The readings
for today remind us that God bestows His blessings upon His people as
He wills, not according to how we think it should be. It is human
nature to think that whatever group we are a part of must be the
right group. A part of that feeling many times includes the often
erroneous assumption that “God favors my group.” When we have
that mindset we are not too different from Joshua in the First
Reading who comes to Moses and tries to get him to silence two men.
These men were supposed to be at a gathering, but were not. God
still decides to give them the gift of prophesy, however, and they
begin prophesying. These men didn't follow what they were told. Why
should God still bless them? That is God's decision, Moses explains.
We also hear
the Apostle John come to Jesus and report that a man who was not a
disciple of Jesus casting out demons in Jesus' name. Again, John
seems to be caught up in that assumption that God only blesses my
group. This man doesn't follow our group. He hasn't been through
the same experiences and trials that I have. He can't just come in
and preach and cast out demons like the rest of us. That's not fair!
Jesus, stop him! But Jesus tells him not to prevent him. “Whoever
is not against us is for us”, He says. Even though he is not a
part of our group, God has still chosen to give him special gifts and
the ability to cast out demons. We shouldn't prevent him; he is
still doing God's work.
To use a
sports metaphor, God isn't interested in “cheering” on one team
over another. I recently watched a video of a commencement speech
given by legendary University of Notre Dame football coach, Lou
Holtz. During his speech, he talked about a time when Notre Dame
would be playing the University of Miami. The media was talking the
big game up as being “The Catholics versus the convicts”. He
said he didn't think that was fair because not everyone on Notre
Dame's team was Catholic. Anyway, Coach Holtz comes into a lecture
hall before the game and a priest gets up to give an invocation. The
priest told the coach that he was a Catholic priest and the chaplain
for the Miami football team. He said, “We came all the way up here
to beat you, but I want you to know that God doesn't care who wins
this game”. After Father was done, Coach got up and said, “I
agree with you, Father. God doesn't care who wins this game, but I
promise you His mother does”.
We would all
like to be able to say that God is rooting for our team and wants our
team to win. That is true whether we are talking about actual sports
teams, or groups that we are a part of, or even our own religion.
The priest in that story was correct, God doesn't care if one team
does better than another. One could say that it is as if we are all
on the same team. Another way to say it is that there are separate
teams, but those teams are so similar, that the differences are
rather small.
In 2008, a
movie came out called “Leatherheads”. George Clooney plays an
NFL pro-football player in 1925 named Dodge Connelly. Dodge plays
for the Duluth “Bulldogs” which is based off of the real life
Duluth “Eskimos” who played in Duluth, MN in the 1920's. During
the 20's, professional football had very few followers. Dodge wants
to turn the NFL into a well respected business. Besides the flimsy
looking pads and leather helmets the players wore that look like they
couldn't stop a fly let alone a 200 pound linebacker, another big
difference between football then and football today is that there
were fewer rules about how the game was played. Thus, the players
utilized some very clever trick plays to try to pull one over on the
opposing team. They hide the ball under their jersey, they toss the
ball back and forth to prevent anyone from tackling the ball carrier,
and use whatever tricks they can think of to move the ball.
During the
big game of the movie, Duluth and Chicago are tied. It's a rainy day
and the field is a complete mud bath. The players are so covered in
mud that no one can recognize the color of the jerseys. The only way
to tell the teams apart is to look at the direction they're running
in. Dodge sees that Chicago is about to score and win the game so he
comes up with a new trick. At the end of a play, he punches out a
Chicago player and then lines up with Chicago for the next play.
They carry off the knocked out player and send out another Duluth
player. Still pretending to be a Chicago player, Dodge gets the ball
and runs it in for a touchdown. Everyone thinks Chicago won until it
is revealed that a Duluth player had the ball.
Such a trick
play would never work in today's game, but it makes for an exciting
part of the movie. My point in bringing it up is that there are many
different Christian denominations out there. Even looking at a local
phone book will show there are many just in the Twin Ports area. The
readings today are a good reminder that even though one could say
there are many different teams out, we still have a lot in common
with each other and a lot to learn from each other as well.
A few years
ago, I had a neat discussion with some youth and young adults. Some
were Catholic while others were of various protestant denominations.
The topic came up about the relationship between all these Christian
denominations. Someone asked me what I thought was necessary for
ecumenism: that is, Christians coming together to work in unity. I
told them that I believe it will take mutual respect. First of all
we need to respect the similarities between all Christians. The
biggest similarity being that we believe in Jesus Christ our savior.
For centuries, Catholics and protestants seemed to focus more on the
differences rather than on the similarities, but we really have a lot
in common. Second, I believe we need to have a healthy respect for
the differences we have as well. If we don't we risk trying to force
everyone into the same mold. When we respect the differences and the
similarities, we have a chance to learn from each other and to help
each other towards Heaven. That is what Christ wants for us. And
that should be our goal as well.
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