July 12, 2015

Amos 7:12-15

To Amos himself Amaziah said, 'Go away, seer, take yourself off to Judah, earn your living there, and there you can prophesy! But never again will you prophesy at Bethel, for this is a royal sanctuary, a national temple.' 'I am not a prophet,' Amos, replied to Amaziah, 'nor do I belong to a prophetic brotherhood. I am merely a herdsman and dresser of sycamore-figs. But Yaweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yaweh said to me, "Go and prophesy to my people Israel."

   

Psalm 85: 9-14

His saving help is near for those who fear him,
his glory will dwell in our land.

Faithful Love and Loyalty join together,
Saving Justice and Peace embrace.
Loyalty will spring up from the earth,
and Justice will lean down from heaven.

Yahweh will himself give prosperity, 
and our soil will yield its harvest.
Justice will walk before him, 
treading out a path

 

Ephesians 1: 3-10

Blessed be God 
    the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who has blessed us 
    with all the spiritual blessings of heaven 
        in Christ. 
Thus he chose us in Christ 
    before the world was made 
to be holy and faultless 
    before him in love, 
marking us out for himself beforehand, 
    to be adopted sons, 
        through Jesus Christ. 
Such was his purpose and good pleasure, 
to the praise of the glory of his grace, 
his free gift to us in the Beloved,
in whom, through his blood, 
    we gain our freedom, 
        the forgiveness of our sins. 
Such is the richness of the grace 
which he has showered on us 
in all wisdom and insight. 
He has let us know 
    the mystery of his purpose, 
according to his good pleasure 
    which he determined beforehand 
        in Christ, 
for him to act upon 
    when the times had run their course: 
that he would bring everything together 
    under Christ, as head, 
everything in the heavens 
    and everything on earth. 

Mark 6: 7-13

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 15, 2012

INTRODUCTION – (Amos 7:12-15; Ephesians 1:3-10; Mark 6:7-13) Sometimes prophets predicted the future but most of the time they tried to direct God’s people to live by God’s laws. Consequently, those who were not living according to God’s laws usually did not appreciate the prophet’s reproach. Our first reading today is taken from the Book of the Prophet Amos. Amos lived over 700 years before Christ. At that time and in that culture there were professional prophets who made their living by telling people how to solve their problems, giving them advice, predicting the future, etc. These professionals were often servants of pagan gods and they did not speak for the God of Abraham. They usually spoke the kinds of things their clients would be pleased to hear because if they offended their client they would not have been paid their fee. When Amos went to Bethel, where there was a temple in competition with the true Temple in Jerusalem, Amos did not have comforting things to say to the people about the way they were living. He warned them of great disaster they would suffer if they didn’t change their ways. The high priest of the Bethel sanctuary, Amaziah, mistook him for one of the professional prophets and told him to get out of town. Amos protested that he was not a career prophet, rather he was living a nice peaceful life as a farmer and God called him to go to Bethel and warn the people that their sinful lives would lead to destruction. Today’s passage prepares us for the gospel where Jesus sends his apostles out to preach and warns them that their message may not always be well received.

HOMILY – Last week’s gospel told us of Jesus’ rejection by his relatives, friends and neighbors in his hometown of Nazareth. Today, Jesus is preparing his apostles to go out for the first time to announce God’s kingdom by healing and casting out demons. It could be a difficult assignment. The job of telling people they need to repent and change their ways is not always popular. John the Baptist had some success in preaching repentance, but most of us know what happened to him. Jesus and his apostles would also have known what happened to the Baptist. So he warns his apostles to move on if they are not accepted. They should even shake the dust of the town from their sandals.

    A number of themes suggest themselves in today’s gospel; for example, the theme of the rejection of the true prophet of God such as happened to Amos and John the Baptist and Jesus, the greatest of all prophets who came to teach us God’s ways. There are many other
topics that would be worth dwelling on, but let me get to the one that occupied my reflections on the gospel this week – the theme of simplicity. In today’s gospel, we have no details as to where the apostles were to go, how long they would be gone, or what Jesus was going to do in the meantime. We are given a lot of detail about what they were allowed to take with them – one tunic, sandals and a walking staff. (Luke does not even allow a walking staff and Matthew does not allow either the staff or the sandals). Jesus wanted them to learn to trust God to care for their needs. In the light of this austerity, I examined myself – as I believe St. Mark wants his hearers to do. I trust in God, but I reflect on all the stuff I take with me when I just take a day off, not to mention all the other stuff I surround myself with, especially books and closets full of stuff. We are a society with lots of stuff. There is an insert in today’s bulletin on living simply. One of the things we see in many people who want to live a life centered on God, such as hermits and monks and people like St. Benedict and St. Francis and St. Dominic, is that they try to live very simple lives. So many things can get in the way of our spiritual growth, especially the TV. I seldom have mine on, and I seldom miss it, unless when I want to see the news. I do admit, however, of having lots of clutter and I’ve read a couple of books on how to reduce clutter, but I don’t have time to do it. That’s another area where we all have a lot of clutter: our busy schedules. It’s important that we don’t keep ourselves so busy that we don’t have time to pray. In our busy-ness we have to keep in mind what our priorities are or we will find ourselves going around in circles. God should be our highest priority.

    Maybe St. Francis could follow the gospel literally, but in our society people will probably keep wearing shoes and changing their clothes occasionally. In order to get to church, most everyone here needs a car (and it’s nice if you have a check book too). Few of us have neighbors who will invite us to dinner every night, so we need food and a roof over our heads (especially in the winter). It doesn’t get so cold in the Middle East and the apostles lived in a culture where hospitality was automatically offered, so they could survive on less.

    However, I do want to mention four things we can especially do without as we make this journey through life: ONE is guilt. Guilt can be healthy or unhealthy. Healthy guilt is something we feel when we have failed to live up to our ideals and our values. When we fail, there is a way of taking care of that. We ask forgiveness. If we have offended against our spiritual ideals, we ask forgiveness of God and start over. Sometimes we don’t forgive ourselves and thus we keep our traveling bag always full of guilt. When God forgives us, we have to forgive ourselves. The SECOND thing we need to get rid of is unforgiveness of others. Some people just hold on to grudges forever. The grudges we hold on to usually hurt us more than the people we are angry with. Remember when we pray, we pray that God forgives us as we forgive others. A THIRD thing is fear and worry. Fear helps us prepare for problems and prepare ourselves how to deal with them and in that it is healthy. But some people worry about everything - most of which they can’t do anything about. Jesus asks us to have more trust in God as we travel this road of life. LAST but not least, get rid of ingratitude, especially toward God. We need to thank God daily for his blessings, and that’s what brings us here today – to say Thanks. Amen.