There is a fascinating story in the Old Testament in which a young Amelkite messenger approaches David to tell him that Saul the first King of Israel is dead. The Amelkite explains that Saul had fallen on his sword after he was severely wounded, but still he had not died and was there standing, in excruciating pain mortally wounded. Saul begs the Amelkite to dispatch him and he does, then runs to inform David the next in line for the throne that the King is dead.
David takes the news and begins the mourning process for the deceased King Saul. Next he kills the messenger, explaining to him that he signed his own death warrant for by his own admission he killed the Lord’s anointed.
It is an interesting story for Saul was looked upon by some as a bumbling King and his prophet Samuel clearly says that he lost the Lord’s favor. However, David who had a chance to kill him himself much earlier when he felt threatened by Saul, chooses not to because Saul was, nonetheless, the Lord’s anointed.
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In today’s Gospel, we see a fascinating account, but if we truly understand it, it should wake us up as well and hopefully it does. We see the account of the seventy-two disciples, who went out in 36 teams to preach the Gospel of Jesus and proclaim by word, action and healing that the Kingdom of God is at hand. That was a call to repentance, to a change of life and to a re-orienting of our lives toward the Kingdom of God and away from the Kingdom of the world. It was a call to conversion. It is not about healing alone, but about conversion. Those that heard the message would have a powerful change of life and begin to live for the Kingdom of God and their goal of eternal life there.
However, notice something else, there would be those towns that would reject God’s message remember, they would be not only rejecting God’s messengers, but also His message. Jesus almost in the vein of David, tells his disciples to make a public declaration against them. By the way, that is a curse. It is one of several curses spoken of in the Bible and this is one. Those towns that reject and cast out the Lord’s messenger would be worse off than Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgement. One question to ask is why? And the answer is simple, they would become worse than Sodom and Gomorrah because they rejected God’s wisdom as well as His grace.
So we see two pictures arising: Those who embrace the teachings of the Lord’s anointed will find life through conversion and even healing. Those who reject the teachings of the Lord’s anointed will find death and damnation. The message is clear: This is nothing to take lightly.
Let us look at why? There was an interesting article on Russia Today recently in which Stephen Hawking explained to Larry King that he is concerned that people were not becoming less greedy or stupid. Now Stephen Hawking is an atheist. Many atheists cannot explain why people are not better.. In fact, one thing that confuses atheists is the belief that humanity does not need God to be good or build a good society. That is only partially true, for without God we lose an anchor in the definition of right and wrong and our own self-definition. What replaces it is the assumption that we can build the perfect world if we put our mind to it.
That is the mentality of those who reject the Lord’s messenger. We don’t need God, we have ourselves and we can build a perfect world. But we not gods and we are not perfect, how can an imperfect being create a perfect world? What is worse is that those who least see that strange contradiction are the ones on the forefront of trying to build a perfect world, while those who live in the grace of the Gospel can look around and see and explain why rejecting God’s message and messenger results in exactly what Jesus warns.
There are consequences for rejecting the Lord’s anointed, there are consequences for rejecting God and this is what Jesus is calling his disciples to testify to those who who reject them.
In those communities that embraced the disciples, we have celebration, conversion and healing.
What is the sign of the presence of the Lord’s disciple? Hope and life. And of rejecting his disciple? Loss and hopelessness.
For example, a world class Atheist, well known, teaches that if you suffer a debilitating injury or disease then you simply “lost the life lottery”. There is no hope for you, this is no eternal life to look forward to and the life you have here has become the losing ticket in the life lottery. There it is, loss and hopelessness.
The same applies to us today. Many are concerned by some radical changes that have happened in our country and in our world. A change in a definition of morality, a change in definition of the human being in marriage, relationships and even in the definition of one’s very being. Where did this all come from? Study your recent history. There is a move to silence the Church and has been intensely active since two thousand two. There has been a call to reject the Church to silence its voice both locally, nationally and worldwide. Remember, the Church is the Lord’s messenger and anointed. Therefore, this call is to reject the Lord’s anointed and by doing so there are consequences.
What is the response? A call to conversion to those who hear the Lord’s voice; a call to those who are baptized to wake up and see what is happening and call them back to the original grace they received at Baptism and Confirmation.A call to recognize that Jesus’ words are real and a call to repentance and to the hope and healing which is promised to those who hear the Lord’s disciples.
Like the disciples in Luke, we as the Church are called to invite others to the promises of the kingdom, to call the drug addict to freedom from chemical slavery, to call the isolated to freedom from social alienation, to call the sinner to freedom from slavery to sin. We have a call and duty to that and we long ago began to see the signs that our call is even more urgent than before.
Many in our society have taken upon themselves the role as those who cast out the Lord’s anointed, but we must neither embrace that call or let it silence us.
We can bring our issues to the Lord. We can storm Heaven for a healing of marriage, we can storm heaven for the healing of the sick. We can beg God for miracles that others will not accept. There are stories of those healed during a Sunday mass, during the Sacrament of Reconcilation. We have the power to cast out demons of all types. We have the right and duty to pray for miracles where science has given up. I’ve told you about the woman whose grandson made a full recovery from a car accident where all the medical personnel have given up hope of him even coming out of a coma. She prayed and prayed for his full recovery.
There is a story of woman from Brazil who experienced a healing of her marriage after praying and praying that her husband who walked out on her would return. They are now again happily married.
There are those who feel their prayers were not answered, but found they were answered in another way beyond their expectations.
But for those who cast out the Lord’s anointed, there is no hope and they shall become worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, by their own choice. We are seeing it happen now.
Jesus’ warnings are real, we need to take them seriously, if we dismiss them we do so at our own peril, if we embrace them, we do so as agents of God himself, disciples sent out to proclaim that Kingdom of God is at hand.
God bless you,
Fr. Robert J Carr
Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MAand is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube. You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook