FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME #2

Here are four letters from grade two students: SEVEN YEARS OLD !

1. Dear God,
I like the Lord's prayer best of all.
Did you have to write it a lot
or did you get it right the first time ?
I have to write everything I ever write
over and over again.
Cathy

2. Dear God,
My grandpa says you were around when he was a little boy.
How far back do you go ?
Dennis

3. Dear God,
I am Canadian. What are you ?
Robert

4. Dear God,
I never feel alone since I found out about you
Nora

B There are children like Nora and Dennis, Robert and Cathy - and there are adults as well who have a lot of questions about God and about life and they need to hear the good news. People who speak about God and for God are called prophets. And we need a lot of them today. The Church- and that means you and me have to be a beacon of light and hope in the world. We have to be leaders with wisdom and faithfulness to a world that feels abandoned, sick and lonely. And each time we do this we are PROPHETS. Sounds a great and glorious name. But when the Lord calls us to be prophets he has already decided on the nature of the mission and on its conditions.

C An Apostle and a Prophet in one sense are interchangeable. An Apostle is a person who is sent. The Lord does not send some one just to shoot the breeze. Jesus sends this man or woman with a definite purpose: to proclaim the Kingdom of God.(As we see in the Gospel.) In the same way a Prophet. A prophet is one who speaks for God - now a person does not speak for God and decides to sit in his room. He is sent (as we see in the first reading with the prophet Amos.)

In the Gospel today, Jesus describes what the Apostles have to do.

take nothing for your journey

no bread

no bag

no money in their belts

not a second pair of tunics

And this is in total contrast with what we do in our world today.

have you everything for a trip. Take something extra

Make sure we have snacks and goodies, Tim Hortons, MacD.

never travel without Visa or American Express

leave a list of places where you can be reached. Take your cellular phone.

If I were to tell you not to bother with all these things. You would think I am crazy. And that is exactly the way the prophets were treated in the Old Testament and Jesus himself was treated as if he were gone mad, if you remember last Sunday’s Gospel.

D Every messenger of God is treated like a fool. He/She is ridiculed, driven away from society, often beaten and sometimes, like our Martyrs they are put to death. It is no wonder that no one wanted to be a prophet. No one wanted to be God’s spokesperson. We have a beautiful picture in our first reading today of just this thing.

Amos in the first reading tell us about the King who was evil and Amos confronts the King. On the other hand you had Amaziah who was the local priest and who was a part of the prophetic guild. Amaziah knew which side his bread was buttered and he knew that if he was to carry on in favour, he had to kiss up to the King, flatter him and get rid of those who rocked the boat. So he and his band of prophets, made fun of Amos and told him to return to his village instead of creating a stir in the palace.. Well Amos turned on them and said < Hey I do not want this job of being a prophet - it sucks ! I was just a farmer and I want to get back to my job of caring for the sycamore trees. >

E Jesus similarly sends his Apostles to preach the good news and invites us as well. He calls us to challenge people to come closer to God in the same way as Amos spoke to the King and the King’s court.

If the church follows this program, in a very short time, we would loose about 75 percent of our membership, 95 percent of our assets and in the halls of political power 100 percent credibility. At that point we might look something like a community of brothers and sisters struggling y to the sign of God's grace; which is what Jesus is speaking of in today’s Gospel

1 So why bother keeping the church at all ? We are so patently broken and imperfect. Like Amaziah in the first reading we have been currying favour among the wealthy and sanctifying worldly power. Why not just toss the church out and start all over again with gospel purity ?

2 The best answer might be that it's been done before, and not all that well. Our church is like a family, as such it is both baggage and ballast for us. As much as we detest its baggage of sinfulness and abuse, it nevertheless keeps us anchored to our history to our humanness.

3 Without the church, we fall victims to the ego and delusion of fanatical reformers. We must not make the mistake of dysfunctional families who simply deny their past. To be whole and human we must learn to embrace our past, warts and all.

4 And hence we cannot go alone, but we go in twos as the Lord sent the Apostles. The saint and the sinner, encouraging one another, challenging one another to be beacons of light and hope, to be leaders with wisdom for the abandoned, the sick and the lonely. Thus we build a city of God. May God bless us all.