Readings:
Ex 19:2-6a
Ps 100:1-2, 3, 5
Rom 5:6-11
Mt 9:36—10:8
One of the descriptions of the Church emphasized in the documents of the Second Vatican Council is “the people of God.” The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium) stated, “All men are called to belong to the new people of God. Wherefore this people, while remaining one and only one, is to be spread throughout the whole world and must exist in all ages, so that the decree of God’s will may be fulfilled” (13).
Unfortunately, in the years following the Council, this very biblical descriptive was often misused, interpreted without much, if any, reference to its Old Testament roots and New Testament meaning.
All of today’s readings provide the Scriptural foundation needed to properly appreciate what it means to say the Church is “the people of God.”
First, it means to be chosen by God, who always initiates communication and contact with mankind. It is God, in speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, who establishes a covenant with the Israelites that was unique: “Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.” This is an act of creation, of forging a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation” out of what otherwise would have been just like any other groups nomadic people living in the ancient Near East.
This is captured in succinct fashion in Psalm 100: “Know that the LORD is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends.” The identity, purpose, and life of the people are completely dependent on the fact that God is who he says he is: the Creator of all things, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-holy. The people of God cannot be created by, or defined by, man. This was true of the old Israel, and it is true of the new Israel, the Church.
Secondly, the people of God are saved by God alone. God, who is love, not only calls man to himself, he provides the means for restored communion. Otherwise, reconciliation would not be possible. “But God proves his love for us,” Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Through the death of the Son of God, men are now able to become sons of God by being justified through Christ’s blood, reconciled by Christ’s sacrifice, and saved by his life.
Finally, the people of God are shepherded by Christ and those to whom he has given authority. Jesus told his disciples to go out and proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He imparted to them the authority to act and speak in his name. The Second Vatican Council declared “that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father;(136) and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world” (Lumen gentium, 18).
To be an apostle is to be sent to do the work of the Master; the twelve apostles selected by Jesus represent the New Israel, the new “tribes” of the people of God (cf., Matt 19:28; Gal 6:16).
The composition of Matthew 9:35-10:8 is structured to emphasize this truth. Matthew 9:35-38 focuses on the work of Jesus, who preaches the Gospel, healed, described the lost state of the people, prayed for laborers, and then called the twelve disciples. Then, in Matthew 10:1-8, each of these is paralleled and fulfilled: the names of the twelve are given, the twelve were sent out by Jesus, they were sent to the “lost sheep of Israel,” and they, like their Master, healed and preached that the Kingdom was at hand. In the middle of this chiastic, or symmetrical, structure is this key point: Jesus “gave them authority…” (Matt 10:1).
“We are his people,” wrote the Psalmist, “the sheep of his flock.” Chosen. Saved. Shepherded.
(This column originally appeared in slightly different form in the June 15, 2008 edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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Thank you, Carl, for your always helpful and inspiring reflections.
You wisely quote Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus gave the 12 apostles “authority.” The question I ponder is, in those periods to our present day when there have been and are bad shepherds in the Church’s hierarchy, to whom is Jesus then giving authority?
Perhaps appropriate examples in history are Saints Catherine of Sienna and Hildegard of Bingen to whom Jesus gave authority to guide and even berate the Popes of their times to get their shepherding on track.
Dear Carl, thanks for this – another vintage presentation of unshakeable truth.
Have you ever asked fellow parishioners if they know they are chosen, saved, & shepherded? Some may give equivocal answers. So, here exists a ministry for every convinced Catholic: that is, to engage our fellow parishioners with the truths of your article, hoping to help them step into what God has long prepared for them.
How can we know that we have ‘arrived in Christ’, as it were? There has to be godly fruit coming from our lives (as Matthew 7:17-20; John 15:8; for example). So, here there is a positive conversation for priestly confessors to engage in (in addition to absolving our sins): has the repentant arrived in Christ; do they see godly fruit resulting?
More difficult: a discussion of the persecutions that are certain to afflict those who know they are chosen, saved & shepherded, certain of who they are in Christ, producing godly fruit (see John 15:20; 2 Timothy 3:12; for example). This is a crunch point, where right ethics of The Realm of God encounters wrong ethics of The World Realm.
Many Catholic parishioners know who we are in Christ, joyfully bear godly fruit, yet still stumble when we are opposed, criticized, sabotaged, or disliked. It’s a good priestly confessor who is able to explain that this sort of persecution should make us happy (see Luke 6:23); and that to be spoken well of by everyone is not to be our objective & criterion of success (see Luke 6:26).
There’s peace in knowing that, if our firm faith & godly fruit provoke persecution, that also is the will of God. For, now we have a Christ-given opportunity to bless & intercede for our persecutors (see Romans 12:14; 21, for example).
Thank you again, Carl, for a powerful article, evoking these thoughts.
Always in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty