The Stewardship of Light
by Fr. David M. Knight
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Twenty-Fifth Week of the Year
Lectionary 134
Wis 2:12, 17-20/Jas 3:16—4:3/Mk 9:30-37
In the ritual of anointing during your Baptism you were solemnly consecrated by God to take up and continue the triple mission of Jesus as Prophet, Priest and King. When do you consciously fulfill your commitment to act as a steward of his kingship? What do you understand this to mean?
The theme of today’s Mass is that the “righteous” person speaks out against the evils in society and tries to change them, as Jesus did. In return the “godless” persecute the reformers, as they did Jesus. But the Entrance Antiphon reminds us that those who are trying to establish God’s reign on earth can count on God’s favor: “I am the Savior of all people, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles, I will answer their cry.” And the Responsorial Psalm declares the fundamental confidence of those who accept the responsibility of “stewards of Christ’s kingship”: “The Lord upholds my life.” Our response to every fear and discouragement is, “If God is for us, who is against us?”
Our responsibility
In Wisdom 2:12-20 the “godless” are threatening the “virtuous man” with “cruelty and torture” because “he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for breaking the law and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing.”
Those who stand up for justice in today’s society provoke exactly the same reaction. People find their protests and demonstrations “annoying.” They see them as “opposing” their complacent enjoyment of the “way of life” they have settled down in. Worse, the protesters frequently claim to have the law on their side, exposing the cover-ups that mask the government’s illegal maneuvers in collusion with its political favorites. Finally, those who speak out against the policies of power claim it is the “establishment” and not themselves who are betraying the American way of life and “playing false to our upbringing.”
Check your reactions to what you have just read. Do you feel annoyed or angry? Then ask yourself what examples of protests and demonstrations you have in mind? Are you equally opposed to demonstrations against war and against legalized abortion? Do you react in the same way to the “peace-niks” and to those who protest against pornography? Everything said in the first paragraph applies equally to both. The point at issue here is not the particular causes the “virtuous” espouse. The point is that Christians are obliged and committed by Baptism to get involved in efforts to bring about the reign of God on earth. And this means working for change wherever it is called for. Are you actively trying to bring about changes in family and social life, in education, business and politics, as a “steward of the kingship of Christ”?
If not, what does your baptismal consecration as king mean to you?
Jesus’ Way
In Mark 9:30-37 Jesus eliminates the first two means we spontaneously employ to bring about change. He tells his disciples that the reign of God will not be established through the use of power or prestige.
Jesus himself is going to die a defeated man: delivered into the hands of his enemies and put to death. He adds that after three days he will rise again. But his disciples “did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.”
So are we. We are afraid to ask what it might mean for us to turn away from power and violence. “If we don’t kill those who want to kill us, how will our nation survive?” And if authorities don’t insist on the marks of prestige that foster respect, who will obey them?
Jesus answers both questions, but we do not want to hear him. To the first he says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” This is Jesus’ law of survival. We can take it or leave it. Mostly, we leave it.
With regard to prestige, Jesus teaches, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” This is not just a matter of interior attitude. In the Church of the incarnate God, every interior attitude must “take flesh” in action. Those who are in “higher” positions of authority must insist on appearing visibly to be no different than those who are “lowest” in the chain of command. No special dress, no special titles, no special marks of respect in public:
Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! (See Mark 10: 42-45; 12: 38-39.)
In the Catholic Church we ignore this teaching flagrantly. Because of the visible distinctions that the Church makes in dress, title and protocol between laity and priests, “monsignors,” bishops, cardinals and the pope, the word “hierarchy” has come to mean in English “a group of persons or things arranged in order of rank, grade, class, etc.” But in itself the word has nothing to do with grades or ranks; it is simply government by a hierarch, a “steward or keeper of sacred things.” We seem to assume, mistakenly, that without the signs of prestige we bestow on the hierarchy their authority, somehow, would be undermined. On this point we don’t take the Gospel seriously. And predictably, by not following the instructions of the Master, we create and foster destructive attitudes, such as clericalism and anti-clericalism.
Clericalism, according to Father (later Cardinal) Avery Dulles,
views the clergy, especially the higher clergy, as the source of all power and initiative [in a] pyramidal pattern in which all power is conceived as descending from the pope through the bishops and priests, while at the base the faithful people play a passive role and seem to have a lower position in the Church... Clericalism tends to reduce the laity to a condition of passivity, and to make their apostolate a mere appendage of the apostolate of the hierarchy....(See Avery Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church, Clarendon Press - Oxford, 1987 (paperback edition), p. 161-2, referring to Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church, paragraph 12.)
One evil of clericalism, as Cardinal Dulles pointed out, is that it blinds lay Catholics to the meaning of their baptismal call and consecration as divinely anointed stewards of the kingship of Christ. The laity are anointed by God in Baptism to work for changes in society just as truly as ordained priests are anointed in Holy Orders for their special functions. But in practice, and illogically, the special signs of respect shown to the “clerical caste” lead us to assume the laity are not consecrated to anything at all.
The Way of Peace
James 3:16 to 4:3 begins, “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition you find disharmony,” “wickedness of every kind,” “partiality” and “hypocrisy.”
Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force.
This could be a journalist’s analysis of the current scene in almost any country’s domestic and foreign policy! It is the common reality in most political arenas. And it is even visible in the Church, although in “cat fights” rather than in physical combat. But Christ’s way is “kindly and considerate, full of compassion.” The stewards of his kingship “work for peace.”
Insight: How do I see my commitment as an anointed steward of the kingship of Christ?
Initiative: Take responsibility for working for change. Pick one place to begin.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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