Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday, all three readings celebrate prophetic voices.  There is, first of all, Ezekiel.  He lived in a time when Israel’s great age of independence had collapsed and God’s people were living in exile.  And so the fiery prophet had the freedom to break from the old ways and to call out for a brand-new reform, while keeping the ancient tradition of Israel’s trust in God.

Then we heard from St. Paul.  We heard his words today to the church in Corinth, a church that was besieged by false prophets who boasted of their ecstasies, visions, and miracles.  St. Paul doesn’t confront the false prophets from a position of strength but from a position of weakness.  He tells the Corinthians that whenever he was tempted to become proud like the false prophets, he was always knocked down a notch with what he described as a “thorn in the flesh.”

It’s not the sickness but what Paul does with his thorn in the flesh that’s important.  He sees it as a grace from God so that the power of Christ could dwell within him.  Paul sees his thorn in the flesh as a limitation that reminds him that although he is God’s prophet, he is not God; he is a man in whom God dwells.

And finally comes Jesus, the prophet not welcomed in his hometown of Nazareth, because they knew who he was, he was one of them, Mary’s son, the carpenter they had known for thirty years.  How could he possibly be a prophet when what he said often went against the religious traditions and interpretations of his day?

Our three Scripture readings today remind us of who a real prophet is.  We need this reminder because we are beginning to hear once again in our land the talk of certain self-proclaimed false prophets who preach not the Word of the Lord but a word of hatred and bigotry.  The Bible always insists that a prophetic minority has more to say to a nation than any majority, silent, moral, or any other.  In fact, majorities in the Bible generally end up stoning the prophets.

The biggest problem with the false prophet is that it offers us the “way out” that lives only in the past.  It offers us the fear choice, not the growth choice.  It wants to go back to the time when the United States owned the world, when women were in the kitchen, gays in the closet, and minorities in their place. 

But this Independence Day weekend, as we remember Ezekiel, St. Paul, and Jesus Christ, who was not welcomed by his own, we are reminded that real prophets respect the past but always offer a message for the present and the future so that we can keep growing not only as a nation but as God’s holy people.

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor