Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
A Kingdom of Priests
Rev. James A. Wickersham

We all know what it is like to look at the world and say, “This is not how it is supposed to be.”

Young people especially see this. A young person starts to notice so much that is wrong in the world: hypocrisy, injustice, and cruelty. And so they speak up and say, “This is wrong.”

I think noticing the injustice in the world is one of the signs that we were made for God. Because why do we long for justice if justice is not real? Why do we desire truth, beauty, and goodness if those things do not come from somewhere deeper than ourselves?

These are universal longings in the human heart. The human heart is able to recognize that the world is disordered because the human heart was made for communion with God, who is just, merciful, good, and true.

But here is where things get harder.

We are often better at diagnosing the disorder in the world than prescribing its remedy. We can name all that is wrong out there and call it out.

But seeing the wound is not the same thing as healing the wound. And maybe part of our anger and apathy is that we cannot heal the wound in the world. We can recognize what is broken, but we cannot, by our own strength, make it whole again.

We can spend so much time looking at the disorder in the world that we stop looking at the disorder in ourselves.

So I think the harder question is not only, “What is wrong with the world?” but “Where have I become bitter and cold? Where have I let anger take the place of charity? Where have I stopped praying? Where have I stopped letting Christ shepherd me?”

This is why the Gospel says that when Jesus saw the crowds, his heart was moved with pity because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

And here is where the first reading becomes so important.

The Lord God says to Israel, “I bore you up on eagle’s wings and brought you here to myself.” Notice that. God did not simply take Israel out of Egypt. He brought them to himself.

So before Israel could become who they were meant to be in God, they first had to be brought close to God. What was true for Israel is still true for us. Before we can become who we are meant to be, before we can bring any healing into the world, we first have to be brought close to God.

And then the Lord says, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” God is not only setting Israel free. He is giving them a vocation. They are to belong to him, and by belonging to him, they are to become a people through whom the world is brought back to God.

That is the beginning of the remedy. The wound of the world begins to be healed when God gathers his people to himself and makes them holy.

And this reaches its fullness in Christ.

Adam was meant to offer creation back to God, but he doubted the goodness of God and grasped for himself. Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, but at Sinai they turned away and worshiped the golden calf.

But in Christ, we are not simply returned to what was lost. We are brought into the fullness. Because the sacrifice now placed in the hands of the Church is not fruit from the garden, not lambs from the flock, not grain or wine or incense. The sacrifice given to the Church is Christ himself, the only begotten Son of God, offered to the Father for the salvation of the world.

This is the fullness of priesthood. In baptism, we are joined to Christ. At this altar, we are joined to his sacrifice. And then our lives are meant to become an offering with him.

Our prayer, our work, and even our suffering can all be joined to Christ. And when Christ makes us holy, this is part of how he brings light into the world.

This Tuesday, there is an election in our state. We should think, pray, and act as Christians in public life. We should vote.

But every day, there is another kind of choice placed before us. Every day in our hearts, we choose who will shepherd us.

Will anger shepherd me? Will resentment shepherd me? Will fear or apathy shepherd me? Or will Christ shepherd me?

What if one of the ways Christ heals this dark world is by making you and me holy?