Homily for Nov. 5th, 2017: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year
A.
Matthew
23:1-12.
AIM: To show that Christ’s unique authority permits
only servants in his Church, not masters.
Catholics who live in the so-called
Bible Belt know that there are few scriptural texts so often cited against us
by fundamentalist Protestants as the verse we have just heard in the gospel:
“Call no one on earth father; you have but one Father in heaven.” Our critics
charge that the practice of calling Catholic priests “Father” violates Jesus’
command.
There is a simple response to this
charge: pointing out that taking Jesus’ words literally leads to absurdities.
The command to “call no one on earth your father” would forbid us to use this
word for our biological fathers. Nor can we take literally the following verse:
“Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ.” Taken
literally this would forbid us to call anyone “Mister,” since this title is
merely a variation of the English word “master.” If despite this passage, it is
legitimate to call men in our society “Mister,” and to call our biological
fathers “Father,” why should it be wrong to call priests “Father”?
All this is true. But we make things
too easy for ourselves if we leave the matter there. We need to see the
principle behind Jesus’ rejection of titles like “Father” and “Master.” What is
really at issue in this passage is not the titles themselves but an underlying
mentality. Jesus is warning against the temptation of those who have spiritual
authority in his Church to forget that they are first of all servants; and that
they will themselves be judged by the authority they represent to others. The
apostle Paul was keenly aware of this. In his first letter to the Corinthians
Paul writes about his fear, “that having preached to others I myself should be
rejected” (9:27).
Because Church leaders are weak,
fallible sinners, like everyone who has ever been born, they have always been
susceptible to the scramble for titles, for power and influence, for higher
places in the ecclesial pecking order. We see this even in the New Testament.
The mother of Jesus’ two apostles, James and John ,
asked him to give her sons places of special honor in his kingdom. (Cf. Mt.
20:20f). Luke’s gospel tells us that even at the Last Supper, the night before
Jesus died, his closest friends argued “about who should be regarded as the
greatest” (Lk 22:24). It is no secret that the contest for places of honor
continues in the Church today. As they say in Rome
Conscious of this temptation to abuse
spiritual power, St. Gregory the Great, who was Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604,
gave himself the title which, ever since, has been a healthy and necessary
reminder for Peter’s successors of Jesus’ teaching in today’s gospel: “Servant
of the servants of God.” The words are still used in official papal documents.
It is reported that after his election as Pope thirty-three years ago John Paul II asked the cardinals to remain together
for dinner, and himself helped pour the champagne for the meal of celebration.
It is impossible to confirm this
story. We can certainly hope, however, that it is true. For whenever popes –
and with them bishops and all who bear office and spiritual authority in God’s
Church – have tried truly to live as servants rather than as masters, the
Church has prospered. Whenever Church leaders have forgotten Jesus’ words in
today’s gospel, “The greatest among you must be your servant,” the Church has
grown spiritually flabby and sick, no matter how much worldly power and
prestige and wealth it may have accumulated.
Jesus’ warnings in today’s gospel have
an obvious application to us clergy. Do
they apply, however, only to Church leaders? Who are the people today of whom
it could be said: “They preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens
hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a
finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen.”
It is not hard to find people in
public life to whom those words apply. Many public officials are truly public
servants. Sadly there are also many exceptions.
More than our decades ago a newly elected American President thrilled
the country by saying in his inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can
do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Historians now question
whether the man who spoke those stirring words followed them himself. Most
members of Congress work long and hard for what they believe is truly in the
country’s best interests. For decades, however, they have enjoyed a pension
plan vastly more generous to them than Social Security is to us, their
constituents.
Hypocrisy, the yawning credibility gap
between words and deeds, is a danger for all of us. The American novelist
Nathaniel Hawthorne writes: “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one
face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting
bewildered as to which may be the true.” There are people who have hidden
behind a mask for so long that they have forgotten what their true face looks
like. Our masks may fool others. They cannot fool God. God looks behind our masks. God looks at the
heart. God reads even our secret thoughts and desires. Yet no matter how great
the darkness within us, God never rejects us. God loves us deeply, tenderly,
passionately. That is the gospel. That is the good news.
It is God’s love, and his love alone,
that gives us the courage to throw away our masks, to stop pretending to be
other than we are. That, more than anything else, is what God wants for us.
Deep in our hearts that is what we too desire: to stop pretending, just to be
ourselves; to know that we are loved not in spite of what we are, but for who we are: daughters and sons of our
heavenly Father, sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ.
Once we stop pretending and truly
accept the love God offers us as a free gift, we can make our own the words of
today’s responsorial psalm:
“In you, Lord, I
have found my peace.”
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