Reflection on the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Do you know the definition of the word, “expert”?
It’s a stranger who comes from more than 50 miles away.

Perhaps Jesus might have taken a cue from his cousin, John, and lived in the desert in seclusion for a decade or so before hitting the prophecy trail. No one could claim they knew where John was coming from. No one would. Would you say you understood a fellow who eats bugs and wears stinking animal skins?
Jesus, however, was a known quantity. The good, decent citizens of Nazareth know his family and know his occupation. That was enough for them to say, “we know you; we know how you’re supposed to act, and teaching with such profound wisdom and performing miracles is not who you are.”

The task of the prophet is generally thankless. Ezekiel has this great job description given to him by God: “I am sending you to the Israelites,
rebels who have rebelled against me;
they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.
Hard of face and obstinate of heart
are they to whom I am sending you.” Really would make you look forward to getting up in the morning.

Now in the history of Israel there was always the issue of discerning between the real prophets and the false prophets. In general, if a prophet was telling you something that you wanted to hear, they were the ones to avoid like the plague. They tended to draw an appreciative audience and a place in the king’s court. If a prophet was promising a plague upon your house and country if you didn’t radically change your ways, that was the fellow you wanted to listen to.
They were the ones who said things like Ezekiel, “Thus says the Lord God: Disaster after disaster! See, it comes. An end has come, the end has come. It has awakened against you; see, it comes! Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land.” Ez 7:5-7 Their listeners had an effective way of silencing these unwanted messengers.

It was called “death.”

Later generations would erect memorials to them when their messages of doom came to pass.

It’s a lonely business, being a prophet. Yet all of us who are baptized are supposed to be prophets. We are to be a prophetic people. Pope John Paul II reminded us of this in his apostolic exhortation, The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful People.

Through their participation in the prophetic mission of Christ, "who proclaimed the kingdom of his Father by the testimony of his life and by the power of his word"(24), the lay faithful are given the ability and responsibility to accept the gospel in faith and to proclaim it in word and deed, without hesitating to courageously identify and denounce evil.

Denouncing evil. Not evil in Iran, not the evil of the Taliban, not any far-off evildoer, but the evil in our midst – beginning in our own lives. The hoped for response is called “repentance.” And if you want to denounce the government’s hocking of our future, you’d better be sure you’ve paid off your credit card debt, your mortgage and your car. Nothing weakens a prophetic stance like hypocrisy.

The pope went on to write,

United to Christ, the "great prophet" (Lk 7:16), and in the Spirit made "witnesses" of the Risen Christ, the lay faithful are called to allow the newness and the power of the gospel to shine out everyday in their family and social life, as well as to express patiently and courageously in the contradictions of the present age their hope of future glory even "through the framework of their secular life".

In other words, part of our prophetic message is a way of life that is molded by the Gospel, and thus a living contradiction of the values of our society that points to the life of heaven for which every person is made.
But on this weekend in which we celebrate our freedom, I would propose that we are not nearly as free as we think we are. Would you call your co-worker on the fact that he’s living with his girlfriend without benefit of marriage? What would you say to your boss who proposed a business plan that would take unjust advantage of the economically desperate? In this land of freedom, how freely do you share your faith in Jesus and his Church with others – even members of your family?

And how many times have I held back on how I really think the Gospel is challenging us because I worried about collections going down, or people not liking me.

But I’ll not hold back now.

This nation is great because many generous, hard-working, self-sacrificing individuals – even whole generations - formed communities willing to work together for the common good. But if we continue on the road we are taking –
The road of everyone for themselves;
The road of getting mine now regardless of the effect it has on others – especially the poor;
The road of consumption to fill the void made when God has been banished from my life;
The road of killing as a solution to problems – whether the life taken is an unborn child’s, a criminal’s, or an anonymous enemy in a foreign land;
The road of sex and violence as forms of entertainment…

Then “Thus says the Lord God: Disaster after disaster!” We will definitely reap what we sow.
And don’t blame governments past or present. They are a reflection of us. We elect those who promise what we want to hear, by and large. I promise you, prophets are not elected to public office in a democracy.

You and I are meant to be a priestly people, a royal people, a prophetic people: sharing in Jesus’ priesthood, kingship, and prophetic ministry. Prophets are best when they are far away and long ago. Abraham Lincoln, whom we memorialize in a stately, imposing statue in our capitol was reviled in his day by many. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who now has his own national holiday, was assassinated. St. Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophy and theology are enormously important in the Catholic intellectual tradition, was condemned by many bishops of his day because he dared to draw upon pagan and Muslim wisdom.

Not only can we reject the familiar neighbor as a prophet, we can reject the one with whom we are most familiar: ourselves. When we find people driving headlong towards a washed out bridge, do we say, “I am too young, too unprepared, too old, too sinful, too busy, too nice to try to stop them”? That, in effect, is what we are doing when we do not take on the “responsibility to accept the gospel in faith and to proclaim it in word and deed, without hesitating to courageously identify and denounce evil.”

If you are to live up to your prophetic calling as a disciple of Jesus, an apostle of hope, then you must not reject the role of prophet Jesus shares with you. Although we might downplay our own heroic and prophetic possibilities by claiming we’re unsuitable in oh-so-many ways, honestly, I think we’re just afraid.

And well we should be, since we know the fate of the prophets throughout time. Perhaps this is why the author of the first letter of John tells us, “perfect love casts out fear.” If I care about someone enough, and have genuine anxiety about their eternal fate, that love will overcome the fear I might have of rejection or persecution.

But like St. Paul, we may have some “thorn in the flesh” that we think must be removed before the Lord can use us – some weakness that would make it impossible for him to work through us. But the fact is, if we were strong, we would think we were the agents of change, rather than God.

So next time you wish someone would do something to help people escape the cycle of poverty; the next time you cry over a news article about a soldier returning from Iraq with one leg; the next time you think, “why doesn’t someone do something about teen pregnancy?” consider it an invitation from the Holy Spirit, who just might be saying to you, “you’re someone.”
Now you don’t have to come up with a plan to change the world. All you have to do is pray for courage and guidance and then take the first obvious step. Maybe it’s checking to see what agencies already exist to help the poor, disabled veterans, or pregnant teens.

Go there and get involved.

Keep praying and asking for guidance, and take the next obvious step when you think you see it. And don’t worry too much about taking a wrong step – if you keep holding God’s hand, you can be sure he will make good come even from missteps.

Brothers and sisters, together, we are “someones” who are a potential powerhouse in God’s hands. If, like St. Paul, we learn to be “content with our weakness, for the sake of Christ,” and if we ask Jesus to increase and perfect our love, we may find our voice – and the courage to speak the truth in gentle, humble, genuine love.
St. Paul concluded that “when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.” I believe he spoke from experience – the experience of being used again and again, as an instrument of God – as a prophetic voice that even death has not silenced.
We all are weak – but let us dare not let a lack of faith make us underestimate what the strength of God can do with, and through, our weakness.