Robert Barron - Be a Holy Priesthood
Peace be with you. Friends, we continue this wonderful journey through the Acts of the Apostles during this Easter season. And the reading for today, the first reading, is from the sixth chapter of Acts. It has to do with the choosing of the first deacons. And I've preached on that actually many times, but I want to focus on something different today from this passage, and it's a little line that's a bit of a throwaway line but I think is enormously important. So they talk about the preaching of the Gospel, the spreading of the word, and then it says, "The number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly; even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith".
Now, as I say, we might just pass over that line, but I think for people in the first century, especially in a Jewish audience, that would've been a very interesting line. Now, how come? Well, priests were so important in Jewish religious life. Go back to the Old Testament now. There's a lot of talk about priesthood. Priests are people who perform sacrifices, who thereby effect a union between divinity and humanity. Even a figure like Noah, a figure like Abraham, Moses, they're all priestly figures, but they really come into their own during the time of the Solomonic temple.
So Solomon builds the great temple in Jerusalem, and it's attended to by scribes, indeed, but also by priests, that is to say, men who perform the animal sacrifices and grain sacrifices by which the people were reconciled unto God. The priestly group comes from the tribe of Levi, and they are essential to Jewish religious life. They're conducting the rituals and the ceremonies and the sacrifices by which the people are sanctified. They were temple people, people of prayer and praise and sacrifice. Now, Jesus is not a temple priest. John the Baptist was; he came from a priestly family. Jesus wasn't though; he came not from the tribe of Levi but from the tribe of Judah. That's David's kingly tribe.
Nevertheless, Jesus, like any pious Jew, is very temple-centric. He goes up to the temple on a regular basis and participates in the sacrifices there. He says in regard to himself, "you have a greater than the temple here," which means in his own person, divinity and humanity come together. He is in his own person the supreme priest. Think now, too, at the climax of his life, Jesus goes up to the Jerusalem temple and he does there what so many of the great prophets did: he pronounces judgment upon the temple.
Think of Isaiah and Hosea and Amos and Ezekiel and Daniel, and so many of them, Jeremiah, they pass judgment on the corruption of the temple. The temple that's meant to be the place of right praise has become a place often of corruption and idolatry. Well Jesus, like those great prophets, comes into the Jerusalem temple and he turns over the tables of the money changers and says, "You made this a den of thieves". It's meant to be a house of prayer. And then he makes this extraordinary remark that he's going to tear down this place and in three days rebuild it, referring, St. John tells us, to the temple of his body.
In other words, again, his body is a holy temple. The place where divinity and humanity meet. His very person is a priestly reality. And then we rehearse this at every single Mass. The night before he dies, Jesus takes the Passover bread and the Passover cup. "This is my body given for you. This is my blood that will be shed for you". Well, you see, that's all temple talk. That's all priestly temple language. The priest who would take the body of the animal and sacrifice the animal and the blood would spill out, and then this animal would be offered in sacrifice to forgive the sins of the people. Well, that's exactly what Jesus is saying the night before he dies, that he's going to perform on the cross this great priestly sacrifice.
How wonderful. How wonderful that, as we hear, "a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith". You know what that means? That means they got it. That means that these temple priests in Jerusalem, who were steeped in the very tradition I've been describing, I mean, that's what their whole life was about, once they heard the evangelical message, they knew Jesus is the fulfillment of this temple. Jesus is the fulfillment of these sacrifices. Everything we've been doing across the centuries as priests of Israel, it's now summed up and given full expression in what Jesus has done on the cross. I'll speak directly to all the Catholics listening.
Something, I think, wonderful about Catholicism is we preserved so much of the Jewish priestly tradition. Go back in the Old Testament. What do you find? You find descriptions of altars and incense and investments and mitres and candles and sacrifice. In other words, all these things that we preserve in our churches, that we preserve in our sacrificial activity of the Mass. There it is, because we recognize, I think as these temple priests did who became obedient to the faith, we recognize that in Jesus, all this comes now to fullest expression.
You see, by the way, why Vatican II insists that the Mass and the Eucharist are the source and summit of the Christian life. That's the place where divinity and humanity come together. That's the place where they're reconciled. That's where the priestly activity happens. Again, the tragedy, everybody, that so many of our Catholic brothers and sisters are staying away from this. No, no, these temple priests long ago, they got it and they came. They became obedient to the faith. So we today need to be obedient to the faith. So with all that in mind from the first reading, listen to this now from the First Letter of Peter. He says, "Come to him, a living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in the eyes of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house".
That's an extraordinary line, isn't it? Who's Jesus? He is the temple. "I'm going to tear it down and in three days rebuild it," referring to the temple of his body. "You have a greater than the temple here". Who is he? He is the high priest. Now, who are we? "Oh, we're people that follow Jesus. We're his disciples. We think his teaching is great". Nothing as banal as that. No. Listen to Peter: we are like living stones "built into a spiritual house". See, we're members of his Mystical Body. Shift the metaphor a little bit: we're the living stones that make up the temple that he is. That's what's happening, by the way, every time we go to Mass. We're not just people watching a concert.
"I'm going to show up and sit in my chair and watch what's going on up there". No, no. You are participating in the Mystical Body. You are a living stone making up the temple. You are a priest, right? Everyone listening to me who's baptized. You are priest, prophet, and king, and when you come to Mass, you're exercising your priestly responsibility, your priestly dignity. So to this point, listen as we go on in First Peter: You must become "a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ". Oh no, that's for bishops and priests up there on the altar. Well, yes, in a very unique and indispensable sense, yes. But everybody that attends Mass is exercising his or her priesthood.
As you join your prayers to those of the priest, you join your sacrifices to that of Christ, you are a priest in this temple. Long ago, many temple priests got it, and they became obedient to the faith. You're their spiritual descendants. And listen now as he goes on: "Therefore," I'm quoting, "you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart". How wonderful, by the way, royal priesthood. That means you're king and you're priest. Well, that's David, right? The "Mashiach," the anointed one. David was king, certainly. But also, as he dances before the ark of the covenant, that's a liturgical act. He's also priest.
Well, every one of you baptized, every one of you exercising your privilege at Mass, you're operating as both priest and king. I've said it many times before, and Vatican II says it: it's by our right praise that we set the world aright. You worship the wrong thing, you worship pleasure or money or power or honor, you're going to make the world the worst place. You make these values highest, you will make the world the worst place. But when you worship God, that's a priestly task, right? You're in the temple, you're a priest offering praise in the right direction. You will radiate outward to the improvement of the world. That's essential.
Now, I've been doing reading 1, reading 2, so just a word about the Gospel, because it too is at least indirectly about the priesthood. All of it, I think, is summed up in this Gospel from John today. Jesus presents himself to his disciples as the perfect priest. Why? He's the mediator between God and humanity. Now, how do we know that? Well, listen to what he says when he's asked, "Lord, show us the way to the Father". What is his way to the Father? What does Jesus say? "I am the way and the truth and the life". Here's Thomas Aquinas' commentary on that. In his divinity, he's truth and life. What are the things that we want? Well, we want fullness of truth. That's God. We want fullness of life. That's God.
So Jesus is saying, I'm it, I'm the truth and the life. I'm the goal of all your searching. But, Aquinas says, in his humanity, he's the way. So how do we get to the truth and the life? Well, we look at and we imitate and we enter into his humanity. Now, watch something. Who's a priest? Who's a priest? The priest is someone who reconciles divinity and humanity, who brings together heaven and earth. That's Jesus. "I am the way", that's my humanity. "I am the truth and the life", divinity. I'm the one in whom these two realities come together. Therefore, I'm the supreme priest.
And once again, we don't just admire this reality that's up there, out there somewhere. No, no. We participate in it. We're living stones in the temple. We are sharers in his royal priesthood. Many priests became obedient to the faith long ago. We're their descendants, everybody. Everyone listening to me who's baptized: we are descendants of those priests who became obedient to the faith. So as we're coming toward the end now of the Easter season, realize your dignity, especially every time you attend Mass. And God bless you.