Mass readings for the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Sirach 27.4-7 Psalm 92.1-2, 12-15 1 Corinthians 15.54-58 Luke 6.39-45
I said last week that God makes a big ask of us when he says we must love our enemies. Continuing in that vein of God’s difficult demands, he asks us to be introspective in earnest, and focused on our own reform, as individuals and as a society before we go criticizing other individuals or communities. Jesus knows our predilection to avoid such difficult work, making us keen to find the speck in the eye of another as we overlook the log in our own. By doing this kind of deflection, we willfully look away from our own issues – and that, in metaphorical terms, blinds us. That is, we enter a darkness that really keeps us seeing anything, including others with any clarity. So, in our blindness, we have no business offering advice or direction to others.
It’s most appropriate that in the run up to Lent which begins Wednesday with putting on of ashes, that we have read in Sacred Scripture at the Sunday mass, but also in the daily masses of the past week, a call to honest, thorough examinations of conscience.
Now, I said that this is both a matter for individuals and for communities. Jesus does not address us as one or the other. Modern thought tends to understand the human person as a discrete individual within an atomized society. The Christian conception of the person is one in which the fullness of who we are is only found in both our personal and social dimensions. Even the ancient hermits of our faith understood themselves in their solitude to be profoundly connected to the Church as a community, but also humanity as the society in which the Church subsists.
And I think this all very apt given that we live in times of national and international tension. We need to be careful in our animus toward other national communities, of other Canadian provinces. I would even bring that down more locally, as we in Hamilton might be tempted to self-satisfaction when we look at the troubles that ail Toronto. I know, as a Canadian, there is a certain delight in seeing Hogtown having its troubles; the joke as long as I’ve been alive is that dislike of Toronto is the one thing that truly unites the rest of the country. Well, fine, they can’t win a Stanley Cup, the traffic is awful, and they’ve lately become too much like other major North American cities in terms of the crime and other social problems that Canada like to think it could escape.
That doesn’t let us off the hook in our need to make a hard examination of what we’re doing as a community in terms of a Christian understanding of what we should be, what we should be working toward.
And yes, that is to be done without neglect for the very personal work we all have to do, within our own selves, with respect to our individual souls.
The crowd that Jesus was talking to was principally made up of Jews, from the Galilee, from Judea; and they all, with some or even a lot of justification, could point at Romans, Samaritans, Greeks, Idumeans, Egyptians, etc., and say, “how about them? They’re awful! – why don’t you deal with them first, and then get back to us?”
But the gospel message is the transformation of humanity, the salvation of the world, begins with the individual and his relationship with God through Christ. It some instances that will be a Syrophoenician woman wanting a demon cast out of her child; it will be a Roman centurion reaching out to our Lord to have a valued servant saved from deathly illness; it will be a Samaritan woman at a well, mourning a life of bad personal decisions; but in the main, Jesus is talking to the communities of the Galilee and of Judea, and eventually Jerusalem and telling them change begins with them.
Today, he speaks to us; and its for us to listen, and to obey the call to get our own selves in order, then our households, then our parishes, then the communities in which our parishes live, the grace that comes of such repentance, reform and revival of faith, then radiating out.
What comes of us, in our actions and in our words should be of Christ. As the prophet Sirach tells us, what we say of others is a test of our faithfulness.
I was visiting at the Satellite Health Facility downtown this past week. To leave, I had to ask one of the staff to call an elevator for me because the security system doesn’t allow a visitor to do so. While we waited for the elevator, I asked how long she’d worked there; and she said, “well that depends…” And I thought, I’m going to get a little story from her; and indeed, I did.
She had worked at the health facility for the past two years, but 30 years ago, when the place was a hotel, she had worked in the restaurant on the ground floor. And when she had been a waitress there, she met Wayne Gretzky! As she was speaking, the elevator doors opened and there was a couple. She finished up the story, I wished her a good day, and got in, pressed the lobby button. The fellow there then harumphs: “Gretzky! There’s fine one; and he’s in trouble you know,” he said with obvious satisfaction directly to me. “You know what he did at the 4 Nations tournament?” I shrugged. “He gave the U.S. team the thumbs up…”
It was at this point, I’m sure, a little devil popped up on one shoulder, and my angel on the other. The demon was all excited: “oh, great! We’re gonna play a game, Father. You’ll love this one. It’s called, “How I am better than Wayne Gretzky.” And when it’s your turn you can talk about how you’re not happy that Wayne does those online betting commercials, and anything else that comes to mind, it all counts!”
And you know, I realized for just that moment, that I am better than Wayne Gretzky! All my life I’ve lived with the sad knowledge of my being a pretty mediocre hockey player. But now I could say, “I’m a better person than the Great One. I’m a better human being, a better Canadian.” Oh, what a great game!
But my little angel spoiled it all, by pointing out that if we were going play this game and “do” Mr. Gretzky, in all fairness, we both would have to take our turns. Now, lacking thousands of hours of video, and perhaps a million or so news articles, the two of us would have to rely on God’s knowledge of everything we’ve ever done, said, thought, etc. Then it didn’t seem like such a great game after all; that is, if we played it properly, as my angels said we should.
So, not wanting to get into a discussion of moral theology with a guy I don’t think was up for it; I turned to whom I presumed was his wife and immediately started to talk over him telling her about how I’d seen Gretzky play at the Gardens; how I’d never met him, but I did meet his father, at of all places, the Red Lobster in Burlington and how he insisted the family get a photo with him; I mean, he followed us to our booth!
So, that filled the time of the ride to the lobby… I could tell this fellow was annoyed and disappointed that I didn’t play the game.
I hate to say this, I did end up playing a version of the game, but this time it was called, “How I’m better than that guy on the elevator.” But I didn’t finish it, because, again, that angel said that I could talk about it today, and then that’s it.
The only way we’ll be better is if we follow our Lord’s guidance: clear away the logs, stop playing such games as I was tempted to, be better people ourselves, and trust that God will take care of the rest.
Amen.