Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 29, 2024 - Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
The summer of 1967 was a terrible time in the United States. It was the summer of the burning cities. The New York Times says, “There had not been riots of this magnitude since the Civil War.” It was a difficult time in the United States. There was something happening on the college campuses that the older generation could not understand. There was an escalation of the war in Vietnam. It was becoming a burden on every part of American Society – in the homes of those who had lost young men to battle, to our finances, to our business, to our entertainment. But at the same time, out in Ann Arbor, Michigan a strange thing was taking place. A graduate student from Duquesne University, a Catholic university, and his mentor, as he worked on his dissertation, one Friday evening after supper, went to a Cursillo meeting. And they were very impressed with what they saw but, more importantly, by what they felt. They felt moved, physically moved by the Spirit in that room.
As a result of that, the next Friday night, they went to a Pentecostal meeting in a local Episcopalian church. And they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Hands were imposed on their head. And they actually felt themselves filled with the presence of the third person of the Blessed Trinity. And, because the faculty member was very well situated on the Duquesne faculty, he got a bunch of professors to pray with him and he imposed hands on each of them and they, too, experienced the descent of the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. And the Catholic Charismatic movement was born.
Like all new movements within Roman Catholicism, there was suspect on the part of the American hierarchy. They noticed it, were interested in it, but distrusted it because it was new and different and not like the regular kind of Catholic worship. Until, until the Cardinal Primate of Belgium, Cardinal Suenens, took the Charismatic movement worldwide, under his wing. As a result of that he got none other than Pope Paul VI to publicly endorse the Charismatic Movement. And it was off and running.
By the time I encountered it, myself, personally, as a young priest, more than a decade later, the parish in which I encountered it had a Charismatic group that was judgmental, exclusive. They had their own special priests in the parish, their own special mass that they all went to on Sunday and they excluded the rest of the parish from their movement, unless they could hook you in. Not a very nice experience of something that was filled with joy in the very beginning. But this is the way things always happen, both in the Church and in the world. Something new comes upon the scene and it looks like it might be a good thing. But people are suspicious of it, cautious about it, unsure about it and then it takes off. And, eventually, it becomes institutionalized. And the institutionalization of it sucks a great deal of the early enthusiasm right out of it.
That’s why I asked you to pay close attention to the human phenomenon that takes place in both the First Reading and the gospel. Notice that the writer of the First Reading says that Moses assistant “was his assistant from his youth.” Which means that Joshua was probably one of the elders, since they were no longer young. He was probably one of the elders summoned to the mountain to receive a part of God’s spirit from Moses. And it’s Joshua who complains that two people who missed the meeting also got the Spirit from Moses.
Then in the gospel, John, one of the inner three of the chosen twelve - it’s always Peter, Paul, James and John, right? Up the mountain it’s James, John and Peter - one of the chosen inner circle of the inner circle complains because somebody, who is not a disciple, is using Jesus’ name to cure people. That is the jealousy of the initiated. The jealousy of the initiated. And it’s those two problems, the institutionalization of new phenomenon and the jealousy of the initiated, that our Gospel reading and our First Reading are about.
Those things happen all the time in our lives, don’t they? Remember in the 1970’s, the Smothers Brothers show? And their main routine, every night, was “mother always loved you best.” The jealousy of the chosen. Mother always loved you best.
In all of our experiences - in family, in business, in the community and in our society at large - we watch great ideas become co-opted and lose their power. We watch people on the inside jealousy guard their chosen position against all newcomers who might benefit from the same experience. What do we do about it?
St. Paul had some things to say about new things. Like the sudden coming of the Spirit. He said, “Test everything.” Test everything. How do you test things? Measure it against what you already know to be true and good and see if it’s also true and good. If it’s true and good, keep it. If it’s either not true or not good, let it go. Test everything. Keep what is good.
He also said, “Any gifts, any special gifts, given to certain people and not to others, are always given for service.” If the person receiving the gift is not focused on the service of others using her or his special gift, it’s not a good thing. If they’re using their gift for service then, no matter how important they seem to be, they’re on the right track.
We can use those same norms to judge everything in our lives. Test everything. Keep what is good. What is given, no matter how strange or unusual it seems to be, if it’s being used for the service of, the good of other people, it is a good thing. Otherwise, maybe not.