September 28, 2003
Numbers 11:25-29 + James 5:1-6 + Mark 9:38-43,45,47,48
Joshua, prompted by that nameless tattle-tale young man of the first reading is really the center of things today. He faces a challenge we must all face sooner or later. And Moses is up for the task.
Joshua doesn’t get it, just like John in the Gospel. What does not fit into his head, into his idea of how things ought to be
must be corrected. So, like Joshua running to Moses, John runs to Jesus. And Jesus, true to his Old Testament roots, and the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel formed in the image of Moses responds with the same challenge.
That “Spirit” which is the presence of God experienced is not contained, controlled or defined by human imposed limits. It is poured out all over this earth, and those who have received it are not necessarily those in this church. The prophetic, if that is what we are, will be the first to recognize that, point to the Spirit, and affirm the truth of that Spirit’s presence.
“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets” says Moses to Joshua. And in Jesus Christ his wish or command has come to pass. We are, by Baptism, a Prophetic people: a Prophetic Church.
That gift of Prophecy has nothing to do with predicting the future –
that business has nothing to do with true “Prophecy.” That stuff is a foolish distraction and distortion of the prophet’s gift and role in the community’s life. The “Prophet” in the midst of a community of believers is the one who points to the presence of God,
the action of God; and serves as a reminder in the midst of a community that it is God who is the source of all things and the center of all.
We are a Prophetic people, a prophetic church. We do not presume for one moment that we have exclusive possession of God, or that God has no others besides us precisely because we are prophetic and can see God elsewhere. As an Apostolic Church we continue the mission of the apostles acting in the place of Jesus Christ to reveal the presence of God in all creation.
We see, acknowledge, and honor the presence of God in the poor;
and our compassion and response to the poor bears witness to the Spirit they possess and the Spirit that helps us see in them the truth of God’s presence. It is why our works of Charity, and specifically right now, our commitment to Catholic Charities becomes one measure among others of our gift of prophecy, because the poor are the presence of God, and our ignoring of them ignores God.
The poor, like the sick among us, sometimes in their suffering
fail to remember how close they are to God and God to them.
Our response, respect, honor, and care bear witness to our prophetic gift. For this reason, today, the sick among us will be anointed because they are holy, because in their sickness, they are sacramental signs of God’s presence, a God who has identified with the week, the frail, the suffering, the sick, and those who are avoided and abandoned.
This truth is the heart of the church’s teaching about the sick and the poor. These are not ignored, forgotten, nor avoided by a people who are prophetic. The prophet who sees the presence of God sees that presence in them and calls and works and cries out for justice, healing, and relief of their suffering. Those of you who will come forward in a moment are a gift to us you are a sacrament holy, filled with the Spirit, and precious in God’s sight. Not alone in your suffering and weakness, God is with you, in you, breathing the promise of healing in ever-lasting life. When you wonder “why” you bear this day’s suffering, know that it is to reveal the presence of God among us: a God who is no stranger to suffering. Those of us whose sufferings are so few and so little today, are called by the Word of God to draw near to the presence of the Holy One in our midst. With profound respect and honor just as we cherish the Blessed Sacrament among us, we must cherish and revere the poor and the sick, for they too are the presence of God in