Homily:
15th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Fr. Ron Knott is a priest on the staff of Saint Meinrad
Seminary where I received my formation for the priesthood. A priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville,
Fr. Ron celebrated his 48th anniversary of his ordination earlier
this year. In some clergy circles, he’s
becoming quite well-known for his work in the field of ongoing formation of
priests and presbyterates. Yet, he’s
done so much more. Before his work of
teaching and forming seminarians for the priesthood, he directed and guided the
discernment of seminarians for his own Archdiocese as its vocation
director. Before that, he led a
multi-year, multi-million dollar revitalization program for the Archdioceses’
cathedral parish, which not only included a renovation of the cathedral church,
but also generated projects for revitalizing the surrounding neighborhood in
downtown Louisville. Before that, he
worked in the home missions in poor, rural Kentucky, building a sturdy parish
family off of the just four or five registered Catholics who were in the entire
county when he arrived. Without doubt,
in his 48-plus years of priesthood, Fr. Ron has made a positive impact on both
his home Archdiocese and on priests and presbyterates throughout the country.
Yet, one might have never suspected such things from the
young man who, by his own report, was so deathly afraid to speak in front of
people that he once hid on a fire escape to avoid a presentation he was
expected to make. No, even though now he
can be a bit gregarious, he does not exactly fit the mold of the charismatic
prophet, such as we might find on Sunday morning Tele-evangelist programs.
The prophet Amos was not your typical prophet either. Back in ancient Palestine, there were actually
guilds of “professional” prophets. These
were not “soothsayers” purporting to see into the future, but rather
individuals—often employed by kings—who were skilled in discerning the gods’
response to current events. These were
not unlike the “political advisors” employed by public officials today. Although it may sound quite odd to us, back
then it was a legitimate way to make a living: not unlike being a part of any
of the professional guilds of skilled labor that exist today.
The hazard of the profession was that the only way to know
if your prophecy was true was to wait and see what happened. Thus if a certain employer was anxious about
the potential negative consequences of a certain situation, he might take
offense at a prophet that comes to tell him that what he fears is the likely
course of events. And so, on the flipside,
prophets would often be tempted to compromise their professional integrity by
telling their employer what they wanted to hear instead of what they discerned
the true response to be.
And so, like I said, Amos didn’t fit this bill. God had called him from his work tending
sheep and dressing sycamore trees to go into the Northern Kingdom of Israel
(from his home in the Southern Kingdom of Judah) to prophesy the coming danger
for the people of that kingdom. Needless
to say, it wasn’t received well up north.
The reading tells us that Amaziah—the priest, of all people (talk about
a little stab to the heart right there!)—was trying to get rid of Amos, because
he didn’t want to hear the message from God that Amos came to bring. This priest accused Amos of trying to scam
his way into being paid for his prophecy, to which Amos responded: “I’m no
prophet. I’m a shepherd called by God to
bring you this word. If you don’t like
it, take it up with him. I’m just
responding to what God has called me to do.”
Amaziah, the priest, then, couldn’t escape the fact that Amos had
nothing to gain by making this prophecy and thus that his prophecy truly must
have come from God.
In the Gospel reading we heard of a similar type of
call. We heard how Christ called the
twelve apostles and sent them out to preach his message. These were certainly no guild prophets—they
were fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors—but Christ sent them out
anyway. And he instructed them to take
only the barest of necessities: the tunic they were wearing, a walking stick
and sandals. For the rest, they were to
rely on whatever was shared with them by those who received the message they
were bringing; and this was so the people would know that they were not
professional prophets. Like Amos before
them and Fr. Ron after them, these men were not what the people expected a
prophet to be. The irony, of course, is
that this made them all the more trustworthy to those who were truly
anticipating the coming of the Messiah.
My brothers and sisters, God has not stopped calling
prophets to carry his messages to his people.
And he certainly hasn’t limited his gift of prophecy to his ordained
ministers. Rather, he continues to call
the unassuming: the bank clerk, the insurance broker, the mechanic, the hog
farmer and the feed corn supplier—and he continues to send us out to bring his
message to his people. How we realize
that ministry in our lives and as a faith community takes prayer and
discernment—both individually and collectively—but make no mistake, by virtue
of our baptism, we are all called.
To respond, of course, is not always easy. Rather, it takes an act of faith to give ourselves
over to this call. But, as the prophet
Amos, the twelve apostles, and Fr. Ron has shown us, you don’t have to be a
professional prophet to go. You only need
a willingness to do God’s will and the trust that God has provided the message.
Thankfully, we have the Eucharist—God’s presence among
us—to nourish us and strengthen us for this holy work. May the grace we receive here today free us
from whatever fears we might have that keep us from engaging this holy work and
may it strengthen us to carry this Good News to those to whom God has sent us.
Given at Saint Mary
Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – July 15th, 2018
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