,
none of us applies to be a prophet. We
think of prophets as weird figures from the Bible or professional Church people
today. However, all of us were called to
be prophets when we were baptized. When
babies emerge from the font, the priest (or deacon) anoints them with Chrism
and says: You are now a priest, a
prophet, and a king. We share in the
priesthood of Jesus Christ, because we are called to pray and offer ourselves
as sacrifice out of love. We share in
the kingship of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God. We are prophets, sent to speak the truth in
the name of Jesus Christ.
Speaking
the truth in the name of Jesus Christ is not easy, because we sometimes have to
speak the truth to those who do not want to hear it. Spouses and family members of those trapped
in addictions know the angry denials when they try to speak the truth. Parents know rejection when their teenage
children do not want to hear the restrictions placed on their freedom. We priests hear negative comments when we say
something in the homily that people do not want to hear or when we make
decisions that people reject. Prophets
understand that success is not measured by whether or not people listen to
them. Success is measured by being
faithful to the person of Jesus Christ, incarnate in a world that prefers for
God to be distant.
However,
prophets have to learn how to speak the truth with love, not with arrogance,
judgment, or condemnation. Saint Paul
learned that lesson as he was rejected by his own people, just as Jesus was
rejected by his own family in Nazareth.
Saint Paul may have had much to brag about, especially with his
extensive travels, his mystical experiences with Jesus Christ, and the many
converts he made with Gentiles. But he
did not see himself as being superior to any of them. Instead, he boasts of a “thorn in the flesh.”
We do not know what his “thorn in the flesh” was. It could have been a physical affliction, a
moral failing, and even some kind of debilitating condition. Whatever it was, Paul hated it and begged God
to remove it. When God did not remove
his “thorn in the flesh”, he realized that God’s power is made perfect in
weakness. It kept him humble. Each of us has a “thorn in the flesh.” We need to be aware of our “thorn in the
flesh” when we speak the truth to someone else.
It keeps us humble. It reminds us
that God is in charge. It is God working
through us, whether we are successful or not.
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