Drafted for the Gospel

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are things for which we want to be chosen.  As adults it’s often the job that we applied for, or maybe it’s the significant other that we’ve been dating, whom we hope will ask us to marry.  As children we may want to be chosen to be on the team with our friends on the playground, or for the school play.  I think we all know that the reality is that we often don’t get chosen for the things we want.  Maybe we don’t get the job; maybe we get dumped; maybe we don’t get the role we want or are not on the team we want.

A young man I know from when I was a priest in East Lansing, Cooper Rush, was chosen again and again for football teams, despite ever-increasing odds not to be chosen.  He was the quarterback for Lansing Catholic, holds records for an MHSAA playoff game, led Lansing Catholic one year to the State Championship (where, ironically, Lansing Catholic lost to Flint Powers).  He then was chosen to play quarterback at Central Michigan University, and was very successful at Central, going to bowl games and even holding a FBS Bowl Game record for most touchdowns passes in a Bowl Game.  Currently, he is a back-up quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.  And besides being a good athlete, he is also an upstanding man.

The odds of him making it to the NFL weren’t that good.  One stat from 2015 says that there were 1.087 million high school football players.  Of those, 310,000 high school football players were seniors.  Of those, only 70,000 were chosen to be on an NCAA football team.  Of those, on 20,000 played on an NCAA team.  Of those 20,000, about 15,500 were college seniors.  Of those 15,500 seniors, 6,500 were scouted by the NFL, and only 350 were invited to a combine to show their football skills.  Of those, 256 players were drafted by the NFL.  The odds of being chosen for high school, college, and professional football are about 1.6 out of 100.

The odds of being chosen to preach the Gospel, however, are much better.  Every baptized person has been chosen, drafted, we might say, to preach the Gospel both by deeds and words.  And while we might not think of ourselves as a draft pick, we heard in our first reading and Gospel about some unlikely characters who are chosen.

In the first reading, we hear about Jonah being asked by God to preach to the citizens of Nineveh.  God asks Jonah to tell them to repent, to turn away from their sinful, pagan ways.  Jonah didn’t want to go; he hated Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire which had exiled the members of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Jonah even tried to run away, but God did not abandon Jonah or let him off the hook.  And even when Jonah preached repentance, he hoped that the Assyrians would not listen, so that God could destroy the pagan empire.  Probably not a first round evangelist.

And in the Gospel we hear about Jesus calling the first apostles: Simon, Andrew, James, and John.  They were not rabbis.  There were not the educated elite of Judaism.  They were fishermen.  But Jesus saw something in them that He knew would be important for having as disciple.  It wasn’t always obvious to others, though.  Peter always seemed to speak before thinking, denied Jesus during His Passion, and even almost ran away from his martyrdom in Rome.  James and John were the ones who asked for a privileged spot in the kingdom of God, in front of the line of the other apostles, and asked Jesus to call down fire upon the Samaritan towns when they wouldn’t receive Jesus on His journey to Jerusalem.  And even the other apostles were not seemingly the best catch: Matthew was a tax collector; Thomas doubted; Simon wanted to violently overthrow the Roman government; and they were all uneducated, simple people.  And yet Jesus called each of them to preach the Gospel.

You may not think it, but Jesus has also called you to preach the Gospel.  When you were baptized you were committed or you committed yourself to being a disciple of Jesus, to conforming your life to His, to sharing with others the good news of what Jesus has done for us (freeing us from sin and death).  You may not think you have what it takes, but Jesus does.  And even if you feel like you need to know more, that’s why we have Bible studies, and faith sharing groups, and formational events both here, in the greater-Flint area, and across the Diocese, events like the Men’s and Women’s Conferences.  If you don’t feel like you have what it takes, then work towards that goal of having what it takes.  Make your faith life more than simply coming to Mass on Sundays and holydays.  Get involved in deepening your faith and maybe volunteering in our parish ministries.  You might just be the one to bring another person to Jesus.

"If you're going through hell, keep on going"

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

            “Is anybody there?”  This is the question the Prophet Habakkuk asks God in the first reading.  He is frustrated by the evil that is all around him, how violence and wickedness seem to be everywhere.  And yet God, who is supposed to be the source of justice, the one who punishes the wicked, seems absent from the situation.  The wrongs are not being righted.  The oppressed are not being liberated.  The wicked are not being punished.  Where is God in this situation?

            “Is anybody there?”  This is probably a question that we have asked God from time to time.  “Don’t you care what’s going on in my life?  Don’t you care how bad things are?”  Maybe it’s not violence like the Prophet Habakkuk is frustrated by.  Maybe you’re a senior citizen and no one comes to visit you and you feel alone.  Maybe you’re married, yet the spark of love seems to have died, and all you seem to do is fight with your spouse.  Maybe you’re divorced and feel alienated.  Maybe you’re a college student and the pressure of midterms is weighing heavily upon you and you feel like you’re drowning in your classes.  Maybe you’re a child and nothing seems to be going right with friends, family, or school.  Maybe someone you love has just died and you don’t know how to live without him or her.  No matter what the scenario, many people have dark times in their life.  And what makes it particularly dark is when God doesn’t seem to care, and when the answer to prayer that we want, the thing we are sure will fix the whole situation, doesn’t come. 

            But in our first reading, God responds.  He does not leave Habakkuk in silence.  He says, “Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets…For the vision still has its time…if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  In essence, God tells the prophet, “Just wait.  I am going to work things out in my own time.”  That’s probably not the answer we want to hear when we feel like everything is going wrong.  But God doesn’t answer our prayers exactly the way we want.  He loves us too much to give us only what we want.  He loves us so much, that He knows how and when to give us what we need.  But to persevere through the tough times takes trust and faith in God.

            It’s easy to say with St. Paul, “All things work for the good of those who love God,” when we’ve just won the lottery, when we feel on top of the world, when everything seems to be going well.  It is much harder to say that same phrase when loss and darkness seem to be the norm.  But the gift of faith gives us the strength to trust that all things are working for our good if we love God, and to say with Job, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord!”  With faith, great things are possible.

            Certainly this is the point of what Jesus said to the apostles in today’s Gospel.  Jesus wasn’t talking about landscaping when he said you could move mulberry trees if you have faith.  In some sense, that’s quite easy.  How much harder is it to trust in God when everything seems to be working against us!  And how much more impressive is it to continue to remain faithful to God and persevere than just to move a tree!  In one sense, moving a tree with faith is easy.  Remaining faithful to God and continuing to trust in Him when your heart and your will tell you just to give up is much more of a miracle.  And that is possible if we have faith the size of a mustard seed.  That’s not a lot of faith.  Mustard seeds are not big.  If I were to hold a mustard seed between my finger and thumb, no one could see it, unless you’re Clark Kent.

           

But we were all given the gift of faith in Baptism.  All of us received that precious gift when we became an adopted son or daughter of God.  Sometimes people will say to me, “Father, I don’t have any faith!”  Well, if you were baptized, then you do, even if you don’t feel it.  St. Paul, speaking to St. Timothy in the second reading, reminds St. Timothy to stir into flame the gift of God that he received through the imposition of hands.  St. Paul is talking here about the ordination of St. Timothy, and stirring into flame that gift of the Sacrament of Holy Order.  But the same could be said for the gift of baptism.  We have to stir into flame that gift of the Sacrament of Baptism, the gift of faith, so that we do not fall into the spirit of cowardice or apathy or despair.  We have to exercise that gift of faith, especially when it is tough. 

            Think of a few, small, burning embers in a fire that was burning the night before.  All it takes is some paper and small twigs, some gentle breaths of oxygen, and that fire can start burning once again the next morning and can return to the greatness of the night before.  The same is true with our faith: even when we feel our faith is nothing but a small ember, a small remnant of what it was before, with the proper fuel, our faith can once again be a roaring fire.  How does this happen?  Through reading the Word of God, either alone or in a Bible Study; by sharing with others the little bit of faith we have through Small Faith Sharing Groups; by taking time for prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament in Adoration; by removing any obstacles to faith through the Sacrament of Penance.  In that way we nurture the mustard seed of faith, until it grows into a large tree that provides home and comfort for others.

            In a country song, Rodney Atkins sings, “If you’re going through hell, keep on going.”  By the gift of faith we can persevere through all the trials of life, even when we feel like it’s going through hell, knowing that God never abandons us, but sometimes asks us to wait to receive the best things that He has in store for us in the way and the time that He wants to give it.  “If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”