Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons 14 July 2024 - (also Sea Sunday)

Call of Amos

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Amos is the gentle prophet of accountability! Called by the Lord from his work as a farmer and shepherd in the southern kingdom of Judah, Amos was tasked with bringing the richer, perhaps corrupt, peoples of the northern kingdom of Israel to personal and collective account for their sinful behaviour before God. As too often happens the people in the north did not welcome this intrusion of accountability in their lives, and using the excuse that Amos was a foreigner amongst them, ignored his message of God's judgment on them for a multiplicity of sins. Rather than seeking out new opportunities for transformation and change, taking up another contemporary Prophets call, that of Micah 6:8 to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God, they further embraced the route of arrogance, idolatry, self-righteousness, and materialism. The task that Amos was faced with was firstly his own accountability in accepting the call to communicate God's utter disdain for the hypocritical lives of His people (Amos 5:21-24).

In our first reading the priest Amaziah exemplifies the selfish arrogance to those who do not wish to hear the voice of God, he tells Amos leave the sanctuary of Bethel and to go back to Judah, in actual fact Amos is expelled. But though his physical his voice was silenced, he took up the pen, so to speak, and wrote what he preached and prophesied down, so that his voice remains with us still, a reluctant prophet in many ways, yet one who holds before us the measuring rod of conscience, and the insight of a God whose desire for us is a relationship of love and justice which is lived out in our deeds and words. Whilst God cannot in any way be made accountable to us in the same way we are to `God, nevertheless the binding promise of the Covenant, renewed in the Incarnation and gift of Christ, shows us that the Lord of Heaven and Earth is a God who keeps fidelity with us.

How then does Amos help us read the gospel of this Sunday? Simply by helping us focus on the essentials of ministry of Christian life and the terms of our mission as servants of the Gospel. The hymn of Ephesians 1 which forms our second reading gives us the setting of our tasks, for much as Amos is called out of obscurity, so too are we; 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favour of his will,e6for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.'(Eph 1: 3-5) This is the prophecy of Amos and Micah distilled into the form of relationships, with each other, with Christ, and with the grace of the Spirit in order that all of us are at work and active active amongst the peoples of our time and world.

But accountability is essential if we are to achieve anything, and there are several ways in which we view this. A primary accountability to ourselves as called by Christ to a task is perhaps where we need to. This is not am hierarchical top down model of being told what to do by leaders of the community no, it is the mutuality of love for each other which allows dialogue across all aspects of our Church life, for those who exercise authority must also be held accountable to the community they serve.

Each one of us is an Amos called to hold up a mirror of charity to others. This is a second layer of accountability for in commissioning the disciples to go out in pairs, Jesus points to our need for each other as supports in ministry and mission. The authority given us by Christ is not unconditional it is dependent on those who hear the Word of God which we preach by word and example, on our faithfulness to the task in hand. In sending out the twelve, Jesus does not describe how to preach and teach, he throws them into the uncertain world of others people's reception of them and their message, trusting that hospitality will be given, but warning them that not everybody will accept them or what they offer. Mark tells us that the one thing Jesus specifically commissions is this, 'and (he) gave them authority over unclean spirits'(Mk 6:7). This is something we need to grapple with, because it is not only a fight with demons and illness but with our own individual and societal devils, those besetting sins and evils present amongst us now, particularly an insidious form of mendacity that reaches into private and public life distorting the truth.

Here is a third layer of accountability, tackling the evil and injustice of the world by remaining faithful to Christ the Word, that two edged sword that cuts to the heart of the matter!

LECTIO

Today July 14th is also Sea Sunday when we pray for all seafarers, those women and men whose lives are spent working at sea.

A prayer for Sea Sunday and for Seafarers

Be with Seafarers, Lord, on all their voyages, to cheer them and keep them safe in all dangers. Let nothing afloat or on shore cut them off from you. May they please you in everything they do. Bless all on board their ship, whatever their responsibility. Enable everyone to do their duty. Help them to be good shipmates and bring them back again safely to their homes and to those who long for their return, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Prayer of a Seafarer

O God, I ask You to take me into Your care and protection along with all seafarers. Make me alert and wise in my duties. Make me faithful in the time of routine, prompt to decide, and courageous to act in time of crisis.

Protect me in the dangers and the perils of the sea. Even in the storm, grant that there may be peace and calm within my heart.

When I am far from home, from loved ones and from my country, help me to be quite sure that, wherever I am, I can never drift beyond Your love and care.

Take care of my beloved ones in the days and weeks and months that I am separated from them.

Keep me true to them and keep them true to me. Every time that we have to part, bring us together in safety and in loyalty again.

AMEN.

Mary, Star of the Sea, pray for us.

Co-responsibility

Extract from the MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI ON THE OCCASION OF THE SIXTH ORDINARY ASSEMBLY
OF THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF CATHOLIC ACTION

…Co-responsibility demands a change in mindset especially concerning the role of lay people in the Church. They should not be regarded as "collaborators" of the clergy, but, rather, as people who are really "co-responsible" for the Church's being and acting. It is therefore important that a mature and committed laity be consolidated, which can make its own specific contribution to the ecclesial mission with respect for the ministries and tasks that each one has in the life of the Church and always in cordial communion with the bishops.

In this regard the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium describes the style of relations between lay people and pastors with the adjective "familiar": "Many benefits for the Church are to be expected from this familiar relationship between the laity and the pastors. The sense of their own responsibility is strengthened in the laity, their zeal is encouraged, they are more ready to unite their energies to the work of their pastors. The latter, helped by the experience of the laity, are in a position to judge more clearly and more appropriately in spiritual as well as in temporal matters. Strengthened by all her members, the Church can thus more effectively fulfil her mission for the life of the world" (n. 37).

Dear friends it is important to study in depth and to live in the Church this spirit of profound communion, characteristic of the beginnings of the Christian community, as attested by the Acts of the Apostles: "The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul" (4:32).

May you feel as your own the commitment to working for the Church's mission: with prayers, study and active participation in ecclesial life, with an attentive and positive gaze at the world, in the constant search for the signs of the times. Through a serious and daily commitment to formation never tire of increasingly refining the aspects of your specific vocation as lay faithful called to be courageous and credible witnesses in all social milieus so that the Gospel may be a light that brings hope to the problematic, difficult and dark situations which people today often encounter in their journey through life.

Guiding people to the encounter with Christ, proclaiming his Message of salvation in languages and ways understandable to our time, marked by social and cultural processes in rapid transformation, is the great challenge of the new evangelization. I encourage you to persevere generously in your service to the Church.

…May your life be "transparent", orientated by the Gospel and illumined by the encounter with Christ, loved and followed without fear. Make your own and share the pastoral decisions of the dioceses and parishes, fostering opportunities for meeting and for sincere collaboration with the other members of the ecclesial community, creating relations of esteem and communion with priests for a lively ministerial and missionary community. Cultivate authentic personal relations with everyone, starting with the family, and offer your readiness to participate at all the levels of social, cultural and political life, constantly aiming for the common good.

From Castel Gandolfo, 10 August 2012.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI