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| November 22, 2008 |
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‘The times call for prophetic voices’Bishop Robert N. Lynch’s 2008 chrism Mass homily 
Bishop Robert N. Lynch delivered this homily at the annual chrism Mass March 18 at the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Petersburg to a congregation that included most priests in the diocese. Dear sisters and brothers in the faith of Jesus Christ! Gathered from the five counties of this great church, we have listened again to the familiar readings for this chrism Mass. Today they are proclaimed in a time of great hope for our church. God’s word from Isaiah, the Book of Revelation and Luke is proclaimed to a church which has just begun a journey in faith to embrace ever tighter the great gift of the Eucharist. The power and excitement of this journey was palpable on Feb. 4, when many of us were together for the first of three convocations. During this first year, we have promised to concentrate and reflect on the role the “word” plays in our lives, as priests, as deacons and as God’s holy people. The prophet Isaiah sees a restoration coming to Israel, a new beginning, a renewed people gathered from many places, and a new light shining forth in an otherwise dark world. He uses the term “spirit” to indicate a special action of God. Spirit and anointing signal a special gift of enlightenment, enabling us to know God’s word and giving us the strength to both live and preach it. When spirit and anointing are present in ministry, then prisoners can be led out of the darkness of their dungeons to a new light. Isaiah foresees the total salvation of his people, spiritually, bodily, individually and socially. In this preaching passage, the prophet connects with the tradition which preceded him. He tries to make sense of the past in order to illuminate the present and bring hope for the future. But he also suggests changes in behavior will be required and, therefore, his preaching is fraught with danger. Luke’s Gospel almost ironically places the rejection of Jesus the preacher early in his public ministry and right in his own hometown. In choosing this passage from Isaiah, Luke establishes that Jesus in his ministry will also be a prophetic preacher. That spells nothing but trouble for Our Lord, but he embraces the role and allows himself to be emboldened by it. He is the fulfillment of the messianic hope and very quickly and clearly identifies himself with the poor, the blind, the oppressed and the imprisoned. His townsfolk were uncomfortable and quickly became angry. It was quite a start for this carpenter’s son from just down the street, but the remaining stories in Luke’s Gospel, right up until the passion of the Lord, reveal his unswerving and unnerving commitment to those to whom he has come to bring hope. Those of us who have the privilege of breaking open the word of God at Mass and during the administration of the other sacraments need frequently to pause and reflect on the challenge of our preaching ministry. Are we always well-prepared? Jesus did not enter the synagogue in Nazareth without a clue of what he would be saying. He didn’t chance “freelancing it.” Rather he went right to the passage in Isaiah that would be proven to be both neuralgic and uncomfortable for his hearers. He did not condemn them for their lack of understanding or even for their hostility — he simply told it like it was. How many of us fashion our preaching week after week into a reflection of what we think the people would like to hear? There is plenty of playing to the audience in our world right now. Can anyone name a candidate for the office of president who has even mentioned, if elected, doing something for the genuine poor, for those in prison, increasing funds for the blind and the deaf, for the vulnerable elderly? It seems to me that without the church of Jesus Christ, the afflicted in this great nation have no voice but the comfortable have plenty of allies speaking on their behalf. The times call for prophetic voices. The times cry out for preaching in the fashion of the prophets and of the Messiah. In the last few weeks since our diocesan convocation, I have tried to think of what Jesus might say had he the privilege that is mine today. He would surely want to say a few words to you about how terrific your dedication to your priesthood is and how grateful he is for your priestly ministry. He would also want to console those of you who might be struggling in some way or another with your ministry, with your vocation, with the church you love and serve and, perhaps, even with your bishop. But my bet would be he would not leave without challenging me, you and all here present to work even harder for the good of our sisters and brothers. He might speak well of our commitment to the protection of, respect for and reverence of human life from conception to natural death, but he would likely challenge us with what we are doing for the struggling born. He would probably rather be at Pinellas Hope (homeless ministry) for dinner tonight than at (the) Vatican Splendors (exhibit). He might make note of the progress we preachers are slowly making on winning hearts and minds on the death penalty, but I think he would appalled at how hostile we Catholics are to our sisters and brothers in baptism who passed through the most porous border in the world to find a subsistence-level job picking tomatoes and vegetables for the macro farms that crisscross our state. He would probably scratch his head in wonderment and then give me the business for remaining quiet while Burger King and the growers of our state refuse to give a one-cent-per-pound raise to those who perform this backbreaking labor — a concession that would cost the growers only $275,000 per year statewide. He might ask me or us whether or not we have been tilting more to the patriotic and less to the prophetic in remaining silent when we should have been calling for an end to a war in Iraq, which his vicar on earth had the courage to declare unjust at its beginning. Without abusing the privilege of preaching, we must reclaim the challenge of prophecy. Jesus walked into that synagogue, sat among his friends and recalled one of the most uncomfortable passages of Scripture to use as his launching pad. How about we who preach the word of God? Is it pabulum, or prophecy or something in between? He was willing to pay the ultimate price for preaching the truth. How far are we willing to go? So many people look to the church to provide light in the occasional dark moments of their lives. We are anointed, my brothers, imbued and filled with the Spirit. And to our deacons here present, I remind you as I did 10 days ago that you also have been given the privilege of preaching. The spirit has been given to you and to me, and we have the special grace to both enlighten and challenge our generation. Make preaching one of the hallmarks of your ministry. Encourage and challenge. Cajole and confront. Proclaim and apply. God’s people look to us to inspire them to greater openness, generosity, care, compassion and responsibility. The Old Testament prophets preached both judgment and hope. In preaching judgment, every one of them first convicted themselves, holding themselves as well as their hearers accountable for their/our actions. Their task was to hold God’s people accountable to live morally responsible lives. Micah got it: Act justly, love constantly and walk humbly before the Lord. But, every prophecy was accompanied by words of hope. There was no sin so unpardonable, no circumstance so dark that they could not also cry out in the same breath, “Comfort, comfort my people says your God.” A non-Catholic theologian (David Bland) commenting on the role of prophetic preaching has written, “In a real sense, then, prophetic preaching ‘comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.’” And genuine prophetic preaching springs from a life of prayer, faithful study of God’s word, and a deep love for God and his church. Such preaching does not rely on human experiences to transform lives, but on what a God of steadfast love as done through his Son, Jesus Christ. Our people gather. They hear the word of God. You and I have the awesome privilege to break it open for them. My prayer today is that every time you and I bring the Liturgy of the Word to its conclusion, and we have done our best to preach prophetically like Jesus, Isaiah, Elijah and Elisha, Micah and Jeremiah and Zephaniah, we can take our seats and say to ourselves: “Today, together, we will fulfill these Scripture passages, which we have heard. For we have preached the just word.”
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