September 28 – 26^th Sunday "B"

Nb 11, 25-29; James 5, 1-6; Mark 9, 38...48

Homily

If there is one thing we hear often about in the book of Exodus it is complaining and murmuring. In the chapter from which our first reading is taken, the people were complaining about the lack of food, and Moses, understandably, was complaining about the people. So Yahweh said to Moses: "O.k. the people is too much for you. You must share responsibilities. Assemble seventy of the elders in the meeting tent and I will give them something of the Spirit that you yourself have received."

So did Moses. But two of the seventy he had summoned failed to be in the meeting tent at the appointed time. The strange thing was that they received the Spirit all the same and started prophesying like the others, and Moses' assistant wanted to stop them. Moses, who was not a mean spirit, told him to let them do it. "Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on all!" he said. Why to be jealous of the Spirit received by others? One does not own the Spirit. One is owned by the Spirit; and the Spirit is free.

Something similar happened in the Gospel. The disciples were frustrated because some people who did not belong to their group were expelling the demons in the name of Christ, and with success. We understand their frustration better is we remember that, some time before, a man was obliged to bring his possessed son to Jesus because the disciples had been unable to expel the demon from him. The success of others is all the more difficult to accept when it follows our own failures.

By his answer to them Jesus taught us that the fact that we have been called to be his disciples does not make us the only recipients of his truth and salvation. We have heard of Christ, we have received his message. Most of us were born to Catholic parents, in a country were most people profess the Christian religion. It is normal for us to be Christians. It is difficult for us to accept that someone who was born in Pakistan or in Sudan or in New Caledonia, and who may never have heard of Christ, may treasure in his heart, and be faithful to, all the values that Christ taught us. He may be a more faithful and more fervent disciple of Christ than we are, even though he never heard his name. People around us, who are Christians like us, but belong to other confessions, may also have examples of fidelity to Christ and of sincerity to give us. It takes a good deal of humility to accept such a lesson.

Vatican II stressed the necessity of a sincere dialogue between Catholics and Christians of other traditions, between Christians and faithful of non‑Christian religious traditions, and, finally, between believers and those who pretend to believe in nothing. If we consider that we are all owned by the same God and the same Truth, dialogue is possible. If we think that we own God and that we own Truth, no dialogue is possible.

John Paul II has given us a good example, a little more than 25 years ago, when he convoked the leaders of all the great religious traditions of the world to Assisi, for a day of prayer. He could have convoked them to Rome, where he would have been the host, in the Capital of Christianity. Instead, he convoked them in the city of the most humble and the most universally accepted of all the Christian saints, Francis of Assisi. The pope arrived early in Assisi and went to pray in the Portiuncula, the smallest and poorest little church in Assisi. After that he joined the other religious leaders, and stayed in their midst as one of them, during the whole day.

We are not called to be the defenders of God, lashing out at all those from outside. We are called simply to be his witnesses. This is quite a heavy responsibility. If someone from outside is helping us to do it, it's all the better. Let us rejoice!

In our life of every day we probably meet several situations like this one, when people who do not seem to us to be good Christians or good monks, practice some virtues that are profoundly Christian. It is important to realize that what they do and what they are is from Christ.