Would That All God's People Were Prophets

Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist

Cycle B

Jesus said to his disciples when questioned about John the Baptist, “I tell you, among those born of woman, no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” John the Baptist is considered the greatest of all the prophets, the one who prepared the way for Jesus. Today we celebrate the solemnity of his birth. And therefore, I think it is a good time to talk about prophets, who they are and what they do.

When we think of prophets today, we usually talk not about the prophet himself or herself, but about their prophesy. Because it’s not supposed to be about the prophet but about what he says. We think a prophet foresees the future, that their prophesy is about predicting what will happen. But that’s not what a prophet is at all. Prophets tell universal truths in the name of God, because God is truth. Their prophesy seems to predict the future because God’s truth is true yesterday, today and tomorrow. What is true today will be true tomorrow. 

In the Old Testament, there were actually professional prophets. They were part of the royal court and their official job was to remind the king of God’s commandments and keep him on the right path. But most of the time the king did not want to hear the truth because he would have to radically change what he was doing, so being a prophet became a dangerous profession. All of the great prophets in the Old Testament ended up being killed. And eventually the court prophets became simply yes men to the king. They were afraid to speak the truth because they knew what would happen to them if they did.

But a prophet is one who is called to speak truth to power. A prophet is someone who stands up to injustice in the world, and speaks out about it. Most prophets do so reluctantly, and they suffer for it. The world and especially the political class do not want to hear and live by the truth. They want to run things to their own advantage, and they resist following the ways of God. It takes a lot of courage to be a prophet. It is tough being a prophet.

We also tend to think of prophets as only living in the past or as just those guys in the Bible. But we have had some great prophets during our lifetime, and prophets are not just Christians or Jews. Think of Martin Luther King or Mahatama Ghandi or Mother Teresa or Caesar Chavez. All of these came from modest backgrounds and felt compelled to speak the truth against oppression, violence and fear. All of them suffered greatly, and all of them changed the world. A prophet is proof that one person can change the world.

Now here is a scary thought – we are all called to be prophets. When you were baptized, you were anointed with sacred chrism and the priest or deacon said to you, “As Christ was anointed priest, prophet, and king, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.” By virtue of your baptism you have been anointed a prophet. You will not be foretelling the future, you will be living the truth. It does not matter how old you are or how young. The prophet Jeremiah was only a teenager. God does not care if you are a good speaker. Moses stuttered. God does not care if you have power or influence. Amos was a shepherd. Chavez was a migrant worker. God calls each of us exactly where we are, and he makes us worthy through our baptism.

How are we called to be prophets today? There is no shortage of injustice in the world today. Every time you stand up for what is right and true you are a prophet. Every time you defend someone who is being discriminated against you are a prophet. Every time you vote your conscience you are a prophet. Every time you gently tell a friend he needs to change his life you are a prophet. Every time you stand up to a bully at school you are a prophet. Every time you do not laugh at a dirty joke you are a prophet. Every time you treat someone with compassion you are a prophet. Because the greatest prophet of all was Jesus, and Jesus treated people that way.

Last Thursday we entered into the Fortnight for Freedom, fourteen days from June 21^st to the Fourth of July during which our bishops have asked us to pray, study, and work to preserve religious freedom in this country and around the world. There is a systematic effort on the part of some to deny people of faith the right to live according to our religious principles in the public square. There are laws and mandates being passed that would force people to violate their consciences if they were to follow them. This is the time for prophets. These laws and mandates may seem to be no big deal, but all together they add up to one of the greatest threats we have ever seen in this country to our most basic freedom. 

Prophets are people who act on their convictions. They are people of courage. The Fortnight for Freedom began on the vigil of St. John Fisher and ends just before the feast of St. Thomas More. These were two men of conscience who were martyred during the reign of King Henry VIII of England. Many of you have heard about or seen the movie, For Greater Glory, which tells the story of the Cristeros war in Mexico during the 1920s. Those prophets actually went to war with their government when it tried to take away all religious freedom in Mexico. They were killed for standing up for religious freedom in their countries. They spoke truth to power and gave their lives for it. We are not called to give our lives, necessarily, but we are called to stand up for what is true and right. 

I urge you to go to the website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to read the entire position of your church on this issue. If you rely only on sensational headlines you are not living as a mature Christian. You must fully inform your conscience in this matter if you are to live your discipleship. And then you must act on it. Being a prophet is not an option for you and for me. We were called to it by our baptism, and it is our baptism that gives us the right and the authority to speak truth to the world. Remember, even the least in the kingdom of God is the greatest prophet of all.

The Constant Gardener

11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Father’s Day

Cycle B

Ez 17: 22-24

2 Cor 5: 6-10

Mk 4: 26-34

I’m not much of a gardener. In fact, I’m not a gardener at all. The house we bought five years ago in Oakley has wonderful landscaping. I bought it that way because if I had to put all that stuff in myself it would be a mess. I hardly know a flower from a weed. I don’t know what it all is, but I sure like looking at it.

One thing I can do, however, is tend the garden. Pulling weeds and planting flowers is Nancy’s job. I’ll whack off a branch here and there when she asks me to, but I don’t like to mess with the flowerbeds. I love taking care of the lawn. I even bought a book on how to care for it. I make sure it has plenty of water. I mow it twice a week, always to the proper height. I spray and pull the dandelions and clover. I give it regular fertilizer. I guess it’s because I’ve never had a nicely landscaped yard before, and I know how much time and money went into getting it to this point, so I want to keep it up. I like to walk around and admire it in the evening, a glass of wine in my hand.

Jesus used a lot of garden images in his parables. Vineyards and vines and fig trees and mustard bushes. Today he speaks of seeds. The seeds of faith. Every idea, every belief we have starts out as a single thought that we hadn’t had before. Sometimes it just pops into our heads seemingly out of nowhere, and oftentimes it’s put there by someone else. Sometimes someone says or does something that sparks that idea in us, sometimes it’s something we read, but these ideas come to us from somewhere outside of us. Even the ideas that just appear in our heads have their origin from other ideas that have been rattling around in our subconscious. Seeds are planted, and sometimes it takes a lot of time until they take root and sprout.

Faith is definitely like that. Where do we get faith? We believe that faith is a gift from God, and everyone has been given that gift to one degree or another. God has chosen to allow us to know him. We cannot know God on our own, God has to give us the ability to know him. He has to plant the seed in us to know him. Some of those seeds He has planted in us from the moment of our conception. There is an innate sense in everyone that there is a higher being, and as St. Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until we rest in you.” God wills that we know him. It takes an effort of our will to deny that sense.

But many times God chooses to use others to plant the seeds of faith in us. We are all both garden and gardener. We have those seeds of faith planted in us and we also plant those same seeds in others. It’s like my lawn. It creates its own seeds to start new shoots. The roots are always stretching out, seeking to make the lawn stronger and healthier and larger. Like faith, it builds upon itself to go out beyond itself.

Sometimes our planting is deliberate. We plant single seeds in others, especially in our children. Every month I prepare young couples who want to have their children baptized. And every month I ask them why they are there and why they want to baptize their children Catholic. Some of them come from strong Catholic families, some are not Catholic at all. Most of them, however, have a basic, rudimentary faith. Most of them don’t practice that faith much. But something has drawn them here at this time, for their children. 

Invariably someone says that early on in their lives their parents or grandparents got them started in the faith. They were baptized and then received their first communion and maybe confirmation and then they slowly stopped coming for whatever reason. But the seeds had been planted in their hearts and now they felt the need to come back and plant those seeds in their own children. And no matter what their children decide to do with their lives, maybe someday they will also choose to stay in or return to their faith. But if those seeds were never planted they will never make that choice. Some seeds need to die and lay dormant for awhile so that they can eventually take root. As long as the seed has been planted there is always hope.

Today is Father’s Day, and I think the most awesome responsibility a father has is to plant the seeds of faith in his children. Our children are not our own, they are given to us in stewardship to nurture and grow in body, mind and spirit. We wouldn’t dream of not feeding our children or educating them. Are we just as aware of our responsibility to feed their souls? When we stand before Jesus, will he ask us how athletic our children are or how successful? Or will he ask us what we have done to ensure they follow us to heaven?

The seeds we plant in our children are many varied. It begins with prayer, always with prayer. We pray for our children and then teach them to pray. We start small; prayers before meals and at bedtime. Then we take them to Mass and get them in religious education classes. We teach them that we grow our faith in community. We teach them that faith and reason go hand in hand. They watch us closely to see if we practice what we preach. Are we praying ourselves, do we go to Mass every week, do we pick up the Bible and read it sometimes? Do we do all the stuff we make them do? Nothing is more noxious to the garden than hypocrisy.

Or do we do nothing? Even doing nothing is doing something. Sometimes we plant weeds among the flowers, and those weeds can choke off the good seeds. If you do not actively plant faith seeds, you will be planting a weed of unbelief. 

Most of the time we do not dig a hole, place the seed in, cover it, water it and nurture it. We also plant seeds not one at a time but by scattering them. Most of the time we have no idea where the seed has landed, and we are not around to take care of it. We are there to sow it but not to reap. We have no idea who is affected by the seeds we sow, both the flowers and the weeds. As Jesus says today, “and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.”

People are watching you all the time. They can tell if you are a person of faith. They want what you have. Do you give it to them through the way you live your life? Do people know you are Catholic by the way you live your life? Do you scatter the seeds of your faith by what you say and do in the workplace? By the positions you take, or don’t take, in the public square, by what you post on Facebook or Twitter? Fathers, do your children know they are Christians by the way you treat their mother? You will never know how the seeds you have planted, for good or for evil, have affected people you may never have even met.

We must never grow weary of tending the garden. We must always be planting little seeds in those around us. The seeds we plant in our children do not stop when they grow up. Our adult children not only need to have the seeds we’ve planted in the past cultivated, they constantly need new seeds planted. A small kindness here, a warm hug there, a prayer or meal over there. Always with the foreknowledge that everything we do is a reflection of our discipleship. It takes the patience of a lifetime. Some of the seeds we sow will produce fruit, and we have no idea just how momentous that fruit will be. The seeds we plant throughout our lives might not create the next Michael Phelps or Bill Gates, but they might help them get to heaven.

You know, a mature plant creates its own seeds. Only a healthy, mature plant produces seeds. You must not only cultivate the seeds you plant, you must also cultivate yourself. What do you do to grow your own faith? How do you pray, who do you associate with, what do you read? Are you growing flowers or weeds in your heart? Flowers create flowers, weeds create weeds.

We are all called by Jesus to be gardeners. And always, always, we must recognize and give glory to the one who owns the garden. We can do nothing outside of Him. Only by imitating the master gardener himself will we produce fruit ten, or a hundred, or a thousand fold.