September 11, 2016
THE TWENTY--FOURTH SUNDAY
OF THE YEAR C
Inventory
Do you see
yourself as too sinful to exercise leadership in the Church?
Input
The
Entrance Antiphon (Sirach 36:18) asks for peace “for those
who wait for you.” But our peace is founded on our faith that God waits for us:
waits for us to discover him, to accept him, to convert from sin and return to
him. It is faith in God’s fidelity and forgiveness that gives us the trust to
ask, “Hear the prayers of your servant and of your people.”
In
the Opening Prayer(s) we say to God: “You alone are the
source of our peace.” Because you are our “creator and guide.” And you “look
down upon your people in their moments of need.” We are confident that, no
matter how unfaithful we have been, if we change and desire to “serve you with
all our heart” we will “know your forgiveness in our lives.” Ultimately, the
only reliable peace is the “peace of Christ who offered his life in the service
of all.” Our peace is the product and proof of God’s mercy. Because God is
always waiting to receive us, the Responsorial
(Luke 15:18) voices our
unshakable attitude: “I will rise and go
to my father.”
Managing
God
In
Exodus 32:7-14 Moses seems to be
more merciful than God! God says he has “had it” with this “stiff-necked
people.” “Let me alone, then, so that my wrath may blaze up against them to
consume them.” But Moses won’t let him alone. He argues with him: “Remember
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel… how you swore to them by your own self… ‘I will
multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I
have promised I will give to your descendants…’” Result: “The LORD changed his
mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”
We
know God didn’t really change his mind. He had set Moses up to intercede for
his people, intending all along to forgive them. But he wanted Moses to take
the responsibility of defending the people, because God had entrusted them to
Moses. He was the “faithful, farsighted steward whom the master set over his
servants to dispense their ration of grain in season.”[1]
This is a heads-up for all of us, because in
Baptism we were all consecrated as “kings in the King”; that is, as “stewards
of the kingship of Christ.” We are all responsible — answerable directly to
God; no “department heads” — for the proper management and functioning of
everything that affects the “reign of God” on earth.
There
are different kinds of stewardship. All stewards have authority to intervene,
to be involved, to try to bring about changes in family and social life,
business, politics and the Church. Every right is in virtue of an obligation,
and we have the right to be involved because we are obliged to be. That goes with
our baptismal consecration as sharers in the kingship of Christ.
But
some stewards also have authority to command
in one area of activity or another. If so, they have the right and obligation
to use it for the common good, to achieve the purposes of the Father following
the principles taught and exemplified by the Son and submissive to the guidance
of the Holy Spirit.
We
need to distinguish, however, between authority
and leadership. A distinguishing
characteristic of those who have authority over a whole group is that they have
the function of holding the community together. Leaders have the function of
moving the community forward. The two functions are distinct, and sometimes
they are separate. Authorities do not always have to know what direction to
lead in, and leaders do not need authority to invite or to win people to follow
them.
The
right and obligation to offer leadership
is inherent in the stewardship of all the baptized. All who have responsibility
for extending the reign of God on earth are obliged to try to lead people in
the right direction when they see what the right direction is. Leadership is
simply responsibility in action.
Moses
had no authority over God. But God let himself be led by Moses into conduct
consistent with his own divinity. And we should note here that one way of
exercising faithful stewardship is through prayer.
On the human plane this takes the form of making suggestions to authorities. If
God was not above being argued with by Moses, no authority should resent it
when leaders urge them to action.
God
seeks, God finds
In Luke 15:1-32 the focus is on God’s action in the process of human
repentance. The shepherd combs the wilderness until he finds his sheep. The
woman sweeps her whole house until she finds her lost coin. The father peers
down the road every day in hope his son will return. He spots him while he is
still a “long way off” and runs out to meet him. What dominates the story is
the father. He “put his arms around him and kissed him” and told his servants,
“Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one —and put it on him; put a ring on his
finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us
eat and celebrate.”
We are “stewards” of this story, as of
all the “manifold grace of God.” We are the “managers” of what this reveals of
the Father. We are responsible for keeping alive in the Church and proclaiming
to those who have left it that God our Father is neither vengeful nor
demanding. He accepts us back, for all practical purposes, on our own terms,
without laying down conditions. All he asks is that we ask to return. And we
don’t even have to ask. It is enough that we just show up.
Over the centuries preachers and religion
teachers have created a whole series of intimidating phrases that stand as
hurdles in the way of those returning to the sacraments. “Integral confession
of sins,” “perfect contrition,” “firm
purpose of amendment,” accepting and fulfilling the “penance” imposed, getting
back into “good standing” through compliance with Church regulations. These are
certainly important. Some of them might even be called essential, depending on
how we understand them. But when we make a big issue of them, we falsify the
image of God.
The “prodigal son” never got a chance to
make an “integral confession” of his sins to his father. His father just called
for the robe and the ring and launched the celebration. He asked no questions,
demanded no promises of reform and assigned no penance. He lived in the present
moment of his son’s desire for reconciliation, gave his forgiveness, and let
life begin anew from that day, trusting that the grace that brought his son
back to the family table would flourish through what he experienced there.
Until that is the expectation people have when they think about entering the
confessional, and the feeling they have when they leave it, something in our
pastoral practice must be recognized as distorted.
God
seeks and finds
1Timothy
1:12-17 is from Paul’s
letter to the head of the Church in Ephesus. In his letter Paul goes into some
detail, not only about the need to preserve right doctrine and morality, but
also about various church ministries and the qualifications of those involved
in them. It is a letter from a steward to a steward, from a responsible church
leader to another in whom he takes for granted a sense of responsibility equal
to his own.
What is winning about the letter is that
Paul, who will have to insist on some corrections within the community, begins
by making it clear that he knows what it is to be at fault, to be a sinner, and
to be treated with unexpected mercy. He knows from personal experience that
even those who commit the worst sins are not always acting with the “sufficient
knowledge” required for deadly guilt. “I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor,
and a man of violence. But because I did not know what I was doing in my
unbelief, I have been treated mercifully.”
Paul held from deep, personal experience
that one thing I s “sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners.” The Church exists for sinners. It is made up of
sinners. The Church does not exclude sinners but welcomes them. Every person at
Mass announces his or her right to be there by a “qualifying declaration” of
sinfulness: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and in my words, in what
I have done and in what I have failed to do.” The more sinful we are, the more
we know that the Mass exists for us. Because Jesus came into the world to save
sinners — of whom, Paul claimed, “I am the foremost.” And he meant it.
Bottom line: If you feel alienated or
unaccepted at Mass because you are not living up to Church standards, you have
the picture all wrong. We are the “Sinners Club.” When we assemble for Mass we
are comfortable with everybody except those who are comfortable with
themselves. So stand up and say with the rest of us, “I will rise and go to my father.”
Insight
All that counts is trying to
please God at the present moment.
Initiative
Be a trusting steward: don’t
let anything stop you from doing what you can.
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