Today's first reading is from the Book of the Prophet Amos. Amos was quite different than most of the prophets we come upon in Hebrew Scriptures. He did not wear strange clothes like Ezekiel and Jeremiah. He was not a prophet throughout his life like Isaiah or Samuel. He did not even do strange prophetic actions like Elijah, Hosea and most the prophets(1). One day he received the message from God and he was focused on the message and the one who gave him the message. He was not concerned whether or not the people were impressed with him as an individual or even whether or not they wanted to hear what God told him to proclaim. Well, we see the exact same action taking place in the Gospel reading for today´s Sunday. Jesus sends his disciples out to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God. These disciples were every day people. Nothing special about them. Jesus tells them to carry little luggage and to just proclaim the word and then move on. If people accept the word great, if they don't, leave quickly, but bring the word of God to the next village. All of this goes very must against the standard procedures of our age. In the standard procedures of our time is ok to get a test sampling of what people believe or want to believe and then deal with that as a truth. Fox News, USA Today, CNN polls, Gallup polls, all tell us what they feel the majority is thinking and then treat it as though this were a truth. My brother, my sister: the truth is not dependent on the people to whom it is addressed. The truth is dependent on the fidelity of the proclaimer to the message received by God. There was a time in history that two thirds of the Church questioned the divinity of Jesus Christ. That was the time of the Arian heresy. Two thirds of the church! The numbers still didn't make the Arians correct. The truth always wins. The Arians are forgotten, buried in history and the Church lives on believing in the divinity of Christ. I am sure you come upon people in your neighborhood or even in your families who tell you that things have changed. Certain things which were seen as immoral before are not immoral now. I'm sure you have come upon people who tell you that it is OK for people to live together if they are not married, that it is OK to us certain drugs, that it is OK to ignore their responsibility to bring their children to Sunday Mass, etc. Their message is that everyone accepts this or that new way of living. They do not want to hear someone telling them that the majority does not determine the truth. They do not want to hear the preaching of Amos or Jesus if it goes against their desires in life. Faced with this, the temptation that we have, you and I, is to keep quiet, not make waves and just let things slide. Like Amos, we can all claim: We don't need this. Let the priests talk about morals and attempt to practice them. I'm just an everyday person. But then we read scripture. We read the readings for this Sunday. The readings today tell us that we do not have the right to walk away from our responsibilities to the Truth. We have to stand for the truth of the Lord, whether it is popular or not, whether it is convenient or not. We have all received the mandate of Jesus to go out and proclaim his Word. Today we pray for the courage to proclaim the truth at work, in our neighborhoods and in our families • AE
(1) Amos was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees. These were every day type jobs for an every day sort of a guy. He lived just south of the border between the Kingdom of Judah and the Northern Kingdom, the kingdom of Israel.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario