Just a Layman

Proclaiming the Good News as priests and laypeople

04/22/2017

Mark 16:9-15 

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature."

          Do you know what a “layman” is? Or, have you heard the phrase, “in layman’s terms”? What does “layman” mean? It means to be an amateur rather than to be a professional. In Church canon law, we say that the whole world is divided into only two kinds of people: “clerics” or professional preachers, and “laymen” which is everyone else, all “you’s guys.” The term “layman” almost carries a pejorative tone, for example, when we say “he’s just a layman,” a sort of “Christian slacker.” When a priest no longer serves as an ordained minister, he is “demoted” to the “lay state,” he becomes “just” a layman.

          But Bishop Robert Barron surprisingly used the term “layman” once to describe Jesus. He said, “As far as we can determine, Jesus was not formally trained in a rabbinic school, nor was he educated to be a temple priest or a scribe, nor was he a devotee of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or the Essenes – all recognized religious parties with particular convictions, practices and doctrinal proclivities. He was, if I can use somewhat anachronistic term, a layman” (Catholicism, 11). In other words, we often say that preaching is the job of the priest (and it is), not the job of the layman. But if Jesus was a layman, too, then lay people are not exonerated from preaching and proclaiming the gospel. Just because you’re a layman doesn’t mean you can be a “Christian slacker.”

          In the gospel today, the very first preacher in the Church was not a priest, and not even a layman, but rather it was a laywoman, Mary Magdalene. We read in the gospel of Mark, “When Jesus had risen…he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.” In other words, even though Mary was clearly and canonically a lay woman - she was not in the elite ranks of the clergy - that did not stop her from proclaiming the Good News. Indeed, the Church has even bestowed upon her the auspicious title of “Apostle to the Apostles” because she preached to the apostles, who, by the way, “were morning and weeping.” Sometimes it’s the laypeople who have to preach to the preachers.    

          My friends, my point today is that we are all called to be preachers – even the layman and the laywoman – and not just leave the preaching to the professionals, the priests. That is, sometimes, we not only have to “preach to the choir,” but we must “preach to the preachers.” Quite often, people call me out on something I’ve done wrong at Mass, or something I said wrong in a homily, or forgotten to do at the office, or I’ll forget to visit someone in the hospital. And I really do appreciate it when you tell me about those things; I’m far from perfect. But I just wish you wouldn’t enjoy it so much! But I do thank you.  Of course, laypeople also proclaim the gospel first and foremost by the way you live your life: with simplicity, with humility, with cheerfulness, in a spirit of service, and in loving the poor. It’s said that Mahatma Gandhi once remarked, “I would have become a Christian if I had ever met a real one.” He may or may not have said that, but that’s still a stinging statement that both priests and laypeople should take to heart: non-Christians look to all of us to be living examples of the gospel message.

          My friends, be careful how you use the word “layman.” It is not an excuse to be a “Christian slacker.” We are all called to proclaim the Good News. After all, Jesus was “just a layman.”

          Praised be Jesus Christ!