26th Sunday of Ordinary Time homily notes

    Today’s Bible readings will no doubt make some people uncomfortable because they may take the hearer outside of his or her preferred comfort zone. There is always great comfort found in believing that we have all the answers and completely understand exactly how God operates. What the Mass readings today remind us is that we should never become too complacent in how we understand God’s work in the world because God may very well be at work in ways we do not see or even understand. 

    In the Old Testament reading from Numbers, God’s glory descends upon the seventy elders at Mount Sinai, but for reasons unclear, two of the elders were absent from the incident but receive the gift of prophesy anyway. Many of the elders and Joshua grumble that the two should not have received such a magnificent gift because of their tardiness. Moses reminds them all that God can bless whom He choses to bless, and they should never be jealous when God chooses to act generously in ways we do not think are fair.

    In a similar but different vein, the Letter of James was presumably written by the James who presided over the Church in Jerusalem that was chronically short on money to the extent that Saint Paul in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles has to take up a special collection from other areas to help the Christians in Jerusalem with their financial difficulties. James is fairly direct in saying that those with means in the Church who fail to help their poorer brothers and sisters in Christ might find that their wealth is ultimately meaningless to the God who might take issue with their failure of generosity.
 

    In the same way, Jesus is confronted by John in the Gospel of Mark about someone who was clearly not a disciple but was still casting out demons in Jesus’ name. John is clearly upset that such a person would do this without Jesus’ permission and blessing and wants Jesus to put a stop to such unsanctioned behavior. Jesus, however, responds in much the same way Moses does in the first reading by reminding John that God is at work in all cultures and peoples across time and space. We may not like it when someone does not fit our definition of a “good Catholic” but is doing things that benefit God’s mission on Earth. We always have to acknowledge that God may very much be at work in and through that outside person or community, even when we fail to comprehend that God might very well be working in ways we cannot yet understand.

 

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