Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? – Pete Seeger
Have you ever been in a boat or canoe that you needed to move through the water by your own power alone?
If so, you may know that you can power a boat in two ways. One is by paddling – the usual way if you’re in a canoe. You sit facing the direction in which you are going. You paddle, first on one side, then on the other, and move forward in that way. You steer yourself based on what is ahead of you.
Rowing is different. To row most efficiently, you need to sit in a boat with your back facing the direction you want to go. You row with both arms at once, and steer yourself based on where you have been (which you can see) and not where you are going (which you cannot see).
Most people live their lives like the person in the canoe. We focus on the future. We set goals for ourselves – personal goals like diet, exercise, education, career achievements; or cultural goals like inclusiveness. We like to see ourselves as though we were already there. When we encounter any reminders that we might not be there, we choose to edit them out. We remove offensive words from novels, or offensive statues from parks. We ignore or belittle people who see things differently than we do. We tell ourselves that we have solved the problem. Then, when that problem resurfaces in a most unexpected and vigorous way, we are stunned. We do not know what to make of it.
The greatest weakness in this perspective is that it leaves us incapable of learning from the past. By ignoring or editing out past mistakes, we only condemn ourselves and our children to repeat them. We end up starting from zero every time. Actually, worse than zero, because we hand on our mistakes but hand on no way to evaluate those mistakes or to learn from them.
The people of ancient Israel had a different perspective. They lived like the person in the rowboat. The future is, by definition, invisible and unknowable. Israel, then, looked to its past in order to find its way. And what did Israel see? In all its stories – which eventually made their way into what we call the Old Testament – there is, first and foremost, the presence of God. God, who creates the world; God, who in the face of sin calls a people – Israel – into freedom from slavery, that they might be holy as God is holy and be a light to the nations. Then, there is Israel itself – freed from slavery, yes, but constantly tempted to return to Egypt. Fear, lust, greed, doubt, and other pressures constantly lead Israel into some form of idolatry (which always becomes slavery). God is continually calling Israel back to faithfulness and freedom. Israel is constantly vacillating between faithfulness to God and sliding into sin and slavery.
For Israel, the only way to move ahead is to look back. This was not what we might call being fixated on the past. In whatever situation they found themselves in the present, Israel could look back and find some comparable moment in their history. They could see where the dangers were and measure their present situation accordingly. Were they being faithful to God, or were they sliding into sin and slavery? In fact, it was by learning to apply the lessons of the past to the present that enabled Israel to face the future with creative trust. The God who saved them before is offering them this same help. Of all the Israelites, the ones who had the most important role in this remembering were the prophets.
We usually think of the prophets as people who could predict future events. However, when we actually read the prophets in the Old Testament, these predictions are always in the context of memory. Prophets reminded the Israelites of who God is and all that God has done for them, and also who they were as God’s people and what that meant in how they lived their lives. If they were faithful to the Lord, they would be greatly blessed because God is utterly faithful. If they rejected the Lord, they would bring disaster on their own heads – just like what happened time and time again in Israel’s past, whenever the people chose the slavery of sin over the freedom of being God’s children.
A prophet might offer a message of consolation or encouragement in the face of great distress or fear. A prophet might offer a message of challenge or critique in the face of some form of unfaithfulness to the Lord. The prophet’s message was not always heeded. The consequences of heeding – or not heeding – the word of the Lord spoken by the prophet would themselves become lessons for subsequent generations in Israel.
Our first reading is from the prophet Amos. Amos is charged with giving an almost unrelenting critique of the leaders of Israel in his day. These leaders focus on their own pleasures and ignore the needs of the poor – especially the widow, the orphan and the foreigner among them – in violation of the Law of Moses. This is not surprising, for these leaders have made themselves, rather than God, central for Israel, and have co-opted many religious leaders in this. Note what Amaziah the priest says to Amos. He tells him not to prophesy such things in Bethel, because it is a royal temple. Not God’s temple, mind you – the king’s. Israel was a small nation surrounded by enemies and fearful of the growing power and aggressiveness of Assyria. That fear fostered a grave temptation – to trust in their own ability rather than in the fidelity of God. This could only lead to disaster. Yet the political leaders of Amos’ day were not listening to him. They saw him as a threat to their position – and portrayed him as unpatriotic for his criticisms of their behavior. As we saw in Amaziah’s case, some religious leaders spoke likewise. This was neither the first nor the last time when perceived threats to the nation would outweigh faithfulness to the Lord.
The role of the prophet does not end with the Old Testament. Jesus is proclaimed by the New Testament as well as Vatican II as Priest, Prophet and King. In our Gospel reading, Jesus hands on to His Apostles (among other things) a prophetic mission. He is about to send them out, two by two, on their first mission without His physical presence among them. They are to preach as Jesus began His own preaching: “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Thus, they are to make present for other people the mission of Jesus and remind them of all Jesus has said and done. This they will do not merely in words. If they are going to invite people to the kind of total faith that Jesus calls for, they must themselves exemplify it. They are to bring no food or money, but trust that in every place where they may go, some people will welcome them and provide for their needs, as Jesus assured them. They are to strengthen faith and, by word and deed, drive out anything that might enslave anyone they encounter. They are to gather people of every sort into the one Body of Christ.
What of you and me, today? Who are our prophets? Let me focus on the fact that, through our baptism and confirmation, every one of us is called to be, each in our own way, priest, prophet, and king – for each one of us is a member of the Body of Christ. What does it mean for you and I to be prophets now? Do we need to predict the future? No. We are a people in our rowboats, who look back to all that God has done for us and steer our lives accordingly. We thus become prophets without even being aware of it.
How might this look? What are the signs?
We look back to Jesus’ own preaching and ministry. He called on people to repent, to believe in Him, and to join His people. This is what His apostles modeled for others. This is what we are called to model.
Repentance. We know we are not perfect. We have not yet finished the race, as Paul says. Yet, whenever we, by God’s grace, put aside our self-centered plans and begin to live for God and others (as the Lord has taught us), we begin to witness to people an alternative way of life. Self-centered plans may hold before us the illusion of freedom, pleasure or influence, but they inevitably lead to slavery. True freedom comes from turning away from such pursuits and turning to the Lord.
Faith. We are prophets when we show in our lives signs of our ultimate commitment to the Lord and all he has taught us. If God is secondary to anything else, we are only deceiving ourselves and others will soon pick up on this. What people need to see is consistency – that we really mean what we say we believe. We cannot be like Amaziah, who put king (or anything else) before God. God is first. God is central. God is all. We trust God when we sense His presence, and all the more when we do not. It is when all seems dark and hopeless, and yet we say yes to God, that we give others our best prophetic witness.
Community. Christian faith is never merely a me-and-Jesus thing. Jesus inevitably draws us into a community of believers – and not a community where everyone is of the same background or sees things the same way. Like the first apostles, we Catholic Christians are a motley crew from every background, personality, and political persuasion. We may not – at least at first – even like some of the others in our community. We would rather, at times, go it alone. Nevertheless, the Lord wants us to travel together in Him and to Him. We are to learn from one another. The strengths of each of us will help the others. But so will the weaknesses, the irritating qualities, and even the sins we all bring to the community. The following words of St. Basil of Caesarea might help us in this context:
How shall you show humility, if you have no one in comparison with whom to show yourself humble? How shall you show compassion if you cut yourself off from the fellowship of the many? How can you exercise yourself in patience, if no one contradicts your wishes? If you think the teaching of the Holy Scripture is sufficient to correct your character, you are like a person who learns the theory of carpentry but never makes anything.
The Lord, because of his great love of humanity, was not content only with teaching the word, but, so that he might accurately and clearly give us an example of humility in the perfection of love, he girded himself and washed the feet of the disciples in person. [If you neglect life in the community] whose feet will you wash? Who will you care for? In comparison to whom will you be last?
It was precisely this mutual love, forged in the service of each other in common weakness, a love that overflowed by reaching out to those who seemed unloveable to society, which was the greatest prophetic witness of the early Church. It was this that made the greatest impression on those who were unbelievers.
We as Catholic Christians, as individuals and as a community, are like that person in the rowboat. We look back to all that God has done for us – especially in Christ. We look back to the history of Israel and all we can learn from their fidelity and their infidelity, for we still live both in our own day. We trust that the Holy Spirit is every with us, helping us to read our present moment in the light of our Jewish-Christian story and to find a way of creative fidelity by which we can move forward in faith. Indeed, only those who know how to look back can truly move forward. They will not be condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. Rather, they will become more like Christ – the true goal of humanity and, indeed, of all creation.
We can find a rich summary of this goal in our second reading. With these words, I’ll bring this post to a close: