Look To The Source

Look To The Source

 Thursday: Seventeenth Week of the Year: July 28, 2016

Year II: Jeremiah 18:1-6; Psalm 146:1-6; Matthew 13:47-53

The Responsorial Psalm reminds us to trust in God for the fruits of ministry: “Blest are they whose help is the God of Jacob” (Psalm 146).

The fruit of Christian ministry depends on two things not under the minister’s control: grace and free will. That is why we cannot expect results to follow simply the law of cause and effect. Good ministry does not necessarily bear good fruit. We plant and water, but God makes grow — if the seed falls on good ground.¹

Jeremiah 18: 1-6 focuses on grace; that is, on the action of God’s life in us on the hearts of those to whom we minister.²

Jeremiah presents God as a potter molding clay on his wheel. “Whenever the vessel he was making came out wrong… he would start afresh and work it into another vessel.” He concludes: “As the clay is in the potter's hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel.” Although what is most evident to us are the effects of human choices, the truth is that God is in control. He respects human freedom — which means he allows us to sin even when it damages us and causes suffering to others — but he is still in control, and in the end he will triumph. We acknowledge and ask for this when we pray as Jesus taught us, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And in our ministry we seek above all to act in union with Christ within us, so that his grace might work through us.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.³

Matthew 13: 47-53 reminds us that Christian ministry is cooperation with the living Spirit of God whose action we can never predict.

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit…. The wind blows where it chooses… but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Christian ministry is not just teaching static doctrine or proclaiming patently explicit laws. The good minister must be in touch with the Holy Spirit at work in the Church, constantly discovering and communicating “what is new and what is old.”

This is why we cannot always judge new movements or directions in the Church. “The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet” that brings in all kinds of things. Some things may not be clear until “at the end of time the angels separate the wicked from the just!” So in practice our rule should be: “Do not quench the Spirit.” ⁴

Initiative: Give God’s life: Be a “priest in the Priest.” Be open to the Spirit of God in yourself and others.

Footnotes:

¹1Corinthians 3: 5-15; Matthew 13: 3-30.  

²”Grace” just means “favor.” It can mean the abiding gift of sharing in the life of God, which is salvation (habitual grace); or a momentary boost of light or strength to help us act (actual grace).   

³John 15:5.  

⁴1Thessalonians 5:19.