Weekly Reflection 071606AD

Sunday, July 16, 2006AD

15^th Sunday in Greentime

6^th Sunday after Pentecost

6 Pairs of 2 Say, “Snap out of It.

Last week, Jesus presents Himself as a Prophet not welcomed in His own town. We Catholics have no problem thinking of Jesus as a pastor or as a priest. A biblical prophet is one to whom YHWH has given a vision of the future and who, therefore, critiques what, in the present, does not reflect God’s plan. Needless to say, prophets are not given the warmest of receptions. (Recall that He was shown the door in Nazareth and that He was crucified in Jerusalem with the charge, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. The sign over His Head did not come from nowhere. Some people really did not like what Jesus prophesied!!

Our readings this weekend continue the prophetic tradition. We hear of the “bum’s rush” that Amos received from Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, for Amos’ prophesy against the eclipse of God and of the human person he witnessed.

Today, Jesus sends out the Twelve two by two to proclaim that people needed to snap out of it, to smell God’s coffee and to get a new worldview. The comparatively tame words “preach repentance” are better understood with the three above colloquialisms.

Why two by two? Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to send out each one of the 12 individually. Three answers have been offered to the question. 1) Each one of the pair needed the company of the other to bounce off and reflect on what worked well that day in Peoria. 2) They needed the corroboration of two witnesses in the ancient legal mind. 3) They were proclaiming a World Vision that was meant for inner transformation of the hearer as well as the outer transformation of the hearer’s world. The Agenda of the Kingdom of God is both internal and external (viz., involving communities). According to Church legend, most of the 12 met violent deaths. People rejected their message, yet the Gospel will not be stopped.

This week we celebrate the feast of Bartolomeo de las Casas, who proclaimed in 1514, that the maltreatment of Indians in the days of the conquistadores was a sin that violated the humanity of the Indians as well as of the “European Christians” who denied the humanity of the Indians. (When the English arrived here much later, they did about the same, as early as 1636.) In essence, de las Casas said what Pope John Paul said in 1995, “when you eclipse the human person, you eclipse God; when you eclipse God (even though you say you really aren’t), then you eclipse the human person.” Listen to the morning news for verification of the above. Don’t listen to late night monologues for your news.

The Gospel continues to be a vision statement for the world as God wants it. Pope Benedict recently traveled to Spain where he spoke of the eclipse of God and of the human person that is so pervasive on both sides of the Atlantic.

Frequently, Catholics in New York are reminded of our discipleship in the capital of the world. Yet, how passive so many of us are! The “M-syndrome” continues to permeate our consciousness as much as that of others. We like the middleclass. We like the material blessings. We like the mass media culture that does so much of our thinking for us. We tolerate military quick fixes to world problems so long as other people’s children do the fixing. We like the mindlessness of the fast-paced lives we lead. We like the mediocrity that being part of conventional wisdom affords us.

Frequently, Catholic colleges and universities encourage young graduates to offer two years of volunteer service as a payback for the blessings that God has shown to them. Frequently, mature couples at the dawn of their retirement team up to offer payback to God by lives of service to folks less fortunate folks than they. If someone in our family were to ask what we thought about such a possibility, what would we say?

Sometimes, prophets still might not be welcomed in their own towns. What do the children think? 071606AD jfq