Friday, September 24, 2021

Enriching Our Faith Community Together


Dear Friends,

As we inch our way out of the pandemic and reopen our parishes, we can harbor two attitudes toward pitching in. The attitudes are jealousy and apathy. They are played out in both the first reading and Gospel today. In the reading from Numbers, the Spirit of God came to rest on Medad and Eldad, two men who were not part of the original prophets. Joshua wanted Moses to stop them, but Moses welcomed their participation. In the Gospel, the disciple John wanted to prevent a man who was not in the intimate group around Jesus from casting out demons in Jesus’ name. But Jesus said: “No, do not prevent him.”

The ugly head of jealousy reared up in both instances. “Hey. Wait a minute You are invading our turf. These works are our responsibility. You’re going to get credit for something we think we ought to do and get credit for.”

When we encounter interlopers like Eldad, Medad and the unnamed person in the Gospel, we, the builders of the community, are resentful. We are authorized. These others are not.

People jockey for power and position everywhere, even in the church. As we do the work of building up the faith community, today’s readings say there is no room for jealousy. Move over. Let others who so desire help.

Once, when a very talented singer came to a parish where I was the pastoral leader, he did not offer his talents as a cantor or in the choir. I asked him “Why not?” He told me he had made the offer in a city parish where he had lived previously. The music leader had told him, “We have enough.” You can believe that we did not exclude him in our parish.

The funny thing is that, years later, as I lived in another parish in retirement from full time pastoral leadership, I offered to be a lector. “Oh, Sister,” the coordinator said, “we have enough.”

“Deja vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra once quipped. The jealous guarding of our work in the church detracts from the newness of the future.

The other attitude embedded in the readings is apathy, passivity. The apathetic person says, “I have nothing to offer, nothing to contribute. No talent. No skill. I’ve never done this before. They wouldn’t want me. I’d be of no help. Besides, I don’t want to. Let the others do it. They are enough.”

When either attitude prevails, everyone loses. If we leave the work to others, we deprive the community of our talents, our humor, our zeal for God. If we insist on doing it ourselves (because, after all we know how it works, we know the history and know the people), we deny both our communities and ourselves the gifts of others.

Paul tells us unequivocally, “To each of us the manifestation of the Spirit in given for the common good” (ICor.12.7).

Believe it. We can each enrich the quality of our local faith community by helping and by inviting others to help. Stand up or stand back. There is a time for each attitude, each posture in our lives.

~Sister Joan Sobala