Sometimes I glance at the advertisements for jobs in our local Catholic newspaper. As I go through the long list of requirements, I wonder if they are looking for some non-existent, perfect candidate. Something tells me that in the end they will do some compromising.
Today’s first reading is like reading a job advertisement in the Catholic newspaper. St. Paul is giving Timothy a list of job requirements for bishops and deacons. I think I counted “14” requirements for a bishop’s position alone. Let’s look at a few of them (1 Timothy 3:1-13).
“Whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money.”
“Married only once?” Does that mean our current bishops don’t meet Paul’s standards?
“Temperate, self-controlled, not addicted to alcohol, not driven to make money.” It sounds like the culture of Paul’s time was similar to our own—pleasure-driven and money-driven. He expected bishops to be models of self-discipline in an undisciplined world.
“Hospitable, able to teach, gentle.” What a wonderful combination of dispositions. I wonder if such qualities were as rare then as they are today. They were to be good teachers, gentle in dealing with people, and quick to open their homes to others.
Wouldn’t we like to meet one of the bishops that Paul and Timothy ordained? I wonder how many people really qualified?
Though none of us aspires to be a bishop, all of us, as members of the Body of Christ, are expected to meet many of these standards. We can start with the first one—irreproachable. In a way that one word summarizes much of what followed. We can think, “whew! I’m glad I’m not called to be a bishop; I like the freedom to sin now and then.” But, isn’t each one of us called to be a “saint” by virtue of our baptism. God isn’t interested in creating second-rate works of art. And that is just who we are—God’s works of art (see Ephesians 2:10)—“knit together” by his artistic hands in our mothers’ wombs (see Psalm 139). And when Paul addressed the early Christians he called them “saints.” He wasn’t talking about just the bishops and deacons, but everyone. In another one of his letters Paul said that we are “temples of the Holy Spirit.” That means the least significant Christian is as great as the most impressive basilica. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, worshipping God, and shaping us more and more into the image of our Creator. I think Paul would tell us that he would like all of us to meet the qualifications expected of bishops.
We find Paul’s list intimidating because we know how hard it is to be irreproachable. As long as we think that this is our job, we will get discouraged. When we remember, however, that it is the Holy Spirit within us who does the work, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We are told many times in the Old Testament that God is the potter and we are the clay. He is the one doing the “shaping”—the chiseling, the sanding, the glazing. Having parts of us “chipped away,” and spending time in the potter’s oven is not fun. Nevertheless we can rejoice and praise God that we are becoming his works of art, being shaped into the presence of Jesus on the earth.
“Of mercy and judgment I will sing” (Ps 101:1).
