Recently, I was talking with several priests, and the question of whether they could stay in their current parish or have to begin at a new parish came up. Two of the priests are in their mid-to-late sixties, and they reasoned that beginning anew would not be easy or perhaps good for the parishes involved.
Only God knows how their or any of our stories will emerge. However, this conversation added context to our first reading where the Lord sends Abram to a new land, leaving the land of his people and the family home, and needing to convince his wife, his brother’s son, all the people in their household, and pack up their possessions too.
Whether you are a priest, married, or single, preparing and moving to a new place, in this case to one that Abram has never seen, is never easy, and to compound things—Abram is seventy-five years old!
I think if the Archbishop gets any resistance from his priests, he might be tempted to cite this passage:
"I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
and curse those who curse you.
All the communities of the earth
shall find blessing in you." ~ Genesis 12:1-9
In it, Abram is obedient and trusting in God, believing that it is part of God's mission for him…one that will benefit not only the people of Abram’s time but also generations to come.
For us to be like Abram, we need to incorporate the same level of discernment that Jesus is urging His disciples to exercise in today’s Gospel, which begins with the bottom line: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged.”
And of course everyone’s favorite: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye’ while the wooden beam is in your eye.’’
For us to be able to know whether we are being judgmental and the size of the wood in our metaphorical eyes, we need to do some soul searching, each day…to give an honest assessment of what may get in the way of our openness to God leading us in directions and service that might not have been in our 5 or 10 year plans.
You know, when Abram and his family and people, carrying all their possessions, arrived in Canaan, they passed through all the way to the sacred place of Shechem. It was there that the Lord appeared to him, identifying the land and promising it to Abram’s descendants.
Abram’s response was to build an altar to the Lord, and the same was true in the hill country.
Abram trusted God and went where He directed him, the Lord was with him, just as He is with us whether we live our whole lives in our family homes or have many homes and cities that we live.
Abram’s response to God is what we all are called to do, whether the Lord calls us to go to another place, serve in a vocation we might not have anticipated, or acquire new ways of thinking and acting that we never thought possible.
And, it is with each leap of faith that the Lord leads us on…and like Abram, mindful of the times that we have said “yes” to God, we give Him praise in this chapel and at this altar for all that He has called us to…including at times, changing our plans…to something more important from God.