15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

The work of sharing the gospel is not easy.  That’s because it is not easy to live according to what Jesus says.  So, people often don’t want to hear it.

The resistance may come from religious leaders, as it does for Amos in today’s first reading.  Amaziah, a priest, tells Amos to go back where he came from.  Why?  An earlier verse says, “the country cannot endure all his words.”  They could not endure his words because they were too hard to hear.  Amaziah does not deny that what Amos says is true.  Instead, he tells Amos to go away.  This is not unlike what we face today when people tell us to be silent about what our Catholic teaches.

Amaziah assumes Amos is part of a band of prophets who earn their living by prophesying.  Amos explains to him this is not true.  Amos did not want to become a prophet.  He was “a shepherd and a dress of sycamores.”  He had not been looking to change careers.  He became a prophet because the Lord took him from his work as a farmer and said to him, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”  Amos is only doing what the Lord called to do.  It is his vocation.

It is not an easy task.  Amos faced rejection but since he was only proclaiming what he heard from God, it was not him they were rejecting.  It was God who they rejected (see 1 Samuel 8:6-8).

We might feel rejected like Amos when we speak God’s truth.  Does anyone listen?  Does anyone want to hear God’s message? 

The message must be God’s.  There is one thing we must remember when speaking God’s Word to the world.  We must heed what today’s psalm says in the second stanza, “kindness and truth shall meet.” 

We must deliver God’s truth with kindness.

God’s truth should not be delivered in judgment.  It must be delivered in kindness, with the love of Christ.

We are chosen by God for adoption as his children.  He has a plan for us, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the Lord—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). 

Are you willing to follow God’s plan or do you find it too hard for you?

If Jesus summons you for a task as He summoned the Twelve to send them out, will you go?

Will you go trusting in God, taking “nothing for the journey” or will you want to food, sack, and money “just in case”?

Whatever God calls you to do, do it with the same love that Jesus showed when He laid down his life for you on the Cross.

When you are delivering God’s message, know that God will provide for your needs in doing so.  Know that some may reject it.  Do not fight with them.  Speak the truth and always act in accord with it.  If they do not listen, that is their choice.  If they do not listen, leave them in God’s hands, “shake the dust off your feet” and move on.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff