Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 116

Then how can he say,
‘I have come down from heaven’?” 
Jesus answered and said to them,
“Stop murmuring among yourselves. 
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,
and I will raise him on the last day. 

 

The word murmur occurs often in the Bible, forty-two times in the the King James Version of the Old and New Testaments. Invariably it refers to the sojourn in the Sinai Peninsula and the people’s innate distrust of God. Scarred by four hundred years of life in Egypt, and especially by the slavery they had suffered under the “Pharaoh who knew not Joseph,” they did not instinctively trust any leadership. If they had a vague memory of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob it was only because the Egyptians still treated them like foreign invaders. Nor could they immediately accept the superabundant generosity of God. 

Murmuring happens when we fail to trust God, especially as we meet difficulties, disappointments, and setback. Rather than accepting them as trial or the inevitable hardships of life, we suspect God is letting us down. 

The next step after murmuring is to decide we can do better than God would do for us. We strike out on our own. It’s not hard to imagine some of the wandering Hebrews saying, “I know where the Pillar of Fire and the Column of Smoke are leading us. I’ll go ahead!” While others might say, “I prefer another route; I’ll go that way.” And a third group, “I like it here. I’ve gone as far as I want to go.!” Forced to follow Moses, all three groups would murmur continually, as people often do, about their "incompetent" leaders.

The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have been severely questioned and challenged in the last several years. Following the news media’s revelations of pedophilia among priests, and occasional thievery, larceny, and misappropriation, many Catholics rightly ask the hard questions and demand honest answers.

That is just and fair and right.

But we should remember that the Church with its most sacred duty to announce the Gospel to all nations, cannot be divided against itself. We must trust our leaders. We might discuss different systems and styles of leadership, and study the experiments of Protestant denominations of the past four hundred years; but there can be no church which does not readily believe in its ministers. 

And so we demand that they be trustworthy even as we give them some latitude beyond the usual limits. In other words, when a bishop assigns a priest to a church we must – for our own spiritual wellbeing – suppose that he is worthy of our trust.

We can be watchful, of course, as always, but not hypercritical. We should expect him to show common sense even as we know he will make mistakes, commit sins, and occasionally embarrass himself, his office, and his church. 

When I consider the sins of my distant past (and recent) I pray Psalm 130 again, and again: "If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand? But with you is mercy and the forgiveness of our sins."

The Spirit of God teaches us to obey the words of Jesus, "Stop murmuring among yourselves!" There is neither brilliant insight nor amazing courage in cynicism. Any fool can do that. The Spirit urges us first of all to remain with and in the Church, and then to actively participate in its life, prayer, and activities. 

Not long after I arrived as the new pastor in a small church, I invited the congregation to join me on a Sunday morning between the masses for coffee, donuts, and storytelling. "Tell me about your church!" I said. "Teach me your history!" 

Boy, did I get my ears burned! There was a lot of anger over recent events in the parish. 

But toward the end one elderly gentleman reminded his lifelong friends, " We live here! Priests like Father Ken come and go. We've got to stay. This is our church and we must pull together."

I could have wept for gratitude at his wisdom. 

After we quit murmuring, we thank God for leading us to the Promised Land.