Homily for Ordinary Time – 26th Sunday Year B 2018
Numbers 11:25-29 James 5:1-6 Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48
Introduction
Among the various superheroes, my favourite was superman, especially in the TV Show, Lois and Clark, the New Adventures of Superman. He could do all kinds of things, doing all manner of good and taking care of all manner of evil.
Similarly, we consider our God almighty, omnipotent, all-powerful. That is what we shall profess in the Creed shortly, saying, "I believe in one God, the Father almighty . . . ." In other words, like Superman or any of our superheroes, God can do anything he wants. But our God is far more powerful than any of them, since unlike Superman, he has no kryptonite, he has no Achilles' heel.
But if we believe that God is almighty, omnipotent, all-powerful, why do we human beings try to limit God's power?
Scripture and Theology
In today’s gospel, for example, John informs Jesus that someone who is not part of their group is out there driving out demons in the name of Jesus, and that they tried to stop this man. John and his fellow disciples probably thought that only they, the inner circle, could do God’s work in Jesus' name.
But instead of giving John kudos for stopping an impostor, Jesus says: “Do not prevent him.” For according to Jesus, if God is all-powerful, then he can work through even those outside their small circle. “For whoever is not against us is for us,” Jesus says. Nobody has exclusive rights to God’s grace and love.
Moses, in today's first reading has a similar lesson for Joshua. Joshua wants to stop the two men, who had not officially received the Spirit of God, from prophesying. Although they were pm the list of 72 elders chosen to assist Moses in his work, for some reason, they were not present at the ceremony of receiving the Spirit, the ceremony of ordaining them, if you like. And so, Joshua, probably like you and me would do, wanted them stopped, since they were acting like impostors.
But like Jesus, Moses does not presume to limit God’s power. Yes, they missed the commissioning ceremony; but since the Spirit blows where he wills, he had also come upon these two men, wherever they were in the tent. And that is why they were prophesying. Moses goes further to tell Joshua, that he wishes that all the people had God’s spirit so that they would speak in God’s name.
And so, both Moses and Jesus are trying to remind us that God works in mysterious ways, in ways that sometimes go beyond our well-established circles.
Christian Life
A story is told of Protestant man who was the only non-Catholic in a certain town. When he died, of course he could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery; that is how things were done in those days. Out of consideration, however, the Catholic pastor allowed him to be buried right outside the fence of the Catholic cemetery.
A few years later, the daughter of this man returned home and of course she went to take some flowers to her dad’s grave, whose location outside the fence she remembered very well. To her great dismay, she could not find the grave.
Very angry, she stormed into the rectory office and gave the pastor her piece of mind. “Not only did you refuse to bury my father in the cemetery,” she told him, “but even in death you dishonour him by destroying his grave?” She went on and on, for quite a while, about all that is wrong with the Catholic Church; but the wise old priest, simply let her vent.
Finally when she was done, the priest told her: “We did not move the grave of your father; we moved the fence of the cemetery, to include your father’s grave.”
The new pastor's actions represent a most welcome development in our Catholic understanding that while God primarily operates in those circles he has given to us, he is certainly free to operate beyond them as he sees fit. You see, we Catholics are bound to follow the Ordinary Plan of Salvation that he has given us: baptism, the sacraments, the Church. But God is not bound to follow it; he can act beyond it, in what we might call God’s extraordinary Plan.
On the one hand we Catholics must be faithful to what God has commanded us to do. For example at the end of Mark's gospel Jesus himself said (Mk. 16:16): “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” In other words, Jesus and the Catholic Church he left behind to continue his work are the ordinary, most perfect and most sure way of attaining salvation. And a Catholic would be foolish to abandon these ordinary means of salvation, for something else.
On the other hand, while holding on to what we have received from the Lord, we must not be that arrogant to think that we know the extent of God's mind; today's readings remind us that he might have other ways of acting, granted, ways that are extraordinary and less certain. That is why at the Second Vatican Council, in one of their most important documents, the document on the Church, the bishops said that "All men are called to belong to the new people of God" (LG 13). It is just that there are varying degrees of proximity to Christ.
- They began by speaking about the Catholic Faithful and Catechumens, who have the sure means of salvation: faith, the sacraments, and the Pope and Bishops. But they warned that we who have this "exalted status" must remember that it "is to be attributed not to their [our] own merits but to the special grace of Christ." And moreover, if they [we] fail "to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they [we] not be saved but they will be the more severely judged" (LG 14b).
- Next they spoke of our Christian brothers and sisters, the Orthodox, the Baptists, the Lutherans and other Christians. With them we share the sacrament of baptism and some sacraments, prayer and spiritual gifts, even though they "do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter" (LG 15).
- The third group about whom God also cares are the non-Christians, those who have not yet received the gospel, in particular the Jewish people and the Muslims. About these non-Christians they said: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and teachings, which although differing in many ways from her own, often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men” (Nostra Aetate 2).
During a visit to my home country two summers ago, I had occasion to experience first-hand, what Moses, Jesus and today's bishops are asking of us. Some Muslim family friends had lost their adult son in a freak motor accident, a few months before and as is our custom, I went to give them my condolences.
My family has known the Musa family for the past thirty years. They used to run a convenience store and often my mother had to get food from their store on credit and then pay up at the end of the month, a favour they accorded us for years. And during my school holidays, I used to give Math and English tutoring to their daughters: Asina, Asumini and Alima. That we were Catholic and they were Muslim did not stop us from helping each other out as human beings do.
Well, that is all good. But now I was sitting in their living room, as they mourned their son, whose untimely death had hit them hard. The question running through my head was, should I offer to say a prayer with them or not? Will they feel offended if I say a Christian prayer? While I was still pondering these questions, the dad, Mr. Musa, said: "Deo, (that is what he calls me, since he has known me as a boy) you are a priest. Why don't you say a prayer for our son?"
And pray I did. I said a spontaneous prayer to God the Father, who they also worship. I then said the Lord's Prayer, which, to my great surprise, the children joined, perhaps having learnt it from the Catholic schools they attended. And I concluded praying through "Jesus Christ Our Lord," who the Muslims don't believe is God, but honour as a prophet.
Conclusion
Even as he commissioned the Church to act in his name, can God work through extraordinary means? Even as he sends his Spirit upon us in baptism and confirmation, can he send his Spirit to people who are outside our small circle?
As I was driving back home from the Musa's house, I understood that I have no monopoly on God's action. For, I believe that noticing my hesitancy and dilly-dallying, he sent his Spirit to my Muslim friend, and through him, told me to do what I should do and that is pray. Through Mr. Musa, I was able to move the fence and include him in God's circle of friends.
