Yanking Your Chain

Seeing how Spirit’s wisdom is available to all

09/26/2021

Nm 11:25-29 The LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses. Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, the LORD bestowed it on the seventy elders; and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied. Now two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, were not in the gathering but had been left in the camp. They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent; yet the spirit came to rest on them also, and they prophesied in the camp. So, when a young man quickly told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp," Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said, "Moses, my lord, stop them." But Moses answered him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!"

Typically, it is the lay person who learns the faith from the clergy, but quite often the clergy end up learning a lot from the laity. Archbishop Peter Sartain put it colorfully when he said: “A priest’s life is a busy one…being a pastor is like being a stray dog at a whistlers’ convention!” In other words, lay people are constantly pulling the clergy’s chain: first to mass, then to the hospital, then for marriage counseling, and so on. But in the process of that pulling, we priests learn a lot. Pope Francis said this learning was like contemplation. He wrote: “A preacher has to contemplate the word, but he also has to contemplate his people.” That is, just as priests must peer at the Bible in a spirit of prayer, so they should also gaze prayerfully at the people. We learn the faith, therefore, not only from the bible but also from believers.

My own faith has been nourished by very learned lay people. Of course, I love to read and listen to Scott Hahn, a layman who teaches at Franciscan University in Steubenville. Another writer to whom I feel indebted to is C. S. Lewis, who was not even a Catholic but an Anglican and taught at Oxford. I love reading G. K. Chesterton, whose prose sounds better than most people’s poetry. My favorite German philosopher is Josef Pieper, another layman, whose books are short but take a long time to read. And my go-to French-Canadian philosopher is Etienne Gilson, who taught at the University of Toronto. I love it when these lay people fort of pull my priestly chain as I read their reflections, because I learn a lot from them.

Today’ Scriptures also suggest examples of this role reversal of teacher and student, where the clergy learn from the laity. In the first reading from Number 11, the spirit of prophecy is given t the seventy elders (call them the clergy) inside the camp. But God’s Spirit also reaches outside the camp – to the laity we might say. And two lay persons, Eldad and Medad, also prophesy. When jealousy makes Joshua complain that the ordained clergy alone should prophesy, preach and teach, meek Moses answers: “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”

And that is exactly what God would do in Acts 2: pour out his Holy Spirit on the whole Church, priests and people alike, on Fr. John as well as on Josef Pieper. And something similar happens in the gospel, where John is jealous for Jesus and feel the Holy Spirit should be the private property of the clergy. But Jesus explains, like Moses, “There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is with us.” In other words, sometimes the people will pull your priestly chain, John, and you may feel like a stray dog in a whistlers’ convention. But that is not all bad: you may also learn a lot about the faith from the laity. Indeed, John learned a lot from the greatest lay person who ever lived, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who resided at his home.

My friends, the Holy Spirit is not the private property of priests, professors or even parents. Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3 – John had learned this lesson well by the time he wrote his gospel – how the Holy Spirit would work in the newly baptized when he said: “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with every one born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8). In other words, look and listen and you, too, a professional priest, theologian and teacher, may learn the faith from the laity, that is, from those you think you need to teach.

Let me give you two modern examples. Have you noticed how often parents learn from their little children? Parents are like the priests in the domestic church of the home, and the children are like the little lay persons. Indeed, parents are called to be “the first teachers in the faith.” But notice this role reversal. Many Catholics stop going to Mass as young adults. When do they start going back to Mass? When they return to baptize their baby and especially when he or she makes their First Holy Communion. Being a parent often feels like being a stray dog at a whistlers’ convention, and your children are happily blowing the whistle. And so you parental priests can also learn a lot about the faith from these little lay people.

Here is another surprising source of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in many people’s lives, namely, your ex-spouse. The last question on the annulment questionnaire asks: “What did you learn from this experience?” If a person is half-way humble, and all the way honest, he or she will admit they also made mistakes and were a cause of the failure of the marriage. If it takes two to tango, it also takes two to tear things apart. In other words, our ex-spouse can teach us how we were sometimes lazy and proud and resentful and revengeful and bossy. In a word, we were not very Christian. We may no longer want them pulling our chain as a spouse, but we can still learn something about ourselves from them, and grow in our faith.

Pope Francis said a successful homily is always the fruit of a deep contemplation of God’s word, but also a deep contemplation of God’s people. That is, only you can teach me if this homily was helpful and you did not fall asleep. Being a Christian means that priests and people, clergy and laity, must enter into this constant contemplation and learn from each other, which means of course we will all feel like stray dogs at a whistlers’ convention.

Praised be Jesus Christ!