The central message for us in today's readings is how to recognize the working of the Holy Spirit in others and to accept and tolerate them. Both the first reading and the gospel present this challenge to us and how to be inclusive and tolerant in treating others.

The first reading from Numbers provides a remarkable parallel to the gospel text. Joshua who was to succeed Moses and lead the Israelites into their Promised Land – reacted in too exclusive a fashion. The response of Moses has a timelessness that is breathtaking; it sums up the ideal that should animate any leader of God’s people: ‘Are you jealous on my account? If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!’ Prophets are those who speak out in God’s name, pointing the way forward to God’s people. Vatican II stressed the need to foster such gifts of the Spirit in the Church.

The reading from James reminds us of exclusiveness, the sense of power and difference that can close off wealthy people from their fellow human beings. Our passage follows an ironic description of the plans of the wealthy. In the spirit of old Israel’s Wisdom tradition, it goes on to declare that these grand plans will have no lasting outcome. It is not rich people in the Christian community who are being referred to, but the wealthy and unscrupulous of the surrounding society.

Also in the gospel, the disciples try to stop someone who was driving out demons just like them. They had to learn that their way was, in fact, a much narrower way than the Lord’s way, and that their narrow perspective was an obstacle to the Lord’s work getting done. Those they judged to be ‘not one of us’, Jesus regarded as ‘for us.’

In contrast to his disciples, Jesus was able to recognize and encourage goodness wherever he found it. He knew that the Spirit blows where it wills. He was alert to the presence of the Spirit in anyone.

The main point is that we all have a role to play in recognizing and supporting the working of the Spirit in each other. Towards the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” (Thess 5:19) How do we quench the Holy Spirit in others? There are several examples. We can become a stumbling block, an obstacle, to God’s working in their lives. We can quench the Spirit in others and hinder the good work that God is doing through them for a whole variety of very human reasons. We can be motivated by jealousy, as Moses suggests Joshua was in today’s first reading.

Like the disciples, we can refuse to acknowledge God’s good work in the lives of others because they are not ‘one of us’, because they belong to a different church or religion or ethnic group. We can also be dismissive of the good someone else is doing simply because it is not the way we would have done it, forgetting that the Holy Spirit works in many diverse ways in people’s lives.

This week let us reflect on the fact that the mark of a true disciple and steward of Jesus Christ is an attitude of encouragement, tolerance, compassion and acceptance of the gifts of others. Our Church does not have the monopoly of the Holy Spirit, therefore instead of quenching the Spirit in others and hindering the good work that God is doing through them by His Spirit, let us recognize, encourage and affirm them.

Fr. Julius

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