31st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
Leaders, including religious leaders, can very easily become so consumed with the busyness of leadership that they can forget how their personal examples, activities, deeds, attitudes, and practices come across to others. Relatively small transgressions made by important people can appear rather amplified in the eyes of those whom they lead. And, mistakes leaders make, and the damage they do, can have immensely negative impact on those around them, fostering distrust, cynicism, anger, and even practical rejection.. Look at today’s economic disaster which is the fruit of many greedy policies and the fiscal incompetence and recklessness of many financial institutional leaders and managers, and of many government leaders active in the final decade of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st Century. In late 2011, we witness the waxing Take Over Wallstreet protests, and the waning Tea Party. Each group rages against what many people finally have come to perceive to be institutionalized injustice, selfishness, greed, and incompetence in business and government. Each group gives voice to dissatisfaction, contempt, rage, and disgust, even if in simplistic and unrealistic terms. Neither offers any considered effective wisdom, practical good sense, or constructive suggestions. Both espouse idealistic oversimplifications in spite of very complex and dynamic realities. But, indeed, in many measurable ways, too many leaders have broken faith with the whole of humanity and have not been held accountable even though they have directly caused ruin, pain, suffering, and even effective death for the lives and livelihoods among millions of people. Such leadership has been truly criminal, if not in enforceable legal terms, then certainly in terms of any broad moral social responsibility which comes with their positions of trust, power and advantage. We are in dire straits, but this is not an unusual situation in our human history. The prophet Malachi flourished during such dire times and he was terribly disappointed in the behaviors of the Jerusalem Temple priests in how they cheapened and trivialized the sacrificial system. He ministered during the generations immediately following the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple (rebuilt ca. 517 BC). There was a sort of reactionary renewal in effect in the Judaism of his day. Once liberated of their Babylonian Captivity and restored to their homeland, they set themselves the goal of applying themselves very more faithfully to the Torah, which had been in a dynamic evolutionary process of growth for centuries, and which had just recently put into its practical final written form. Judaism resolved to never again fail to keep God’s covenant as established (according to their cultural memory and their written record) as their ancestors in the 8th and 7th Centuries BC failed to do. To read lessons from Ezra and Nehemiah, we appreciate the harsh tones of the self-discipline Jewish leaders decided to impose on their whole people. Reaction is often unhealthy, especially when it limits healthy freedom, growth, and evolving maturity. Malachi spoke out for that super-critical, if simplistically idealistic and harsh religious leadership. Judaism’s leaders imagined that by going backwards to an idealistic age which had existed only in their imaginations (not in reality!), that they would be more religious. They made their religion mean, but not meaningful. For Malachi and his contemporaries, the City of Jerusalem and the restored Temple of Jerusalem were the focus and center of the universe. Judaism’s obligation was to maintain the temple and its cult, and to relate every aspect of Jewish society to respect for the temple. They imagined that by focusing on the Temple that they would more fully give glory and honor to the God of Israel, the God of Salvation. This was an ancient example of the superficiality of formal equivalency, i.e., we can say the words and perform the actions which someone else dictates without genuinely meaningful and realistic meaning and substance commensurate with the age and place, with intelligence and good sense. Some good results came from this era in spite of the fearful and narrow qualities of the leadership. It was during this era that Jewish monotheism became absolute. Along with it, the prohibition on the pronunciation of the Divine Name, YHWH, likewise became absolute. Judaism conscientiously worked to develop and maintain a religious and ethnic purity like it had never quite had before, even though this was often excessively harsh in human terms. Jewish religious faith and Jewish social culture became so interwoven that it was impossible to separate the two. Thus, a very, very high standard was set for the ways in which Jews related to each other. Malachi exhorted the priestly leadership to strive for that noble ideal. He had great respect and admiration for the Temple priesthood, and for the religious sacrifices over which they presided. His criticism of priestly performance was that of a true friend correcting the degenerative behavior of other truly loved friends. In his day, the priests were allowing people to sacrifice second-rate, damaged-goods, to God, instead of offering true “first fruits,” i.e., the best one had to offer. Malachi saw this watering-down of the sacrifice as a significant diminishment of Jewish religious gratitude. And, such cheating was abhorrent to him. Today, perhaps a fair comparison in Catholic pious Tradition might be when we multiply religious devotions in lieu of committed, active, conscientious, and significant generosity of time, talent, and treasure in our Church communities. Generally, most people who come to Church are good folks, but without great energy and care, we can become stuck in a past era, we can even revert to our childhood’s expressions of faith, even though we are old enough to have grandchildren and great grandchildren. Even in our liturgical language, to speak in archaic language, using words we have never taken time to understand, can indicate a sort of rejection of the Gospel exhortation “to have life and to have it most fully” (John 10:10). Attempts in art, language, prayer, and behavior to appropriate a merely formal equivalency of past (to superficially look like or sound like) religious ages subvert the intelligent, prophetic, mature, and responsibly engaged Gospel which we claim to embrace. Malachi critiques his own renewed religion in its attempt to advance backwards to an idealized previous age. Historically, this attempt did great damage and retarded its own growth. In the Jewish prophetic tradition, Jesus’ Gospel message critiqued Jewish practice even more completely, and Jesus saw the need to establish a completely new covenant by which to replace that which was increasingly irrelevant and oppressively restrictive. Jesus (and later Paul) would extol the Gospel message of responsible and good-sense freedom in opposition to blind, bland and boorish religious practices and behaviors.. Today’s Gospel passage shows Jesus calling to task those religious leaders of the Temple and Jewish society in his day. They still preached the ideal (“Do what they tell you...”) but they were known to practice those ideals in ways unworthy of imitation (“... but do not follow their example.”). The Gospel of Jesus is literally supposed to be “good news.” That is, it is supposed to help people carry their “burdens” in life in ways that are life-giving and liberating, not needlessly burdensome, oppressive, and superstitious. Honors and titles, while, affirming and encouraging, are without substance if not matched with competent, effective, compassionate, wise, and responsible lives. Fiddling with wording and minutiae while neglecting bigger issues is effectively criminal, if not legally, then at least in the moral terms of the Gospel. Rejecting the world around us as Church members renders it nearly impossible to live lives which are true “leaven,” i.e., seed and source of great change, renewal, growth, evolution, and grace. Church life at the parochial level is often very effective. It is at this level that we ought to enjoy the greatest possible freedom and power. Even the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council spoke of the very important principle of subsidiarity for all Church members. Subsidiarity means that responsibility to live, reflect, decide, and act belongs at the most appropriate level possible (read: at the lowest hierarchical level). Religious leaders today – as well as every Church member at all levels – must hear Jesus’ criticism very personally. It takes great humility to hear criticism. Failure to hear effectively very often reveals a great lack of humility. Humility for Gospel believers helps us live lives of prudent competence, and compassionate fellowship. Even Paul, who had been numbered among the most arrogant, zealous, and destructive of Judaism’s religious leaders of his day, was most personally touched by a gentle critique by the Risen Jesus. “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?!” (Acts 9) Thereafter – indeed after many years of thoughtful reflection, study, penance, and prayer – he reappeared as a religious leader, this time as an evangelist and apostle. But, he was different. He was “gentle” as he reminded his Thessalonian Christians in today’s middle lesson. 1st Thessalonians is considered very likely the first, and thus the oldest, of the surviving Pauline correspondence, and indeed, it seems to be the oldest surviving piece of Christian literature either in or out of the New Testament canon. Paul effected a profound rejection of his own religious arrogance and self-righteousness, and replaced it with the attitude of “a nursing mother who cares for her children.” He heard the prophetic criticism from the Risen Christ in his own (Paul’s) first mystical experience. He was changed! He was saved! He became salvific! He became an agent of change and growth. No formal equivalency for him; he evolved and mature, repented and developed! And he took the profound personal experience of the Gospel faith as he received it, then reflected upon it constantly, and finally articulated it all the while watching it growth, mature, change, and develop under the power of God’s Holy Spirit. Paul’s life and theological preaching is an example of how the Church ought to be in each and every age and place. Paul recognized the plural cultures and practices from Jerusalem to Rome. He did not require each to be the same, but rather, he exhorted each community to be inspired, transformed, and edified by the same Spirit of God who had saved him in Christ and the Gospel! So, might it be among us, if we strain to hear, to understand, on the Gospel message. And, then, if we work hard to reflect upon that Gospel, and to speak our prayers and faith from hearts and minds united in God’s Holy Spirit! Come, Holy Spirit! Fill the hearts of your faithful! Enkindle in us the fire of your Divine Love! Save us from simplistic superstitious silliness and from poor leadership in all institutions! By your Grace, build us into a holy people who live in the Spirit’s strength, love, and self-discipline!