TOAST TO THE JUBILARIANS 7 OCTOBER 2000

TOAST TO THE JUBILARIANS
7 OCTOBER 2000

Good afternoon. This is not my toast to the Jubilarians, but rather our toast, and so I would like to propose to you a reason why we would propose a toast to them.

This reason is based on words, the power of words, the power of words to create what they describe. The power of words to create something new that didn't exist before.

God created using words. Surrounded with nothingness, God said, God spoke, God uttered words and by the power of the word the LORD created.

God said: let there be light, and the light was created. God said: let there be land. God said: Let there be sky. God said: Let there be human beings in our image and likeness. And there was land. And there was sky and there was human life.

The power of words. Words do create the reality that they signify.

This afternoon I am going to propose that we toast nine Christian Brothers for what they have created by their words. A reason that is hidden behind, beneath the record of the works they have done over the past 50 years, each of them as a C.B.

To explain this reason I need us to go back, way back in time, to the person of Moses in the Old Testament.

Moses: that most beloved of the LORD, the greatest of the prophets. About him is written in the last words of the book of Deuteronomy: (taken from 34:5-12)

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the LORD. And the LORD buried Moses in the valley in the land of Moab, and no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was very old when he died, but his eyes were undimmed and his strength was undiminished. Never again has there arisen a prophet like Moses - whom the LORD dealt with, face to face, and whom the LORD used with signs and wonders and with great might and awesome power.

In fact the ancient scholars teach that Moses' death at the command of the LORD really means that Moses died with the kiss of the LORD on his lips.

But yet, with all that greatness, Moses was forbidden from entering the Promised Land.

Moses said to the Israelites: Because of you the LORD was incensed with me and said: You shall not enter the Land I have promised to the people.. The LORD was wrathful with me on your account and I beseeched the LORD but God would not listen to me. I begged the LORD but The LORD said to me, "Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!
The LORD was so angry with me on your account that he swore that I should not cross the Jordan and enter the good land that the LORD your God was assigning to you as a heritage. (from Deut 1:37; 3:26; 4:21)

Why? I wonder. Why did the LORD who said that there was never a better prophet than Moses, why did the LORD forbid Moses to enter the Promised Land? Many scholars have researched the biblical texts to try to answer this question. They propose good reasons based on things that Moses did, or things he didn't do. Personally I think the reason has to do with a serious mistake Moses made with words.

Early on in the story of Exodus, the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of the slavery of Egypt and into the promised land, the biblical authors refer to the people with the Hebrew word KAHAL which can mean a crowd or a tribe or a mass of people, a rather modey crew. 600,000 of them, counting only the men. Almost an array of riff-raff An enormous mob that had spent 430 years in captivity.

Moses task was to lead them on a trek through the wilderness into freedom, all the while working with the LORD's power to fashion this tribe, this KAHAL into an IDAH, a Hebrew word meaning a community, a nation, a holy people of God, a princely people. They began the trek as a KAHAL, a disjointed crowd, strangers, former prisoners, with nothing but the experiences of slavery. The task assigned to Moses was to lead them and to fashion them into an IDAH, a community, an organized, purposeful and holy people, with concern for each other and for their common pilgrimage to freedom.

And he did it well. Never again has there arisen a prophet like Moses - whom the LORD dealt with, face to face, and whom the LORD used with signs and wonders and with great might and awesome power.

But along the way Moses lost sight of his chief responsibility which was to build a community, a congregation, a holy people.. Here is the way his error is reported in the Old Testament.

Now there was no water and the people gathered against Moses and quarreled with him and said, "Why have you brought us into this wilderness for us to die here?
Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretchedplace to die, for there is no water here for us to drink. "
The LORD heard this crying out and said to Moses:
Take your staff, and assemble the IDAH, my community, my congregation, my princely people, and when they are gathered, and before their eyes, speak to that rock and tell that rock to yield its water so that my IDAH, my community can drink their fill.
So Moses took the staff and he called together the KAHAL, the crowd, and he shouted at them, "Listen, you rebels, so you want me to bring water for you out of this rock? " Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff,- water came out abundantly, and they drank.
But the LORD was fiercely angry with Moses and said to him "Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of my community, my IDAH, therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land that I have prepared for them. " (from Num. 20 2-20)

Did you notice the difference? The LORD told Moses: take my community, my congregation, my IDAH, and speak to the rock, and let them see how I care for my people.

But Moses called them by their old name, a KAHAL, a mob, and he didn't speak to the rock. Instead he yelled at the people, you pack of rebels, would you like me to bring water out of that rock?

The LORD had said call my people, the IDAH, a community, his congregation, his society, his assembly, a people that would give witness and testimony to God's power and glory, to God's care for them.

But Moses called them a KAHAL, a crowd, a gang of rebels, a bunch of disorganized complainers, and asked if they wanted to see his power, Moses' power.

And because Moses lost sight of his task, to help form an IDAH, a community, from a disassembled crowd, a KAHAL, Moses angered the LORD and, as great as he was, Moses was denied entrance into the promised land. "But the LORD was angry and said to Moses "Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this congregation, this community, this IDAH into the land that I have given them. " (from Num. 20 2-20)

Now ... what has all this to do with our Jubilarians? 50 years ago this group of men, together with many others, many of whom, thanks be to God are here with us today, were a KAHAL: a crowd, a motley crew, not known to each other, but each of them motivated by some call to leave a place, some place, their place, and begin a trek though a wilderness, to come to another place.

On that day when they asked for and received the habit of the Christian Brothers, they were asked a question: what do you seek? What do want to be? And they said, we seek the society of the Christian Brothers. We seek an IDAH. We seek a congregation in which the power of God's strong right arm will be shown. We seek to be a witness to God's might and God's Will. These were their words.

They began the pilgrimage 50 years ago as a KAHAL. Along the route of the trek they have become an IDAH : an assembly, a society, a congregation. By their lives they have shown the power of God's strong right arm.

They have created the ongoing Society of the Brothers, that which they sought 50 years ago.

What Moses in his frustration saw as a group of rebels, as a KAHAL, these men have seen as an IDAH, as the congregation of the Brothers.

They have become a community, a witness, a testimony to the power of the strong right an-n of God. They have been the instruments the LORD has used to bring water from many rocks, to be grace in the wilderness to many.

They have shown that community is possible. Not conformity. Not the erasing of individual differences, but the ability to make precious and make holy each one's uniqueness that shows how God's Will can be done, and faithfully done.

Where they trekked these past 50 years, each of them, God was able to act. Not then like Moses, denied an ultimate final passage into a promised land, but being called, invited, prepared in these final miles of the pilgrimage from KAHAL to IDAH, from slavery into freedom, from bondage into liberty, from ignominy into glory.

These nine Christian Brothers have given testimony with their lives that their words can create a reality. They have not surrendered their individual gifts or their unique identities. But'they have created a society, a fellowship which started out as a KAHAL, a crowd but has grown into an IDAH, a community.

Their words spoken 50 years ago, to seek the society of the Christian Brothers, have created a reality. They haven't finished. It's never finished. But through their half- century of speaking and doing it is well and securely underway.

Yes they are educators and care givers and we are right to toast them for that. But they have responded too to a deeper rhythm of the saints, a muted drumming that summoned from them another response. How great it is, 0 Lord, when your brothers can live together in unity.

50 years ago we heard their words: I seek the society of the Brothers. I seek the community of the Brothers. And their words have created the reality that they asked for. Their words have created the society of the Christian Brothers. Their words have created the Congregation of the Christian Brothers. Their words have created a gift for us all.

And it is for the words of these Jubilarians spoken half a century ago, words which have created such a holy reality, for their 50 years of trekking in the wilderness, for transforming a crowd into a community, that I ask you to lift your glass and toast these nine Christian Brothers with your praise.

Jack Driscoll, CFC