The Top-Shelf Gospel

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

    Many of you know how much I have grown to appreciate bourbon over the past year or so. I had tried bourbon years ago, and would drink it occasionally since I was a priest, but ever since I started the Kentucky Bourbon Trail last September as part of my 40th birthday celebrations, I have really gotten into bourbon as my liquor of choice (always enjoy responsibly!). In fact, this past week I was down in Kentucky again, finishing the Kentucky Craft Distillery tour. 

    Among bourbon connoisseurs there is one bourbon that always comes up. People usually have mixed reactions to it, but it is one of the most sought-after bourbons in the US, and likely the world. That bourbon brand is Pappy Van Winkle. I won’t go into all the reasons, but Pappy Van Winkle is very hard to find, and when you can find it, it’s expensive, whether by the pour or by the bottle. A couple of weeks ago a Catholic who has done quite well for himself invited me over to his house in Grand Ledge for a bourbon tasting, and he let me try a 3/4 oz. pour of Pappy Van Winkle, along with some other top shelf bourbons.          

As we talked (as alcohol has a propensity for encouraging talking), something he said struck me, especially in regard to today’s readings. He mentioned that he has been able to acquire some very good bourbons, but he doesn’t just keep them for himself. He wants to share them with others and let them experience something they couldn’t experience on their own. So he hosts small bourbon tasting parties, or donates some of the top shelf bourbon that he acquires to charitable auctions or fundraisers so that groups can benefit from the donations and individuals can have a chance to taste some good bourbon. 

    We might consider the Gospel like a top shelf bourbon (very top shelf). And by Gospel, I mean the entirety of what Christ has revealed through the Scriptures and His Mystical Body, the Church. It is precious, because it is the key to finding eternal life. But like a top shelf bourbon, there is the temptation to simply hold on to it once we have acquired it and let it sit on a shelf as an occasional talking point or a badge of honor that we have found it. But the Gospel is not meant to be kept to oneself. It is meant to be shared with others, so that, quoting Psalm 34, they can "taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” 

    So often, when we think about the apostles, or at least I know this is true in my own thinking, I imagine them walking around with Jesus for three years, seeing His miracles, hearing His teachings, watching Him pray, and the like. But our Gospel reminds us today that He sent them out to proclaim what they had experienced. Jesus didn’t have them get a special degree or certificate to prove they were ready (and in many ways they weren’t ready, as we also see in the Gospel accounts). But He sent them out to proclaim that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and to cast out demons and heal the sick. And they did. We don’t know exactly how long they were gone, but we can imagine they went out all over Judea telling others about Jesus and sharing His teachings with them, as they participated in Jesus’ work of freeing people from the dominion of Satan and curing their diseases and infirmities. So it probably took a little while. And perhaps this happened more than once in that three-year time period. Like Amos in our first reading, they didn’t have any special commission other than from God calling them to speak for Him. 

    God has chosen us, as St. Paul said in the second reading, not only to be His people, but to share with others “the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.” We continue what started in the early Church: we receive the Gospel, and then we change our lives, and then we share the Gospel as God commissions us. We don’t keep it to ourselves, but we share it with others, whether in our homes, at work, on vacation, and even while on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Many of you do that in your families, sharing the importance of Christ in your marriage and with your kids or grandkids. Hopefully many of you provide a good example at work of what it means to be Catholic, and assist those going through hard times by praying with them and sharing how Christ helps us make it through any difficulty. Some are called to be priests or consecrated men and women who give up certain things or even everything to focus on our relationship with Christ. But the key is that we are sharing the Gospel by what we do and by what we say, and that we don’t simply keep it to ourselves. 

    The Gospel is infinitely more precious than even a 23-year Family Reserve bottle of Pappy Van Winkle. You don’t have to hunt for it or pay any money to acquire the Gospel. But it is not meant to sit on the shelf and get dusty. The new wine of the Gospel is meant to be shared with others so that they can enjoy its flavor and vitality. And, unlike liquor, the more we share it, the more of it we have for ourselves. So share the Gospel with others. Their life is not the same without it, and won’t be the same after they taste of the Gospel.

Recognizing Holiness

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Me after my first Extraordinary Form Mass

    There is a tradition in the Extraordinary Form that the people bow as the priest processes up or down the aisle at the beginning or end of Mass.  This gesture is a sign of respect, not so much for the priest as an individual, but for Christ whom the priest makes present in a special way each Mass.
    I remember at the first Extraordinary Form Mass that I celebrated, I invited my friend to be there.  After Mass we spoke about how it went, and he joked with me that he saw all the people bowing, but he didn’t bow because he knows me too well and he doesn’t think I’m worthy of a bow. 
    I know my friend didn’t mean any disrespect, and he certainly is good at keeping me humble and not thinking that they are bowing to me.  But it illustrates the point that Jesus made in the Gospel today: it’s hard to recognize holiness in people we know well.  It was true for Jesus in His own time, and it continues to be true now.  With merely human friends, we know all their failings and their idiosyncrasies.  Of course, Jesus had no failings or idiosyncrasies.  But the cliché phrase can so easily come true: familiarity breeds contempt. 
    But in our minds, we convince ourselves that if we would have been alive at the time of Christ, we would have been one of His closest followers.  We would have walked all over to see His miracles; we would have believed in Him from His miracles and teachings; we would have stayed faithful to Him during His Passion; we would have stood by the cross at His crucifixion.  But the witness of the Gospels show us that, just because people were close to Jesus didn’t mean they stood by Him all the time or recognized His holiness.
    Holiness can draw people in.  Think of St. Theresa of Calcutta (Mother Theresa) or St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio).  Though, even in those cases, most people who were drawn in didn’t spend a lot of time with the saints.  They simply had one or a few powerful encounters.  So it’s also true that holiness can put people off.  St. Francis of Assisi drew a number of people towards him to join in his radical way of life.  But if you stripped down in the town square to show your renunciation of all your worldly goods, it’s not an old man in a white cassock who would come to see you, but a doctor in a white coat who might come to commit you to a mental health facility!  Sometimes the holiest of people can be quite annoying to those of us who don’t share in their total love for God.
    Why?  Why can we find it so difficult to love the saints?  Why is it so easy to be hard-hearted, as God warned Ezekiel the people of Israel would be.  As St. John says in the Gospel, people often prefer darkness to light, and so when the light comes, we try however we can to get rid of it.  The light makes the darkness in us uncomfortable, and makes us realize that we are not who we claim to be. 
    And because of this hardness of heart and preference for darkness, God does not work great things in us.  He can’t, because we leave no openness to His work in our lives, but reject it and work against it.  And God respects our free will, however miserable the misuse of our free will makes us.  He wants to do great things in us, to transform us by the power of His love and grace, but He won’t force Himself on us, because love never forces itself on anyone.  Jesus didn’t work great miracles in His home town because of the people’s lack of faith there.  When we don’t open up to God, when we lack faith that God can do something for us, then He won’t work miracles in us. 
    The key to allowing Christ to work great things in us is to admit we need Him.  Even the smallest opening to God’s work in us can be enough for God to break through.  Think of St. Paul: there must have been some openness to God’s work, even as he was persecuting Christians, so that when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, it could change his life and change him from a persecutor of Christians to one of the greatest Christian missionaries the world has ever known. 
    Today, ask God to soften your heart to be open to His work.  Ask him to reveal holy people in your life who can help you grow closer to God.  It could be a friend or a relative.  It could be someone you have written off.  But if we ask God to do great things for us, and make even a small amount of space for His love and grace, there’s no telling how much God can do with us, and make us into the saints He created us to be.  

Chosen, Not the Series

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When I was in elementary school, one of the biggest highlights of the day was recess.  At our small parochial school, St. Mary in Williamston, whether it was warm or cold, we would play soccer on the asphalt parking lot.  But, before we could play, we had to choose teams, which meant that the captains had to pick whom they wanted for their team.  Of course, the captains would always pick the best players first, and it was a great ego boost if you were picked early, rather than being picked last.
    We hear about a lot of choosing today, in all three readings.  God chooses Amos to prophesy, though Amos wasn’t really looking to be picked.  Jesus picks the Twelve Apostles, and sends them on their mission to assist Jesus in proclaiming the Gospel.  And St. Paul, in our second reading, reminds us that we have been chosen “before the foundation of the world, to be holy.”  Do you consider yourself chosen?
 

The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio

   God did choose you.  He chose you, not only for life, but for holiness, and for witnessing to His life, love, and truth.  You were chosen for holiness and witness when you were baptized.  At that moment, your life was not about you, but about the mission, about showing by the way you live and what you do that you belong to God and that true happiness is not found by giving in to passing pleasures, but by restraining ourselves, dying to ourselves, so that we can live most freely for God. 
    From baptism to your confirmation, you were being prepared for the mission.  You were (hopefully) being taught the basic truths of the faith, and being schooled in virtue so that you could more easily choose the good and reject what is evil.  You may have not decided to be chosen (many were baptized as infants), but you also didn’t decide to be born; that choice was made for you.  And your parents hopefully loved you enough to decide which foods you could eat to help you grow into a healthy human being.  Again, you didn’t decide that for yourself, but your parents wanted to give you the best foundation possible in both your earthly and your spiritual life.
    When you were confirmed, you didn’t decide whether or not you were chosen.  You were already chosen in baptism, and nothing can stop you from being chosen from that point on.  Each person, after baptism, has a seal, a character, that is indelible, which cannot be washed away.  So many children are wrongly taught that confirmation is them choosing to remain Catholic.  Once a  person is baptized, that person is always a baptized Catholic, whether that person chooses to live the faith or reject the faith.  Confirmation, is where you stand before God and His Church and say that you are ready to witness that life of Jesus in your own life, and that you are ready to share with others the faith you have received.  And God sends His Holy Spirit upon you to make that witness possible.  God confirms His original choice of you and continues to give you the means by which you can respond to that choice. 
    Perhaps this is a new message for us.  Perhaps you’ve never heard this before.  But you have been chosen.  Amos was accused of choosing himself, of belonging to a prophetic guild (think of it as a club for prophets).  But, he tells the pagan priest, Amaziah that he did not volunteer, but God chose him to speak God’s word to the Israelites so that they could turn away from their sins and live for God.  Perhaps you feel like you’re not stepping forward to witness to God by your words and deeds.  But God wants you anyway to speak His Word to a world that needs to hear it.
    Perhaps you do feel chosen, but you don’t feel equipped for the mission.  You might be like the Twelve Apostles, whom Jesus chose, but then who needed some time spent with Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit before they were ready to witness to Jesus.  The Apostles weren’t the smartest people.  They came from different political backgrounds, and would compete with each other for the place of honor.  But, through spending time with Jesus, hearing His truth, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were empowered to proclaim Christ by their lives and by their deaths (St. John the Apostle was the only one who was not martyred).  The same can be said for us.  If we want to live according to our Divine election, we need to spend time with Jesus, and ask Him to stir up into flame the gift of the Holy Spirit that we received at Confirmation. 
    No matter whether we feel chosen or not, St. Paul says that we are, chosen to exist for “the praise of [God’s] glory.”  As a married person, as a parent, as an employer or employee or retiree, as a priest, as a deacon, as a sister or brother, as a child, as a student, in every walk of life, we have been chosen, and our eternal salvation depends on the response to that choice.  We may witness in big ways, or we may witness in small ways, but may God encourage us as those He has chosen for His team, which, in the end, is the only team that will win.

First Weekend Message

 Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-St. Matthew
 

   So it’s my first weekend here, my first chance to preach the Word of God to you as your new pastor.  As I looked forward to this day, I was hoping for really good readings that would talk about being a good shepherd, or encouraging the disciples, or something very uplifting.  What did I actually get for the first reading?  “Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me; they and they ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.  Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.”  
    Well, certainly the second reading should be better.  “Therefore, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ.”  Great
    Well, the Gospel is always good.  It’s got to have an upbeat message.  “When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished.  They said, ‘Where did this man get all of this?’…And they took offense at him.”  Lovely.
    But, I’m told to preach on the Word of God in the homily, so I’ll work with what I have.  I am not presuming that you are revolting against God, or hard of heart.  I certainly hope that I won’t have to put up with many insults, hardships, persecutions, or constraints.  And I hope you do not take offense at me.  
    But I can also tell you that I am not a perfect pastor.  Neither was Fr. Tom, or even, dare I say it, Fr. Taggert.  So if you were hoping for a perfect pastor who will never make any mistakes, you are in for many disappointments.  I don’t try to mess-up, but I do from time-to-time.  I will make certain judgments that you like and with which you agree, and I will make others that you hate and which you think are stupid.  That’s ok.  The key is whether or not we are being open to the Word of God, and what God is trying to do here.
    Over my (hopefully) many years here as pastor, I promise to preach the Gospel to you.  I promise to be faithful the Church’s teaching.  In fact, when Bishop Boyea installs me as pastor on 15 August at the 11 a.m. Mass, I will, for the fifth time (I believe) in my life, make a Profession of Faith and an Oath of Fidelity to all that has been revealed by God through the Church.  Sometimes you will like that.  Sometimes it may rub you the wrong way.
    Because the Word of God is meant to challenge us.  It is also meant to comfort us.  It comforts us when we are in line with what God has revealed for our happiness.  It challenges us when we are out of line with what God has revealed for our happiness.  Hearing those messages are hard.  Because I’m not perfect, my personal friends sometimes have to tell me things that I don’t really want to hear.  It’s hard; it hurts; sometimes it can even cause tears.  But with my friends, I know they love me, and so when they speak a hard word to me, I can receive it better because it is spoken in love.
    And I, as your pastor, also commit to loving you.  You are my spiritual children (though many of you are older than I).  Though I don’t know you well, I already love you, because you are the spiritual family God has entrusted to me.  And like a husband for his wife, or a wife for her husband, my goal is to help you get to heaven.  I can’t get there for you, but I can at least help you see the way.  
    But along that way, I ask for your understanding and mercy.  As I said, I will make mistakes.  I will, as the pastor of two parishes, sometimes get overwhelmed.  I have a lot to learn about how things have been done, and how things can be done here.  So please be patient with me, and give me the benefit of the doubt, as I will try to do with you.
    I will also say this, as I know it’s a fear on some of your hearts: St. Matthew will be a place where both the post-Vatican II Mass (Pope Benedict used the term Ordinary Form) and the pre-Vatican II Mass (Extraordinary Form) will be offered.  My hope is that parishioners who attend either will see themselves as one community, unified in their diversity, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in and around Flint, and help people to be open to the Word of God which sometimes challenges us, and sometimes comforts us.  I would love to see this parish grow and be a beacon of hope in our community.  I hope that you will join with me to accomplish this goal.  Will you do it perfectly?  No.  Will I?  No.  But we will do as best as we can, animated by the grace of God and by love of our neighbor.  I love you, and look forward to working with you and for you!

Familiarity with Jesus

 Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-St. Pius X
    Apparently phrases that I have heard used and have used myself are now a bit dated.  I was shopping with a friend at Home Depot, and we couldn’t find everything we needed.  But he had found one of the things he needed.  So he was wondering out loud if he should buy the part at Home Depot, or put it back and hope that the next hardware shop had it.  I said, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” and he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign language.  At the same time, a Vietnam vet was walking by and said that he hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time.  Perhaps it is a bit old.  

    We’ve probably all heard the cliché phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”  And that’s what we see going on in the Gospel today.  Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in his home town, and people are shocked at the authority with which He is speaking.  And they write Him off, because he’s just a local boy, the son of Mary.  
    Now this isn’t like other local boys.  In my home town, people know what I was like before I was a priest.  I wasn’t bad, in fact, I tended to behave myself quite well, as you might have guessed.  But one could understand how the neighbors might sometimes not give a local boy his due, as they know his faults and failings.  But Jesus didn’t have faults or failings.  They couldn’t point to some scandal as the excuse why they shouldn’t listen to Him.  But still, they lacked faith, and so Jesus was not able to do many miracles there, which probably only added to the sense that He wasn’t all that special.
    In our first reading, God warns the prophet Ezekiel that, though God will send Ezekiel with a message he needs to speak, the Israelites will not listen, because their hearts are obstinate.  They do not want to hear what God has to say.  But, God does promise that they will know that a prophet has been among them, even though they won’t listen.
    I think we often have this perception that if there are holy people around us, people whom God is sending, then we will listen to them and believe.  But the entire Bible is proof that, more often than not, people do not listen to God’s messengers.  They find some excuse not to listen.  It could be that they are too close to the messenger, or that their hearts are stubborn and hard, or that it’s not the message that they think God wants to send to them.  And so they close their ears and hearts to the Word of God, which is actually what will bring lasting happiness.  
    We can sometimes do this when we read the Bible.  We read the parts that we like, that are what we want to hear, but then we reject the parts that are hard, or that we don’t think sound right.  We all love hearing that God loves us.  We love hearing about Jesus forgiving the woman caught in adultery, or healing the lepers, or curing the man born blind.  But then when we get to the part about only marrying once or else a person commits adultery; or the part about turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel; or the part where Jesus says the way is narrow that leads to salvation, and few find it; or the part where Jesus establishes His Church with the apostles exercising authority over it, we do all sorts of mental gymnastics to excuse why we don’t have to listen to that part or why it doesn’t mean what it clearly says.  St. Augustine once wrote, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe in, but yourself.”  And faith in self does not lead to salvation or heaven.
    Even more than we do it in the Bible, we do it with the way God continues to speak authoritatively in His Church.  We like it when Pope Francis talks about loving, caring for the poor, and not judging, but when he talks about marriage being only between one man and one woman for life, or that the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate are reserved for men, we write him off.  The same could be said when the Church teaches about how artificial contraception is wrong, or that people are the gender that they are born with, or that abortion is wrong and we should not support those who support abortion.  We decide that we know better than the Mystical Body of Christ.  And yet, the Church, when speaking on faith or morals, does speak with the voice and the authority of God, since Jesus Himself said to His Apostles, “‘He who hears you, hears me.  And he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.’”
    Does this mean that we should not be familiar with Jesus, because we’ll hold Him in contempt?  I would suggest the opposite.  The more we draw closer to Jesus, the more we hear God speaking through Him, and the more that we come to love His word, even when it’s difficult.  As we come to know Jesus better, we understand the wisdom that He shares with us, even when it goes against our culture or our mindset.  Be open to the word that God speaks through His Word and His Church.  Do not rebel against God’s prophets!

Wasting Time with Jesus

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Brad Paisley, one of the great country music singers of our time, has a song he released in 2005 called, “Time Well Wasted.”  He goes through all the things he could have been doing, things that were very practical, like raking leaves, washing the car, etc., but talks about how spending time with his love was “time well wasted.”

America, in particular, has a thing against “wasting” time.  We place work and productivity on a very high pedestal.  And there’s something good about that.  Work can be sanctifying if we unite it to Jesus, and producing new ideas and new products helps to better society.  But the temptation in our prodigiousness, the excess of that virtue of working hard, is working too hard, and missing out on the important things of life.  I remember when I was studying in Italy how things would close down for a few hours around lunch.  Now, I don’t mean to offend, and certainly I don’t want to stereotype too much, but in Europe, Italians are not known for being hard workers in the first place.  But they always make sure to take a break in the middle of the day for pranzo, lunch, and a nice riposo, a nice nap.  And while we might think that’s a waste of daylight, there’s something good about spending time with family and friends to enjoy a leisurely meal and rest.  The work will always be there, but as some people learn in tragic ways, friends and family are not always with us on earth.

Bishop Barron, in his new series on the Mass, talks about how the Mass is the ultimate form of play.  That might seem counterintuitive, given how serious we take the Mass.  But, think about children and how seriously they take playing.  Or think about sports and how seriously we take playing those games.  There are rules, there are expectations, there are uniforms.  So often, we think that the most important thing is work, and we play if we have time.  But play can be more important, especially when we talk about the Mass.

It’s no secret that people don’t go to Mass anymore.  We notice it as we look around, and as we prepare for the transition to two Masses per weekend.  So why are Masses so scarcely populated, and not just here in Flint, where people continue to leave the city, but around the United States and around the world?

Jesus, after His disciples had returned, invited the apostles to go off “to a deserted place and rest awhile.”  The ones whose very title, “apostle,” means one who is sent out, need time to rest with Jesus.  And what do we do at Mass, if not rest with Jesus?  We worship God, and that is most important, but just like the Jews on the Sabbath, we rest, and worshipping God allows us to rest from our labors, not because we are lazy, but because we imitate God in resting from His work of creation.  I think that part of the reason for people not coming to Mass is that they expect the Mass to provide something that it’s not meant to provide.  If you want to be entertained at Mass, then you will surely be disappointed, because the Mass is not a movie or a show.  If you want an emotional or spiritual high, then you may be disappointed, because the Mass is not meant to appeal to every personality style and temperament every week.  If you want music that speaks to you each and every time, then you’re putting way too much pressure on the Mass, because Catholic music, truly Catholic music, is meant to be adding dressing to Scripture.  Can we be entertained at Mass?  It happens; some priests are funny, and others, like me, are just funny-looking.  Can we get an emotional or spiritual high?  It can happen, and praise God when it does!  Can music touch our hearts in a way that mere words cannot?  Sometimes the words put together with a certain musical setting hits us right in the feels.  But Mass is meant to help us worship God and rest in Him.  

I know that’s a tough message.  I know it’s not the message we want to hear, because we want to be entertained, we want the high, we want the feels.  But too many sheep have wandered away from the fold because what they want from the Mass is not what the Mass is meant to give.  Sometimes even priests have mislead and scattered the flock by overly inserting themselves in the Mass, making the Mass a performance of their personality, instead of celebrating the Mass as the Church asks.  And I also know that sometimes, despite my own best efforts, my homilies are boring.  Our sound system could also use some updating. 

But I invite you to come to St. Pius X each weekend after your weekly work of spreading the Gospel to rest with Jesus and to worship Him, who brought us near by His blood, and who reconciled us to God through His Body through the Cross.  Sunday sports may sound more enticing.  The lawn may need mowing and the laundry may need cleaning.  The kids may be a handful and may be noisy.  But come to Mass anyway, to rest with Jesus.  And since you all already do come to Mass, tell your kids, tell your godchildren, tell your friends that Jesus knows you need a rest–not entertainment, not an emotional or spiritual roller coaster, but rest.  Receive the Body of Christ.  Taste the fountain of immortality.  Waste time with Jesus and worship Him who gives you the precious gift of rest in Him.

Domesticated Prophets

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

According to the most scholarly of sources, Wikipedia, dogs were domesticated sometime around 14,700 years ago, based on a dog being buried near a human grave.  Since then, we have many different varieties of domestic dogs that are called, because of their long association with humans, man’s best friend.

What our early ancestors did with dogs, we have done with Biblical prophets: we have domesticated them.  We have taken out, or chosen to ignore, many of the wild traits, in order to make it more comfortable to live with them.  But prophets have always been quite eccentric people that were not, at first blush, the best spokesmen for God.  Moses, the first great prophet, was slow of speech and tongue, according to his own words.  And he, by the power of God, changed a staff into a snake, caused the Nile to turn to blood, and brought a number of plagues upon Egypt.  Samuel, the great prophet who anointed the first kings of Israel, Saul and David, killed the Amalekite King Agag because Saul, was ordered by God to kill King Agag, but refused to do so.  Elisha was jeered at by some small

boys, who said, “‘Go up, baldhead!” and he cursed them, and two she-bears came out of the woods and tore them to pieces.  In chapter 20 of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, God tells Isaiah, “Go and take off the sackcloth from your waist, and remove the sandals from your feet.  This he did, walking naked and barefoot.”  And it says in the next verse that this happened for 3 years.  Jeremiah told the king that Jerusalem, the place of the great Temple of the Lord, was going to be destroyed, and no one believed him.  And St. John the Baptist, the last and greatest of prophets, wore a camel-hair tunic and ate locusts and honey.  None of these seem to be people that civilized folk would want to be around.

And perhaps that is part of the reason they were never accepted in their home towns, as Jesus said in the Gospel today.  We tend to think of the prophets as nice guys who were able to tell the future.  We make them pretty well-dressed, white-bearded men.  But they railed against the injustices of their day and often became very unpopular in the process (walking around naked for 3 years can tend to make a person unpopular).  In many cases, they spoke out against the king, because he was the leader of the people.  But no matter whether they spoke out against a person or a situation, they always spoke the words that God gave them to say.

It’s cliché, but as prophets, God calls us to give comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comfortable.  Jesus, as the source of prophecy and the Prophet about whom Moses spoke, to whom the Chosen People needed to listen, lived this out in a most perfect way.  To the Pharisees and scribes, those who were assured about their own righteousness, Jesus did not have great words to say, calling them “broods of vipers” and “white-washed sepulchers.”  But to the sinners, those who were often excluded from the daily life of Israel, Jesus preached love and acceptance, even while calling them, too, to conversion.  The woman caught in adultery is not stoned for her sin, but is told to go and sin no more.  The Samaritan woman at the well was convicted by Jesus about her many husbands, but she is also encouraged to drink the living water that comes from Jesus so that she can have eternal life.

There are parts of our life that God calls others to confront in us, and parts of our life that need the comfort of God.  When a person does not realize the conversion that needs to take place, God calls us to issue strong, dramatic words to help that person realize his or her need for God and a change in life.  When a person is beat up by the world, and despairing of any chance of redemption, God calls us to issue tender, loving words to help that person realize how much value he or she has.  We are not called to be nice, to say, “but that’s none of my business,” when we see sin and its effects in others.  But we are called to be prophets, by virtue of our baptism, who afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  

I’m not suggesting that we should walk around naked, not even for a day.  I’m not saying that we should curse people who make fun of us and send she-bears after them to tear them to pieces.  I’m not saying that we should threaten the destruction of a church.  But we also have to be careful about only saying things that people want to hear, things that do not make demands on life or call for conversion, things that do not challenge.  

God has called us to be prophets, and that in itself is a radical demand.  God calls us to speak His Word in our daily lives so that others can either turn from the evil they’re doing and live, and/or know just how much God loves them and wants the best for them.  Do not take the wild nature out of our prophetic call!  God save us from domesticated prophets!!