SOUL SEARCH

PLAYING THE PROPHET

The following homily was delivered by Fr. Johnny Go at Mary the Queen Parish on 04 September 2005 .

I found an international survey in 1998 where, for once—just for once—the Philippines landed right on top. I’ll show you the top ten in their ranking, and then I’ll ask you to take a guess at what the survey is all about.

Here are the top ten countries:

  1.   Philippines

  2.   United States

  3.   Cyprus

  4.   Chile

  5.   Northern Ireland

  6.   Poland

  7.   Ireland

  8.   Portugal

  9.   Italy

10.   Israel

Can you guess what the survey is about? Here are the choices:

•  Highest volume of SMS or text messages in a day

•  Most likely candidate as the next terrorist target

•  Most frequent attempts to change the head of state

•  Strongest in Religious Beliefs

The answer? d) Strongest in Religious Beliefs: More specifically, belief in God, in an after life heaven and hell, and religious miracles.

The survey is part of the International Social Survey Program (or ISSP) on Religion. 31 countries were surveyed.

The Philippines was on the top ten for several other questions. Here are two of them:

Percentage Rank

Prayer at least 1x/week       89%     #1

Religious Service 1x/week   45%     #6

What’s interesting is if we compare the percentages.

Even if 95% of the respondents claim that they believe in God, only 89% of the respondents have a regular prayer life; and less than half (45%) practice their religion by attending religious services.

What happens when we talk about the Moral Life? How many people who say they believe in God actually choose to do the moral thing, as taught by the Bible and the Church? The survey doesn’t offer this information, but we can guess that the figure must be much lower. We can expect that much, much fewer people probably live out their faith through a moral life.

Just because people profess their faith in God, as many of the Filipino respondents did in the survey, doesn’t mean that their faith is authentic. To be considered true Christians, not only should you believe in God, you must express this faith through prayer, the sacraments and religious services, and most especially, the moral life.

Just because the Philippines topped the list in religious beliefs doesn’t mean that the vast majority are necessary living lives of Christian values. People who claim that they believe in God but do not express this in their prayer life and especially in their daily life have, for all practical purposes, have strayed.

The Gospel today gives us some suggestions on how to deal with people who have strayed. That is true, but if you read it closely, it actually commands us to deal with these people. Our Lord talks about cases when “another member of the church sins against you.” Some ancient manuscripts do not have the words “against you,” so Biblical scholars say that our Lord may be referring not only to the case of a fellow believer who offends us personally, but also to someone who sins or errs in a general way. His directive is for us to take the initiative to reach out to those who have sinned to help bring them back to the fold. In other words, our Lord asks us to “play the prophet.”

So the question we should ask ourselves is: “Are we willing to play the prophet?”

Let’s face it: It’s not easy to do. Let’s not even talk about the big stuff, but just the day-to-day stuff. For example, you find out that a classmate has been cheating in his tests. Would you be able to go up to that classmate and try to convince him to stop doing so? You find out that a friend is carrying on a dangerous and forbidden relationship, would you be able to sit down and talk with that friend? Or, you find yourself huddled in a group where you realize that the conversation has lapsed into a back-biting session, would you do anything about it?

First of all, it takes a lot of compassion to play the prophet. Obviously the kind of prophet I’m talking about is not the fire-and-brimstone type of prophet, but as suggested by our Lord, a courteous, sensitive, and diplomatic one. Someone who is compassionate enough to point out another person’s mistake not in order to hurt the other person or to feel self-righteous, but to help him find his way back to God again.

Secondly, it also takes a lot of courage to play the prophet. We all know what happens to prophets. In the Old Testament, they get stoned to death; in the New, they get crucified like our Lord or end up with their heads served on a plate like John the Baptist. These days they get a less bloody treatment. Prophets are simply considered NOT cool; and if they”re not careful, no one ever wants to sit with them at parties.

We all need compassion and courage if we are to heed the Lord’s directive for us to reach out to those who’ve strayed. Let us all pray for these two graces, so that we may respond to the Lord’s call for us to “play the prophet.”

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