No Outsiders, Only Insiders!
Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
In the midst of the cry for the heads of priests to be chopped off, at least in the West, the Spirit of God is still alive and active. Amidst the commercialization of religion in Africa and elsewhere, there are still prophetic voices speaking up in the wilderness of sin that we live in. In the desire of the world to equate the Church of saints, martyrs and sinners with the crime of pedophilia, the Spirit of God still raises distinct voices to announce the immortality of the Church of Jesus Christ. These voices are not the conventional voices from rostrums, house tops and elevated positions, they are the voices of those left in the slums and camps; those beaten by the society and left for dead and the garbage dumps; indeed, the nobodies in the reckonings of human institutions, with no beauty and talents to attract the world of glamor, yet their faith is unyielding, their cry for justice undying and their determination for good unconquerable!
When Moses and the powers that was, in our first reading, chose their candidates for elective positions, God surprised them by going beyond human election to divine appointments. The God that is thought to be locked up in the Tabernacle, who speaks exclusively through certain representatives, leaves the Tabernacle to meet two individuals where they were at – at the camps – without them coming to him. This is the God we need to recognize today, the image of the God who seeks out those excluded from power and relevance, yet are important to God and have been appointed by God for great things. The need to go to see what God does at the peripheries, far away from the planned cities and citadels we have built to confine him – prophets on the margins!
The debate between Joshua and Moses is instructive: exclusivity versus inclusivity – “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!” says Moses. Joshua resists God’s plan for universality of adoption of all and sundry as his children, but God’s Spirit transcends this divide through the power of love! Like Joshua, some of us call for “shutting up” other prophetic voices, because we must be the arbiters of what is prophetic, we think we must play god! NO! Not even Jesus will accept segregation, according to our gospel today: “For whoever is not against us is for us” Jesus insists. Our anonymous prophets must be sought after and given a voice!
Yes, if wealth separates humanity into rich and poor, and body pigmentations into black and white, yellow and brown, and gender into male and female, age into young and old, practical prophecy unites us all into human beings who desire water to quench and assuage our thirsts. The need for water goes beyond racial, gender, ethnic and generational divides, it is a human need. According to Jesus in the gospel today, our practical prophecy is how we treat one another, our care for one another in simple deeds of offering water to the thirsty. It is what unites us – the Spirit of God in us – that calls humanity to practical prophecy today. No one is too poor not to have a cup of water to offer to another; and, nobody who fails to offer a cup of water to another will escape judgment because he/she divides what God united and unites.
There is something about the names of those added to the electoral list of our first reading by God – Eldad and Medad – the loved-ones-of-God! The power of unity comes from LOVE, the meaning of Eldad and Medad. Right from Genesis 1, there is only one force that has made God to act outside of himself – love! “Love” breaks all the boundaries human beings ever made, cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, political, etc. The separation of God’s people into black and white, yellow and brown, Jews and Arabs, have never stopped love from finding ways to bridge the gaps, despite human resistance. The call today is to leave our comfort zones, to journey with God to the margins where his Spirit leads, to locate the sinner and not the sin, the weak and not the weakness, those appointed directly by him and give them their rightful places within the Body of Christ, the Church, and society.
When St. Peter’s Basilica was crumbling, it took the shoulder of a certain nobody called Francis of Assisi to support it; the shoulder of the Pope was inconsequential in forestalling the free fall of St. Peter’s! It took an outsider to the precincts – an Eldad and Medad – it took the power of love and radical poverty of St. Francis of Assisi to keep St. Peter’s standing. If anything, the same threat of collapse lingers around our divided humanity and common Christian faith today. Our succor in guaranteed sources of support and elected people have failed us; we need to head for the margins to find those with the Spirit of God upon them: “They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent; yet the spirit came to rest on them also, and they prophesied in the camp,” says our first reading. The voices of those individuals silenced by the power that be, the disturbing voices that we have relegated to the margins and peripheries, they too belong to the fold, they too have been convoked, anointed and commissioned – we need to hear their prophecies also. To paraphrase Pope Francis, it is time to “smell like the sheep!”
If we are not sure of those ones on the fringes today, Jesus clarifies and defines them for us: “John said to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us. Jesus replied, ‘Do not prevent him’”. The Church is wider than the persecuted and the sinners of today. She transcends every generation and she comes from God and not of human origins. The saints and the sinners/criminals, the persecuted and the persecutors, all are among the children of the same God, and loved by him. Each member of the Church must be attentive to the voice of prophecies inspired by the Spirit of God, irrespective of the distance of that voice from the center, from the tabernacle precincts.
Today’s gospel gives a different meaning to prophecy – human actions, not just words: “There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward”. Christianity and Christians speak the language of action, exude the power of example and replicate the sacrifice of Christ in daily living. The refugees in camps far away from drinkable water as well as internally-displaced-people need our attention; the poor without food; the stigmatized persons with no job, housing and friends; the prisoners of conscience and confinement, the abused and abusers, they all push and enlarge the boundaries of our Church and stretch the power of our love to its limits.
Perhaps the question should be, where do you belong in the scheme of things, on the fringes or in the precincts? Our second reading speaks to those around the precincts to be mindful of those on the margins – the redistribution of wealth and NOT the hoarding of wealth: “Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire”. The singular opportunity of being close to the tabernacle presupposes a clearer hearing of the massage of God, and a prompt application of same – that we are all human beings! The privileged position of being close to God comes with the weighty responsibility to discharge one’s duties with fidelity. Even those on the margins too have the Spirit of God, to prophesy against ills and injustices. The gap between the precincts and the peripheries must be obliterated, if the Spirit of the Lord must be allowed to function effectively and maximally.
How unstoppable the Spirit of God, ancient and ever new! In every generation, he enters souls and lift them up, far higher than human expectations, to make them respond to the needs of every age. Today, you and I are the Eldad and Medad, the Lord needs us to prophesy against the stench of sin and iniquity oozing from our segregated societies. Just like the Spirit of God upon every Christian, we must make our voices unstoppable as well, because the prophetic voices from the margins show the love of God towards those in privileged positions, for they too need salvation. The sting of truth, like the reprimand of the rich in our second reading, only awakens the rich to their Christian duties NOT a sentence/condemnation, and it reminds those on the fringes that their situation is human-made not God’s fault.
The God who sends his Spirit beyond the Tabernacle is a universalist God, who makes no distinctions. The God whose Son lived and died on the peripheries is an inclusive God. Prophetic voices, stern warnings against sinfulness and sin are God’s messages of love and mercy. If there is any lesson not to be missed, it is this: we are all children of one Father, members of the same family, with a common vocation to promote a universal sisterhood and brotherhood of humanity! To this end, our voices must be unstoppable, our resolve indefatigable and our enduring weapon is LOVE!
Assignment for the Week:
Could you reach out today and offer a cup of water to someone either on the fringes or around the precincts as a sign of practical prophecy?