11th
Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP
St. Albert the Great,
Irving
Why
does Jesus pity the shepherdless sheep? They are – probably – a
flock of lost, hungry, sick, and unwashed folks who have been
abandoned by the Temple and the Empire, left to wander in spiritual
and material poverty, despairing of any hope and lacking any trust in
legitimate authority – legal, religious, or otherwise. They follow
Jesus around b/c he speaks with an authority that strikes them as
authentic, real. He heals. He feeds. And they've witnessed him
casting out demons. Word spread. Here's a man who is more than an
office, more than a representative of a distant ruler, more than just
another voice from the Temple. He might be the Son of God, the
Messiah. He might actually be who and what he says he is. And what if
he is? What if he is the Messiah? Then, there's hope! There's an end
to the hunger, the sickness, the despair. We can trust again. We can
trust that God's promises are not locked away safely guarded in a
temple vault or hoarded in a Roman barracks. His pity, his compassion
will see us through and beyond. Jesus sees lost sheep. And his
compassionate response is to give them shepherds.
Jesus
appoints the 12 apostles b/c he sees the sheep for what they are. Men
and women created in the image and likeness of God, struggling to
find their way back to God. Living in the world while not being of
the world, they are lost to the powers of darkness and fear,
threatened by both material and spiritual forces they do not
understand and cannot resist. Rather than giving them a new set of
rules or a revised book of policies and procedures, Christ gives them
a team of laborers, a college of apostles to shepherd them. Each one
sent out to be Christ wherever he lands. These apostles establish a
church, an assembly of believers who gather to pray, to baptize, to
break bread, heal the wounds of sin, and study the Word for preaching
and teaching. As these churches grow, suffer persecution, grow some
more, and mature, the apostles are replaced with more apostles. And
the sheep come to understand that they too have a ministry. They have
a mission rooted in their own death and resurrection in Christ Jesus.
They too are priests, prophets, and kings. Because the laborers are
few and the harvest is abundant, Jesus prayed for more. More
laborers. More help. The apostles and priests cannot do it all. God
answers with sheep who themselves become priests, prophets, and
kings.
If
I asked you how many priests we have in the chapel this morning, you
might say four or five. How many prophets? How many kings? If you say
none, you'd be wrong. If you are baptized and confirmed (anointed),
you are a priest, prophet, and king in the Church. We draw a
distinction btw the ministerial priesthood and the baptismal
priesthood – a difference in kind not just degree – but
the ministries of both are fundamentally the same. Intercede and
sacrifice; preach and teach; and bring Christ into the culture for
its sanctification. Those of us who are ordained, fulfill our offices
in leadership – in persona Christi Capitis. All the baptized
and confirmed serve in persona Christi. In the person of
Christ, you are baptized and confirmed as priests, prophets, and
kings for the the mission and ministry of Christ in the world. You
are authorized to act and speak in the person of Christ wherever and
whenever you find yourself. You don't have to wait for an ordained
priest to pray, to sacrifice, to love, show mercy, or forgive. You
are Christ where you are. Yes, we need ordained priests for the valid
celebration of the sacraments! But you do not need to be ordained to
be a sacrament of love for the world.
For
some, this truth is freeing. For others, it's scary. You might prefer
that the burden of being Christ in the world fall only on the
ordained. That limits your liability for being a good Catholic to
Sundays, HDO, the occasional confession; no meat on Fridays during
Lent; and a crucifix on the bedroom wall. But – the harvest is
abundant and the laborers few. Jesus prayed for help. And he got it.
In the form of all the baptized and confirmed! This means that each
one of us is charged with being Christ wherever we find ourselves.
Not just while kneeling in the pew. But at home, at school, at work,
at WalMart, at Whataburger, wherever we are. We are charged with
gathering the harvest and caring for the sheep. The lost, the hungry,
the sick, all of the Father's creatures who seek to return to Him. We
hope, we forgive; we speak the truth in love; we cast out dark
spirits and show those afflicted to the Light of Christ. Then we
return to the sacraments – intercede and sacrifice, preach and
teach, and recharge to go out again and bring Christ to the world,
proclaiming, “The
kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
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