If You're Not For Us

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle B

Whoever’s not with us is against us.” That seems to be a theme in our society today. We are so polarized these days. Our political parties are divided, we are split by ethnic group, religion, and class. And we think that we have all the right answers and those who disagree with us, well, it’s either us or them. It’s either/or, black and white, good vs. evil. They’re against us so they’re evil so they must either be destroyed or ignored as irrelevant. 

But Jesus didn’t say “whoever’s not with us is against us.” He said, “If someone is not against us they’re for us. It may seem like a subtle difference but it’s really not. It is very different. What Jesus is saying is that his disciples are here, we believe in him and follow him, and that’s good. But there’s this whole other group of people out there who are not actively against us but aren’t exactly fully on the team yet. They don’t go out of their way to harm us but they aren’t fully a part of the community. They may actually believe in the things we believe in, but they haven’t crossed the threshold of full participation yet. 

They are not bad people. They are our sons and daughters who we’ve raised in the faith but have fallen out of practice for whatever reason. They are our friends who used to come to Mass but just stopped and we don’t know why. They are other Christians whose theology or practice is not the exactly the same as ours but they let us be and actually stand with us when we are threatened. 

I think of all the evangelical communities who have joined with the Catholic bishops lately to defend life and religious liberty and sacramental marriage. They might denounce some of our points of difference in their pulpits, but they live the admonition of Jesus to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. I think of what happened right after the earthquake in Haiti. Catholic Relief Services had been serving in Haiti for over twenty years, and had all the distribution systems set up to get the aid through. The LDS Church had huge stockpiles of supplies but no efficient way to distribute them. So the two communities worked together to get the LDS supplies through the Catholic distribution to help the suffering. We differ with the LDS on virtually every theological point you can imagine, but they are not against us, so they must be for us, whether they know it or not.

There is a time and a place to debate the finer points of theology and it’s good that we do so. There is truth and we’re all in search of it. Theology is faith seeking understanding, and it’s important that we get as close to understanding that truth as humanly possible. But if someone or some organization is not actively working to hurt us or destroy us or limit our search for that truth then there is hope that someday and somehow we can be united in our search. Sometimes prophets can be found outside the camp. If they are not against us, they are for us. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first guy to say that the Catholic Church is the fullness of the revelation of God’s truth, and I also don’t believe that all faiths are equal, but we can’t just slough off the millions of people who aren’t Catholic and say we can’t work with them for the Kingdom of God just because we differ on some issues. And we can’t just ignore our friends and family who have stopped practicing their faith or who disagree with this or that teaching of the Church. We are called to search out the lost sheep and bring them back into the flock.

It’s easy sometimes to get caught up in our own little pius worlds and think that our way of devotion is the only way or the best way. The apostles were like that to a certain extent. They had Jesus all to themselves, and they got jealous when someone else came to him by a way different than theirs. Catholics do the same thing all the time. We get upset or look down on folks who don’t pray the way we do or don’t dress properly for Mass. We get hung up on whether or not the Latin Mass or the vernacular is the best or if we should receive communion in the hand or on the tongue. And don’t even get into the protestant thing. We can tend to think that those who disagree with us are actually against us, and it’s us or them, right or wrong, good vs. evil.

And then we wonder why so many folks have left the Church.

I used to score myself as a deacon against other deacons and even against certain priests. I would get a twinge of jealously whenever I heard someone who was a better preacher than I am or gave more time to work with the poor than I do or seemed holier than I am. But then one day it hit me. So what if they’re better than I am. Wouldn’t it be great if every preacher was spellbinding every Sunday. Wouldn’t it be great if every Catholic was compassionate to the poor. Would that all God’s people were prophets. What a wonderful world it would be if everyone was a prophet! Isn’t that what the Kingdom of God is all about? It’s not about me and my abilities, because no matter how good I am I will never be as good as I could be if I joined my abilities and faith with the rest of the people of God. 

Pope Benedict has announced “The year of Faith” beginning October 11. That date is the 50^th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II as well as the 20^th anniversary of the new Catechism of the Catholic Faith. The pope has called the Church to a new evangelization of the world. We hear these things and probably just shrug our shoulders and move one. So what? Another year for this or that theme. But this is different. 

How are we called to evangelize? We are all called to be prophets. When we were baptized we were anointed with sacred chrism and told that “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.” We have all been anointed prophets through our baptism, and making disciples is not optional for us. Jesus told the disciples to go and make disciples of all the earth. He linked prophesying to being a member of his body and with eternal life. No prophets, no church. No church, no salvation. Not optional. And years like this help us to focus on this most basic calling we have all received.

But where to start? Most of us can’t or won’t go knocking on doors or travel as missionaries to foreign lands. And we don’t need to. A new study shows that only 23% of professed Catholics attend Mass regularly, while 77% identify themselves strongly as Catholics. What better way to make disciples than to begin by evangelizing those people who identify as being Catholic but do not see the value of practicing it? We need to identify the disconnect and work to reconnect.

And we need to start with ourselves. What is our commitment to our faith? Are we living as true disciples? Do we understand what we truly believe? When was the last time you picked up a bible or the catechism and studied your faith? When was the last time you read a sensational headline about how out of touch the Church is on some issue and then actually studied what your Church really stands for on that issue? When was the last time you went to confession to clear the decks so your soul could be open to the truth? When was the last time you prayed?

If we are not educated on what we believe, how can we form our own consciences? And if we don’t really know what we believe, how can we ever explain it to others who have questions? And if we don’t live our discipleship, how can we ever make disciples of all the nations? Anything less is the highest form of hypocrisy. 

I used to be really hard-nosed about being Catholic. If people didn’t come to Mass, fine, that’s their problem. I’m tired of beating my head against the wall of indifference. But then I remembered all those parables of the lost sheep and the Good Shepherd, and how there is more joy in heaven when the one is found than over the 99 who remained, and I thought, the 99 are fine, go find the lost. 

So why don’t we start there? It’s a rule in business that it’s always easier to sell to those customers who have already bought in the past. It’s hardest to make new customers, but easier to build repeat customers. Why don’t we focus this year on our fellow Catholics? Those 77% who say strongly that they’re Catholic but don’t come to Mass? Let’s get that 23% up to 25%. 

Here’s a plan of action. First of all, pray. Pray every day for the grace to carry out this evangelization. Spend time praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Then study. Bone up on your faith so you can reasonably explain it. Then think of one person you could help come back home. Pray daily for that person. Then actually invite them back. That’s the hard part. It’s easy to pray for someone. It’s easy to have your own interior faith. But if you don’t actually talk to that person, how will they ever know what you have? If you think that someone is going to see how you live your life and actually come up to you on the street and ask you to come to Mass, you’re fooling yourself.

One year, one person. Just one. For the next year, just encourage one Catholic to attend Mass every week. I guarantee you, if you do that it will change their life. It will change your life. And just think what would happen to the world if every practicing Catholic in the world did the same thing.

Hope Springs Eternal

23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle B

Is 35:4-7a

Jas 2: 1-5

Mt 7:31-37

Human beings are creatures of hope. It’s inbred into us. Hope is what keeps us alive in a hostile world. Hope is the only thing that keeps us sane in this insane world. We look at all the pain in the world and say, there has to be more than this. Without hope our lives would lack any meaning whatsoever. Without hope we would not even bother.

The Israelites were in a very dangerous position. The Assyrians were threatening to wipe them off the face of the earth because they stood between them and the Egyptian empire. Israel could never match the Assyrians militarily, and they did not know where to turn for help.

The prophet Isaiah offered the Israelites hope. He tells them today not to fear, because the Lord would deliver them. But you know, it didn’t work out so well for the Israelites. They were wiped out by the Assyrians. Thousands were slain and the rest taken away, never to return to their homeland.

It seems like Isaiah was whistling past the graveyard, giving them false hope. They called upon the Lord and trusted in him, but it didn’t stop the Assyrians. It seems that many times humanity overrides the salvation of God and causes suffering and pain anyway. It seems futile and naïve to rely upon God to save us.  

It’s easy to become cynical. I know of all the individuals suffering in the parish. Cancer and death and broken marriages and economic hardship. I see families all the time who pray and pray for a cure for this or that disease, only to have their loved one die anyway. I know people who have been praying for years for a job but are still unemployed. The prophets say that the Lord will save us but they don’t say when. Are we fated to suffer here on earth and only see the fulfillment of our prayers when we get to heaven? 

When I first read today’s psalm I said to myself, “Yeah, right. God doesn’t intervene in the lives of men that intimately today.” There are millions of poor and suffering people in the world today. Nothing ever changes. But then I realized that I was too far away from it. I was thinking of statistics and not of individuals.

Jesus never healed crowds, he healed individuals. Crowds do not experience conversion, individuals do. Miracles do not happen to crowds, but to individuals. Jesus takes the deaf mute away from the crowd and gets really personal with him.

People are smart. Crowds can be stupid. People are good. Crowds can be evil and cruel. There’s something about being in a crowd that can easily make it into a mob. Individuals didn’t condemn Jesus, the mob did. 

Crowds don’t suffer. Individuals suffer. Suffering is the most personal experience we can ever have. We can share joy, but it is really impossible for anyone else to truly understand and share in your individual suffering. 

Salvation is such a personal thing. It is ultimately between you and God. I have never seen entire nations turn back to the Lord, but I have seen individuals do so. I have not seen miracles happen to societies, but I have seen miracles happen in individuals’ lives. 

Jesus is the perfect man. He showed us how we are to live if we are to be truly human. He was able to heal the sick and turn men’s hearts to the truth. He took care of people’s physical suffering and hunger because he was able to work miracles. He knew that he had to alleviate physical suffering before people could be open to salvation. 

But now he’s gone back to heaven and we are left here to our own devices. Jesus destroyed death, but death is still with us. Jesus healed the sick, but we still suffer. Jesus left us with a message of hope, but still we despair. We hope, but is it all just a coping mechanism. Do we just cling to a thread of hope in a hopeless world because we cannot deal with the alternative?

Hope is such a personal thing also, but hope can be multiplied and sustained in and by the community of the Church. And so what if Jesus is no longer here on the earth, we are. Jesus Christ is still present in his Church. We are called to continue what he started. The gospel is hope itself. We cannot be cynical about life. We can and must be individuals of hope, and together as the Body of Christ we can bring that hope to the world. But it must start in your own heart. The Church cannot bring hope to the world if you do not have hope in your own heart first.

Take the words of the psalmist today and switch them around a bit. 

The God of Jacob keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, when we ourselves are faithful to the teachings of Jesus, work for justice for all, and take care of the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of all those in need among us.

The LORD sets captives free when we turn away from the slavery of sin in our own lives and live as we were created to live.

The LORD gives sight to the blind when we first open our own eyes and then help those who are living the lies of society to see the truth;

The LORD raises up those who are bowed down when we lift them up, help them get back on their feet, and stand tall with dignity.

The LORD loves the just when we love justice; the LORD protects strangers when we show hospitality to the strangers among us.

The fatherless and the widow the LORD sustains when we strengthen the family,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts when we make those thousands of small choices every day to do what we know to be good and right.

The LORD shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations, when we make God the king and center of our lives.

We are a people of hope because we are the people of God. Our hope springs up in us as individuals, and our hope combines with people of faith the world over to bring hope to all of humanity. Hope is what binds us all together and it is hope that draws us all to God. And that truly is good news.