The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Dedication of the Shrine to Blessed John XXIII)
September 30, 2012
"Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and
that the Lord's spirit would be given to them all." Those words of Moses
in today's first reading from the Book of Numbers were his rather surprising
response to a situation that could have been downright threatening to him.
Remember who Moses was: he was the leader of God’s chosen people and their
liberator. They looked to Moss for everything. For the people of Israel,
the voice of Moses was the voice of God.
But Moses was human, too, and when he became
overburdened, God took some of the Spirit that was on him and gave it to seventy
elders of the people who then also began to speak in God's name and with God's
authority.
That was one thing. But, then, two characters named
Eldad and Medad -- outsiders who hadn't even been present along with the seventy
elders -- began speaking in God’s name, too. A fearful, small-minded
leader would have gotten nervous at that point – jealous of his authority.
Not Moses. When he learned of it he expressed delight: "Would that
all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord's spirit would be given to
them all...!"
Moses was not one to place limits on God or on the
workings of God's Spirit. Nor was Jesus. In today's Gospel passage
from Mark we have something of a parallel. Instead of those two prophets
without portfolio, Eldad and Medad, we have someone presuming to cast out demons
in Jesus' name. And some nervous disciples try to put a stop to it.
Jesus' response sounds a little like Moses: "Do not stop him. Whoever is not
against us is for us!"
Both these readings score a point for religious
tolerance and pluralism. They speak about welcoming truth no matter where
it comes from -- even when it comes from ‘outsiders’ -- maybe even from outside
the ranks of believers. The truth, after all, is one, and is never the private
possession of a few privileged insiders. The truth lives in unexpected places as
today’s scriptures make clear.
I hear something further in these readings, too: a call
to avoid an ‘insider-outsider’ mentality. In the Church we are all
insiders. God’s Spirit has been poured out in abundance on us all. The
inscription around our baptistery says it all: we are all of us “a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” Moses’ dream that all God’s people
might be prophets has been realized – in you and in me – in all the holy people
of God, the Church.
The implications of this are very far-reaching.
If the Church is a priestly, prophetic and holy people -- the entire Church --
then holiness is not something that trickles down from the top. And
wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are not sparingly doled out by a favored
few at the top to the many and the motley at the bottom. No. That’s bad
theology. There is only the Body of Christ in which gifts are poured out
in abundance by the Spirit who "breathes where it will," as Jesus said to
Nicodemus.
This, of course, does not mean that there are not
within the church particular roles and responsibilities: ordained
ministries, lay ministries, ministries of teaching, of authority, of service.
There are. But the overriding reality is that these ministries are carried
out within a Church in which all have been graced by the Spirit in Baptism and
Confirmation and all have received the Spirit's gifts of wisdom, understanding,
and right judgment.
What a great message this is for us today as we
remember the great and blessed Pope John XXIII and dedicate a shrine to this man
who would never have been elected Pope had it not been for the mysterious
workings of the Holy Spirit. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, born to humble
sharecroppers in a backwater northern Italian village, was hardly a likely
candidate for Pope. He was old, for one thing, and while he had served the
Church faithfully, he had done so in mostly marginal, second-rung assignments.
“Just one look at me,” he once said with typical self-deprecating humor, “and
anyone would know there is nobody less suited than I for the apostolate of
dinner parties!” When it came to Vatican politics, he was an outsider, but
that turned out to be a plus when the College of Cardinals decided to elect a
compromise candidate – a short-termer, they figured, who could hold the place
until a more permanent – and likely – candidate would emerge.
Imagine, then, the shock waves the new Pope unleashed
across the world when, only three months after his election, he announced his
intention to call a major Church Council. But maybe the world shouldn’t have
been so surprised because, although definitely not an insider, he had clearly
been an innovator in his various diplomatic postings: Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece
and Paris. In Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, the Catholic Church was itself an
outsider, and in post Nazi-occupied France, the Church was regarded by some as
an outlaw, thanks to weak collaborationist bishops during the War. So what did
he do? He did what he always did: he built bridges: bridges to hostile
governments, bridges to long-alienated Orthodox Christians, bridges to
persecuted Jews, and to Muslims who had never so much as met a Catholic priest.
“Let us look at each other without mistrust,” he would say, “meet each other
without fear, talk with each other without surrendering principle.”
Because he was so warmly open and approachable -- like
a favorite uncle – and so respectful of difference and diversity, he gained
respect and quickly came to know the struggles of ordinary people, as well as
the challenges and possibilities facing a Church that had long regarded itself
as self-sufficient, with everything to teach and little, if anything, to learn.
Through it all, this unlikely candidate for the papacy
came to understand that the Holy Spirit speaks in many ways – through Church
leaders, yes, but also through people in the pews; through outsiders, too;
through those whose worldview and whose religious convictions were far different
from his own. It’s a lesson he never forgot. “This morning I must receive
cardinals, princes, and important representatives of the Government,” he said
while on assignment in Turkey, “but in the afternoon I want to spend time with
some ordinary people who have no other title save their dignity as human beings
and children of God.”
You see why I say that the world shouldn’t have been
surprised when Pope John called the Second Vatican Council and referred to it as
a New Pentecost -- or when he famously spoke of throwing open the windows of the
Church “so that we can see out and the people can see in.” He was simply
doing what the Spirit had always prompted him to do – espousing a Church with an
open heart and an open mind – a Church every bit as open as he was: a Church
renewed from the inside-out and from top to bottom, a Church where the gifts of
all – women and men, lay people and clergy, Protestant and Orthodox, poor and
rich, simple and educated – would be welcomed and honored and celebrated.
That sort of thinking was nothing short of
revolutionary in the late 1950’s. Church leaders were simply not expected to
speak or think in this way. But Pope John was not just any Church leader. He was
unique. Some Church leaders feared dialogue, John encouraged it: “Speak
up!” he told the bishops gathered for the Council. “Be inventive! Do
you think that I brought you to Rome so that you should all sing the same psalm
like monks in a choir?”
On another occasion, echoing words of St. Bernard, he
set forth his ‘philosophy’ of leadership: “to notice everything, to turn a blind
eye to much, and to correct a few things.”
Pope John may have ‘turned a blind eye,’ but he was a
visionary, nonetheless. In his opening address at the Council, he put words to
his great vision: "In the daily exercise of our pastoral office,” he said, “we
sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of those who…are not
endowed with too much sense of discretion… In these modern times they see
nothing but…ruin, They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is
getting worse and they behave as though they had learned nothing from
history…the teacher of life. We feel we must disagree with these prophets of
doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at
hand.”
Just before he died, he gave his “Last Testament.”
“Seek what unites,” he wrote, “not what divides. At the hour of farewell,
let us seek what is most important in this world: our blessed Lord Jesus
Christ, his Gospel, his holy church, truth, and goodness. I pray for you
all, until we meet again.”
Today we give thanks for Pope John XXIII’s great gift
to the Church by honoring him in this Cathedral church and in this parish. And,
you know, both the Cathedral and the parish reflect in many ways his remarkable
vision for the Church. The Cathedral speaks of a Pope John’s dream of a
Church renewed, a Church where the people participate in worship actively and
consciously and joyfully, a Church where all are welcome; and this parish
community reflects the Pope’s dream of a Church with a broad mind and a big
heart, a Church committed to generous, wholehearted service to the world,
especially the poor.
"Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and
that the Lord's spirit would be given to them all." Dear friends, o one in
recent memory brought those words of Moses closer to fulfillment than the great
and Blessed Pope John XXIII!
Father Michael G. Ryan
