Father Rick Bolte's Homily

B:25th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

We are told in today’s gospel that the apostles were arguing about who was the greatest.  We don’t have any details of the discussion but it would be rather simplistic to presume they were just shouting at each other as each claimed, “I’m the greatest!”  Probably, like us, they were more subtle.  We would unlikely ever say “I’m the greatest or best!”  Since we are not over in such claims, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are not proud or ambitious. 

By a show of hands (rot really – no need for public confession) how many of you are smarter than the president?  How many are smarter than the Senate?  How many are smarter than congress?  How many are smarter than the governor?  How many are smarter than the pope?  How many are smarter than the bishop?  How many are smarter than the pastor?  How many are smarter than your spouse?  How many are smarter than your child’s teacher or principal?  How many are smarter than your child’s coach?  How many teenagers are smarter than you parents? 

We wouldn’t likely boast that we are smarter than all these people but we often do presume the ability to sit back in judgment on what these and other people say and do.  I imagine many of us, like children who discover mom and dad really were not so stupid when they get to be about 25, realize as we get more involved in organizations and business realize that some of our past superiors were not quite as dumb as we thought.  Yet we continue to presume to judge people in jobs we have little experience with.

Sometimes there is extra reason to judge those in authority; it gives us an excuse to disobey.  How many of us justify cutting corners on paying taxes or taking advantages of loop holes because the government would just waste our money anyway.  And at the same time we would take advantage of any government program that gave us benefits, needed or not, because we might as well get our share.  Giving into our pride has the advantage of justifying in our minds what we want to do. 

It is much the same in our faith.  We want to treat our faith “cafeteria style” selecting what we agree with and rejecting what we don’t.  We justify our judgment because it is run by men, they’re just human beings like us, they don’t experience the real life like we do, and there’s the whole list of failings we see in individual clergy.  This allows us to even hold what we believe is true and to reject those who disagree as not true Catholics.  We justify the life style we want and call it authentic Catholicism while feeling superior to those who don’t do it our way.

We could be tempted to laugh at the silly disciples for arguing about their greatness but we may be chasing the splinter and ignoring our plank. 

Jesus tells us the greatest is the one who serves the needs of all.  Part of serving the needs of all is supporting the whole of them.  It’s tempting in our individualistic society to sit back and say, “I didn’t vote for that person.” or “That’s not a very smart idea and I’ll not be a part of it.”  To serve the needs of all is to have some humility in admitting that we don’t have all the answers.  It includes cooperating even when we don’t think it is best.  We know in our parish that we don’t agree with everything that is done.  Even something as simple as the cross design for the side of our building; one could be tempted to say, “Since they picked the poorer design, I’ll not support it.”  No parish or organization can survive if we only support what we think is best.  We are called to support the whole family of God even when we disagree.

That’s not to preclude the prophetic mission.  Sometimes we do need to stand up and disagree.  Jesus was prophetic.  To be a prophet as Jesus is to more literally suffer as Jesus did.  We see this in the women who have lost their jobs with the Church in Cincinnati.  They believe so much in the ordination of women that they choose to speak publically about it and to challenge the bishops and pope.  Right or wrong, to be prophetic has its costs.  They are suffering for what they think is the god of the people.  This is prophetic witness.  Prophetic witness is not a private opinion that justifies behavior we want to do.  It is not a means to give ourselves permission to not be part of the group when that seems advantageous to us.

To seek greatness in God’s kingdom is to choose to surrender our pride.  We accept we are part of God’s family and not somehow better than anyone in charge.  We sometimes suffer for the good of the group either by not getting our way or by prophetic witness.  God’s family is not something we opt out of when it’s more convenient but a family we are always a part of and whom we are called to humbly serve.