Would that all of the people of the Lord were prophets

If there is a universal truth about discipleship, it is probably this:
You never know

A few months ago, I was in a parish for a Saint Meinrad Sunday. Afterward one of the parishioners walked up to me and asked me, in very familiar tones, how things were going and that I bet I didn’t expect to see him there. Well that much was true. We chatted a bit more, and then he said that he would never forget Coca Cola. “Coca Cola changed my life.”
Then he said, I know you hear that all the time. And I was thinking that I certainly did not but merely shook my head because it was obvious that this man thought that he and I were very well-known to each other and I had no idea whatsoever who he was.

November 11. He continued. I will never forget that day. Your Coca Cola sermon changed my life forever. Thank you
And then he walked away.
I have no idea who that man was.
I vaguely remember preaching a homily about Coca Cola about 15 years ago.

My knowledge of or intentions about the event were really unimportant. His life was somehow transformed by something I said and, except for this chance encounter, he would have never had the opportunit to tell me and I would have never known it.

Would that all of the people of the Lord were prophets

You never know

In the Gospel today, Jesus tells the disciples that the work of God is not something that can be easily contained in neat structures and well-constructed boxes, in tents or houses of stone.
It cannot be contained in our understanding about what is right and proper
I cannot be contained by our very laudable intentions.
It simply cannot be contained

The Word of God is about, living and active.
It is expressed in so many ways that the ways can never be counted.
It is manifested in multivalent forms, in voices familiar and foreign, in gestures, words, rituals, the living creation.

The disciples have encountered some folks casting out demons and healing in the name of Jesus who were not on the approved list of exorcists and healers

Jesus gently reminds these erstwhile bureaucrats; these list makers, these canonists and not for the first time that:

If there is a universal truth about discipleship, it is probably this:
You never know
Would that all of the people of the Lord were prophets

But of course, we like to know
We like to control our doses of God’s action in our lives. Not too much please, I have spiritual indigestion
We like to have charge. To move the spirit this way and that so that our spiritual strategic plans can be full realized. We make lists, we categorize, we plot the points of our participation in pointless positioning of spiritual cartography
We like to see the benefit of what we do, be thanked, close the loop on our good intentions
We like to predict the outcome so that we can move on to the next thing.

But then something happens and we are reminded yet again that:

If there is a universal truth about discipleship, it is probably this:
You never know
Would that all of the people of the Lord were prophets

You never know where God’s word will be spoken
You never know the surprising syllables of the sound of the voice that speaks peace, wonder, beauty, comfort
You never know what opportunities might arise if we take the risk to be in the wrong place at the wrong time
You never know how we might be effected by the chance encounter, the off-handed moment, the very randomness of Christian living

And likewise

Engaging with others in this community we never know the impact of our words, our gestures, our most off-handed expression
We never know what impression we might leave that we never intended

We never know what our smile or nod of the head might mean in the life of someone whose day is not going well.
We never know what effect our simple words might mean in the life of someone who is struggling with mighty demons all undercover

We never know what our presence might mean in the life of a brother or sister who is lonely and doesn’t know how to reach out.
We never know
Would that all of the people of the Lord were prophets

The message here is clear. Whatever efforts we may exert, whatever energies we pour out
The spirit of God cannot be confined to the official moments of grace, it permeates the life of the world, infuses itself into the fiber, the weave of this community and we are its agents. We are its angels and often, angels unaware.
The spirit of God cannot be contained in the tent of our limited imaginations. God has sown himself into the lining of the human condition and we experience the power of his Word among us as a dynamic dynamite, a roar, a hurricane, a tide, a still whisper, a word of hope, courage, fidelity, love.

It cannot be controlled by what we intend to happen to others and what we imagine will happen to us.
The ultimate work is God’s
God gives the growth.
But we are God’s angels, angels out of control
Ambassadors of the good news in simple, unpretentious ways.
A simple wave of the hand at the right moment can cast out more demons than the most heroic and dramatic acts of exorcism

If there is a universal truth about discipleship, it is probably this:
You never know

And just as we never know what impact we might have on others, what impact we CAN have on others, we must also

Be open to receive the unexpected act of grace in a brother or sister for whom we may not care

Be open to hear the word of God spoken in syllables strange to our ears in the mouths of immigrants, outlanders, outcasts

Be open to cutting off all that hinders us from experiencing the pure love of God poured into our laps.

Be open to Good News communicated in those we like to categorize, against whom we have preconceived notions, the lost, the rejected , the troubled and troublesome
Be open to those whose names are not on the list of approved prophets and those who stand outside the tent

Be open to the chance encounter, the unexpected conversation that speaks unspeakable grace in unforeseen ways

Be open to what God wants to do in each of our lives everyday, today

Be open to hearing through the cacophony of those internal demons that say, don’t open up, don’t engage, don’t listen to him

Now all of this is a very tall order
But openness to sharing without expecting the benefit
And openness to hearing the Word of God in unanticipated others
Can only led us to be better disciples, and possibly to salvation,
Today it leads us to this sacrificial altar where the body of the living Jesus rises like the morning sun casting out the darkness of our expectations and reinforcing in the circumference of a piece of bread and in the glistening of some drops of wine the universal truth about discipleship:
You never know

Sometimes you wonder if Jesus thought he was just dealing with a pack of little boys. They are always bickering and taunting each other, playing games and whispering. Witness the Gospel today. Nevertheless, Jesus, who, after all was the omniscient deity, plays the game with them and asks the question: What were you talking about?

Who is greatest and who is next?

Among the disciples of Jesus, expectations were high. Why not? They wanted to be recognized. They were, after all engaged in a messianic project, an apocalyptic adventure, a cosmic career tract.

The expectations were high and the stakes were high.

Like little boys jostling for positions on the playground, the disciples are looking for that opportunity, that one chance to shine, to rise to the top like apostolic cream. Wielding with furious might and fighting fists the toys of ambition, power and prestige.

In their roughhousing for dominance however, they seemed to have failed to realize what Jesus had said to them on the road.

Jesus said: The Son of Man is to be handed over to menand they will kill him,and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.

This messianic project, this apocalyptic adventure, this cosmic career tract is heading in an unexpected direction, the direction of the cross.

And here we find revealed for us inner truth of our faith
The messiah is vulnerable where as little boys think they are not
The apocalypse is anticlimactic whereas little boys like the big finish, the blow up, the fireworks, the grand finale.
The cosmos is child-like where as little boys like to imagine themselves as little men

The direction of the cross leads us to discover our true strength in the wounds of Jesus Christ, the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

And this is what little boys will never understand. The weak are strong, the lame are runners, the blind truly see, the rejected are glorified.

Blessed are those
Blessed are those
Blessed are those

And where as we love our toys, our tools, our gadgets which we think can give us access to privilege, prestige, power.
The truth of the matter is twisted

Except for the cross, the long history of human suffering would have remained unchecked and the legacy of sin, death and pain, unremitting
Except for the cross, our personal failures, our inconsistencies, our quirks of personality would remain unalterable, without hope, without understanding.
Except for the cross, the wounds of mankind, the wounds of neglect, abuse, violence and war would remain un-interpretable, impenetrable, inconsistent.

Except for the cross, the symbol of everything that is wrong, everything that is unjust, everything that is meaningless, there could be no right, no justice, no meaning in life

And so if we are tempted to a little roughhousing on the playground of clerical privilege, warily wielding the unwieldy toys of ambition, power and prestige

We might realize that our greatest strength for priestly service lies not in how far we advance, but in how far we are willing to bend down, to find Christ in the dust of the earth, in the lost, the thrown out, the disillusioned, the traumatized.
The strength of priestly service is not in how high we can reach, but in how far we are willing to reach out, stretching out hands, not in the grasping after, but the gathering in. Not in the raising but in the lowering, the lowering to meet the least.

And the strength of priestly service is not in how deeply we can plunge ourselves into the mire of masculine machinational manipulation, the morass of misguided machismo, but in how deeply we are willing to reach within and see that our scars, our pasts, our sins, our childish mishandling of life, The things the world and sometimes we count as complete loss, may well be our sole hope for gaining the first place, a place at the altar of sacrifice where everyone, first or last, is first because everyone moves through the wounds of like to become Christ.

Among the disciples the expectations are high. What are our expectations as we with fear of God and faith approach the sacrament of salvation?

The Homily for Today:

September 3

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

When I was subprior and lived full-time in the monastery, like the other monks I participated in the daily round of housework and community responsibilities that define the monastic ethic of engaging in manual labor. My favorite job, by far, was dishwashing. I love to wash the dishes. Every evening after supper the messy plates and silverware and glasses and cups yawned threateningly before the evening dishwasher with their ingratiating, unwashed hubris. There was a process however, and by collecting, scraping, rinsing, washing, drying and storing within an hour, all of those dishes were cleaned, they gleamed, newness was restored and then, they were put away, the job was finished and the dishwasher had the satisfaction of seeing that it was, indeed, complete, over, finito, done.

One of the hazards of discipleship is that there is no finito. Sometimes we may think that there is a process, do this, do that and it will be accomplished, done. But the truth is with authentic discipleship, we never see the end of it. We might accomplish this or that small task, this or the other landmark effort, but the finality of the project of moving close, closer, ever closer to the source of our lives, the Living Reality of God alludes us. We lose patience with the task, we want easy and quick results that are to our liking, so that the pursuit of God becomes like Rice a Roni, Tasty, true, delicious, undoubtedly, long lasting, less so. The consolation prize of a cosmic game show. Or more insidiously, we begin to fashion God into something that we can get a nice grip on and finito, there He is, a beautiful, malleable, and ultimately useless idol emerging from the steam of infidelity to reign as the golden calves of our particularities, peculiarities, peccadilloes and partialities.

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

The injunction of Jesus in today’s Gospel is a call for profundity. Deep water fishing takes time, it requires long term engagement, its rewards, while great in the long run are piecemeal in the interim and we lose patience with the task. In his Pastoral Rule, St. Gregory the Great understood this longing for the long run, the bigger picture in priestly service that requires patience, tending, fortitude in pursuit.

The same might be said of formation. You are not like a pile of dirty dishes to be tidied up in an hour. Your formation takes time, we dishwashers sometimes wait impatiently for the results, we wonder if we will ever see progress, and then, suddenly, out of the dirty dishwater of despair the gleam of newness, restoration emerges, the net comes up, miraculous catch is in our grasp and leaves us with the serious desire to keep on washing and fishing.

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Here at this altar, in this assembly, in this house of formation, we seek the depth, the breadth, the height of a God who cannot be exhausted, cannot be contained, tidied up, put away, the God who can never be completely caught. The deathless pursuit of God, is, of course, highly dangerous, making our work in this liturgy look less like the placating placebo of a peace-keeping force and more like the lit fuse of an eschatological time bomb.

Here we consume the catch, choking on the IKTHOS which is the Body of Christ that leaves us hungry for more, yearning, yearning, searing with yearning, casting ever deeper, ever wider until we gasp the Ruah of eternity on another shore.