| Readings: | Jeremiah 20:10-13 Romans 5:12-15 Matthew 10:26-33 |
| Date: | June 21, 2026, Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A |
Both our first reading and our Gospel reading today remind us that being a prophet is certainly a tough career path.
Poor Jeremiah. He is beset on every side with persecution and harassment.
He is ordered by the priests not to prophesize at all; he is scourged; he is thrown down
a well and left to die; he is imprisoned; and finally he is dragged off to
Egypt against his will to die in exile.
And like most of the prophets in the Old Testament, he didn't even want the job. He was called by God at a young age to speak God's word to the people of Jerusalem at a time when they were being threatened by the Babylonians from the north. He tried to refuse God's call by claiming he was too young. God didn't buy it. Then after enduring threats and bullying and commands to stop, he cried out that he tried to stop speaking God's word or even remembering God just to have some peace, but God's word just became like a fire in his bones so that he has to speak it. But in all of this, he has come to realize that God is with him through everything.
Then in this section of Matthew's Gospel we are hearing these couple of weeks in June, Jesus warns his disciples as he sends them off to proclaim the kingdom of God. He tells them that he is sending them like sheep among the wolves, and that they will be scourged, and all will hate them. People will call them Beezelbub just as they have called Jesus that. But he promises that God will be with them throughout it all.
So who here wants to be a prophet? I thought so. But the truth is no one chooses to be a prophet. God is the one who chooses his prophets.
Is there anyone here who has been called by God to be a prophet? Actually, if you have been baptized in the Catholic Church then you have been called, and anointed to be a prophet.
So far this year, we have baptized almost a dozen children here at St. Isidore's. After we baptized them with the water that represents dying to Christ and rising then to new life in Christ, we anoint them with the Sacred Chrism and pray over them, "God now anoints you with the chrism of salvation, so that you may remain as a member of Christ, priest, PROPHET, and king, unto eternal life." A prophet is one who speaks God's word. And as we hear today in both the first reading and the Gospel, a prophet's life is full of danger and discouragement. This is still true today where speaking God's truth to our culture will get you laughed at, mocked, and even killed. So we who have been called by God as prophets would do well to listen to these readings.
Today's readings are a cautionary tale for us here in our Apple Valley Catholic Collaborative. We know that in the case of Jeremiah, the people did not listen to God's word spoken by Jeremiah, and they ended up being overrun by the Babylonians and hauled off into exile for 70 years. We as Catholics here in 2026 in this part of the world are being called by God to live out our baptismal commissioning. Now I know how hard it is to change how we understand what it means to be Catholic. Many of us here were brought up to think it meant obeying a list of commandments, accepting as true a list of dogmatic statements, and participating in the sacraments on a regular basis. We just had to follow those rules whether we understood them or not, or we would go to hell. We were brought up wrong. Being Catholic means doing all those things we were taught because we are convinced in our hearts, because we have experienced in our lives, that God is a personal God who loves us, who loves me and knows me intimately, who has numbered every hair on my head, and who invites me to be a full participant in responding to that love. We have to start speaking God's word as the prophets we are anointed to be because like Jeremiah, that word of love and care and intimate relationship burns like a fire in our bones; because we will literally burst if we do not speak that word, with our lives, with how we live out that understanding of how we are loved. Of course we should not be afraid of speaking about our faith as well in our homes, in our families and with our friends.
If we don't, our parishes will disappear like the inhabitants of Jerusalem some 2600 years ago. So let us be more like the disciples Jesus sent out into the world than the inhabitants of Jerusalem in Jeremiah's day. Let's all stop just showing up and start becoming full, active, and conscious participants in this Eucharistic celebration Jesus summons us to each week. Let's start participating in the life of this parish, this collaborative, in liturgical ministries, helping maintain our garden so we can help feed those who are struggling in our midst, in bible studies, in small faith groups, in Alpha, in Vacation Bible School, and so on. But most of all, let us pray always and everywhere, that we deepen our awareness how much God loves us, and what a joy it is to return that love, letting the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for us all.