THE

GAMALIEL PRINCIPLE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Gamaliel Principle.”

It’s worth hearing this principle articulated every once and a while because it contains good wisdom.

The Gamaliel Principle is very simple: If God wants something, it’s going to happen – no matter how much anyone tries to stop it.

People say, “You can’t fight City Hall.” Wrong. You can fight City Hall – and at times people have won.

But if people say, “You can’t fight God!” they are right.

We heard in today’s first reading: the High Priest, the Sadducee's, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and their councils, all wanted to wipe out the Apostles – that is, till Gamaliel stood up to speak.

Verse 34 of Acts 5 says, “But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. They he spoke to them.”

Gamaliel said: “Look, we’ve seen this kind of thing happen in the past and in the long run, we found out it didn’t work. These so called reformers fell and were destroyed. So time will tell. If this is not of God, it will disappear; if it’s of God, let’s not find ourselves fighting God.”

Great advice. If possible, don’t sweat craziness. Remember stupidity has it’s own reward. Remember greed is quicksand and it swallows up those who jump into its hole.

Then there are Church scandals. Relax, the Church rights itself – in time.

We’ve all heard the story about Napoleon saying to Cardinal Consalvi, “I am going to destroy the church!” and Consalvi said, “Best of luck. We clergy have been trying to do it for centuries and we still haven’t succeeded.”

I love the story I heard a few times about the old lady from Jersey City who said, “The 5 marks of the Church are: it’s one, holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and it survives its clergy.”

In the meanwhile, if possible, wait. Eventually ….

This doesn’t mean we sweep stuff under the rug. This doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be whistle blowing – and there will always be letter writing. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have councils to reform the church. We need ongoing conversion – but what do you do, when nothing is changing?

I found two new stories or examples last night while preparing this sermon– stories  I never heard before.  

The first one has to do with Francis of Assisi. In the 1200’s times were not too moral for the church and it’s clergy – so one of Francis of Assisi’s brothers asked him, "Brother Francis," he said, "What would you do if you knew that the priest celebrating Mass had three concubines on the side?" Francis, without missing a beat, said slowly, "When it came time for Holy Communion, I would go to receive the sacred Body of my Lord from the priest's anointed hands."

The second story or example comes from traditions about St. Francis deSales. It has much more substance and you can vehemently disagree with this.

“Once, St. Francis deSales was asked to address the situation of the scandal caused by some of his brother priests during the 1500s and 1600s.

He said, "Those who commit these types of scandals are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder," destroying other people's faith in God by their terrible example. But then he warned his listeners, "But I'm here among you to prevent something far worse for you. While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal - who allow scandals to destroy their faith - are guilty of spiritual suicide."

We all know people drop out of church because of scandals. St. Francis deSales is saying, “It’s spiritual suicide.”

Not easy. But Jesus said, “I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.”

So don’t go crazy. Trust in God. Now, of course, there is a catch. It’s patience. It’s frustration. It’s the slowness.

The catch is the “in the meanwhile, the poor get poorer and people go bananas with sinfulness, etc.

Relax: sin and selfishness and stupidity – all have their own reward.

Relax: those who play with fire, get burnt.

Remember there is always the reckoning. There is a wash day. There is a judgment day.

Stink stinks.

Sin eventually rises to the surface and sin floats.

Time tells all things.`

Trust the process, if you live a good life, goodness will prevail.

God sees the big picture – we go crazy at little stuff like who’s going to communion and who’s winning and who is getting all the credit. The universe is estimated to be 5 to 15 billion years ago – and now with the Hubble Telescope, one number is 14 billion and another figure is 11.2 billion.

And we humans haven’t been around that long yet  - just becoming a little more conscious in the last 4000 years.

CONCLUSION

So the Gamaliel principle: Wait and see! God does what God does in the way God does  what’s what.