Today’s readings: Jeremiah 23, 1-6; Ephesians 2, 13-18; Mark 6, 30-34.

Hillsong United Band is a worship band formed in 1998 as a youth ministry. Since its formation it has released annual live albums of worship songs. Today’s scriptures remind me of one of their songs – Spirit, touch your Church – a powerful song that asks the Lord to stir the hearts of men and to revive us with His passion once again.

We may all acknowledge that throughout the ages, the worst crises that befell the Church, far from being the Enlightenment or the vilification of religion, have always been those directly hitting its ministers. We need not promptly and exclusively point fingers to the clergy sexual abuse tragedy, which undoubtedly was and continues to be a tragedy of huge damage for the Church and people alike.

Ministry in the Church can also fall prey to lack of passion, mediocrity in proclamation, and forms of clericalism that promote self-adulation. All these and many others can be symptoms of betrayal that sicken the Church and disfigure its true mission by alienating it from Jesus Christ, who is the vibrant source of life for his people.

In today’s first reading, Jeremiah voices this malaise in the people of his time, and especially in their pastors, who had betrayed their mission. As a prophet, he denounces the pastors for not providing guidance to the people, or still worse, for being shepherds who “let my flock be scattered and go wandering”.

Mark’s gospel, in a turning point in the entire gospel, portrays on one hand the apostles giving account of all the work accomplished, and on the other hand Jesus pitying the people “because they were like sheep without a shepherd”.

It is a Scriptural ‘J’Accuse’ that we cannot evade or minimise, myself included. I am well aware that I write in the context of a Church that is ultra-activist. We do a lot, standing by all the activities, pastoral and not, that fill our agendas and calendars all year long. But when we come to results, we are not at all aware that somewhere, in much of what we do, we are missing the point.

What should matter in all we do is whether, and to what extent, we care for the people, for their well-being. We may be carers of the people without caring for them. Thomas Moore’s bestseller Care of the Soul provided a path-breaking lifestyle handbook on how to add spirituality, depth and meaning to modern-day life by nurturing the soul.

Caring for people’s souls, the classic cura animarum in the old pastoral manuals, today demands adding this depth of meaning which, judging from the way we provide services to the people, is many a time nowhere to be reached.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St Paul makes a mostly deep theological statement today that we cannot afford to leave unheeded: “Jesus has broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law”. Caring for people has nothing to do with governing through rules and decrees that serve only to dominate, or even eliminate outrightly, the conscience of people.

The false pastors Jeremiah is denouncing are those pastors who have no respect for the dignity of people’s conscience and who put the law before the individual. Individualism very often is not the fruit of anarchy but the consequence of lack of credibility in the institution. This is seen in civil society and we experience it even in our faith communities when the guidance that is provided is alienating and not caring.

At times we seem to be more comfortable with manifestations involving masses of people. There, alienation can very easily dominate, and it is there where demagogy flourishes. That is not what Christ meant the Church to be. Whenever the crowd followed Jesus because of the miracles he worked, that crowd was only religious in appearance.

Providing guidance and pastoring people in the case of the Church is not a question of rules and laws. It is about spirituality and depth of meaning. It is the lack of this depth in the way we celebrate our liturgies and in how we empathise with people in their stories, that is mainly to blame for a Church that fails to impact on people and on society today. Spirit, touch your Church!