WHAT ARE
YOUR BUTTONS?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “What Are Your Buttons?”

Do you know your buttons?

What are those words, those people, those situations, that when pushed, you start reacting?

The image, the metaphor, of pushing a button is very clear. You hit the elevator button and sometimes a light goes on in the button itself and the elevator starts moving – hopefully. But sometimes paradoxically, elevators push people’s buttons when they seem so, so, so slow – or so, so full.

What are your buttons? Do you know your buttons? Do you know who, what, when, where, why and how your buttons are pushed?

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

This is Holy Family Sunday – so I assume the homily should trigger thoughts about how we can make family life better.

And a key way to make marriage and family life better is to put into practice better communication skills. And one of the ways to be a better communicator, is to know our buttons – what sets us off.
That would be the logic of my sermon – or the drift of my homily for today.

I would hope that it’s worth taking ten minutes on this topic on a Sunday morning?

Is better family life on your wish list for 2008?

Moreover, these last few days of December is the time we look at the past year and evaluate it and we look to this new year coming, and we make resolutions. One possible resolution is to be aware of one major button that we have – and to ask ourselves, “Do I want to respond the way I usually respond when that button is pushed or is there a better way that I would like to respond in this coming new year?”

Our buttons could be sloppiness around the house – or someone always on the phone or computer or someone is text messaging during a family meal – or people disappearing without telling the others or money or food wasting or kids not wanting to go to Mass or what have you.

What are your buttons?

SECOND READING
I thought of this topic because of today’s second reading.

Today’s second reading has a button. It’s the word “subordinate”.

It says, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.”

If this text is a button text for you, you might have noticed the brackets in the missallette – that mean, the reader doesn’t have to read it.

If the reader reads it, does your motor start revving?

The message I would like to stress today is this: in marriage and family life, be aware of buttons. Keep calm. Avoid automatic reactions. Count to 10 or 100 when someone does the same thing that bothers us for the 100th time. Say “Jesus Christ” in prayer rather than in anger. Some of us might remember going to the doctor and he hits us on the knee with a tiny hammer – and we jump - hence the phase, “knee jerk” reaction.

Some people were aware that this second reading is coming up for this Sunday – two or three weeks ago. I have heard of people in other parishes calling up the rectory and asking that this reading not be read in full – or be switched.

Having heard that, when I was looking at today’s readings to prepare this homily, I reacted with an “Uh oh!”

So it’s a button for me. I’m preaching on it today. I’m facing it head on. I’m pushing its button – so I can understand it better.

Before Mass, the lector sometimes asks the priest, “Do I read the whole reading or what?”

If asked, I usually say, “Whatever you want?” I believe that there is such a thing as the ministry of lector at Mass – and that person is an adult and has the power of choice in these matters.

THE WORD “SUBORDINATE”
Some people think we should just eliminate it.

I don’t. It’s there and we can learn and think about – and those who don’t like it or get irritated by it can choose not to get hot and bothered about it.

St. Paul said what St. Paul said.

When it comes to women’s rights and children’s rights, we certainly have come a long way from the world he lived in.

And the Christian scriptures certainly treat women a lot differently than women were treated in other writings of the time.

If Paul was here today and was asked to explain what he meant, he might do a good job or he might hit buttons or he might say he’s iffy about what he’s saying or he might say he’s not that clear about all this. But he’s not here – so we don’t know his mind or the context of what triggered him to say what he said.

I like the principal, “A text out of context is a pretext.”

We’ve all had the experience of having a long car ride conversation with someone and they take just one thing we said in the midst of many things and zing us about it.

Paul’s statement was made in a letter to the people of Colossae – now in modern Turkey, some 30 or 40 years after Christ.

What was the background experiences that formed Paul’s theology and vision of marriage and family life?

What were Paul’s parent’s marriage and family life like? If he had brothers and sisters, who was the oldest and who was the youngest and what was their growing up together like?

Was Paul married? Some make the case that he was married; others make the case that he wasn’t. So we don’t know for sure.

Were Christian couples in those days much more loving and equal to each other or better than couples that never heard of Christianity?

THOSE WHO REACT TO THE WORD

The question I ask – usually to myself – is this: Why do some people react to this text and some don’t?

Do those who react to this word “subordinate” have an experience of abusive husbands, fathers, work place, organizations, parishes, priests or what or who have you?

These are the questions of communication. These are the questions to bring to the table.

Here at St. Mary’s when couples get married, they go through a pre-marriage inventory as part of the preparation of getting married.

On the series of questions and responses on the matter of finances, I ask, “Who’s better with money management?” Sometimes I get an immediate pointing to her or him. We then talk about money questions.

I assume that a couple today will work things out knowing who’s better with what and then work things out for the best as partners.

I also assume that a couple today who have power problems – will discover that it doesn’t make any difference where the problem shows up, the standard major three areas being money, sex and in-laws. It’s the awareness of the underneath problem – having been treated unfairly in the past, having feelings of inferiority, baggage, not being able to be aware of what’s really going on, and if aware, not being able to communicate it – or what have you.

When it comes to buttons, it’s often not the elevator. It’s a problem of patience – not liking to have to wait – or it’s a problem of not being allowed to take the elevator – or someone got stuck in an elevator or was made to take the stairs or what have you.

As they say in counseling, the presenting problem is never the problem.

What are your buttons?

If you can name them, then you can tame them – that is, if you take the cover off and look underneath – to try to see how things work – and why some things get stuck.

COMMUNICATION

So good communication starts with oneself – a willingness to look in the mirror – to do homework.

Sometimes a person can’t deal with someone at work, so they take things out with those at home.

Why does this person at work drive me crazy – and he or she doesn’t bother anyone else – or they bother everyone else – but some handle the situation much better than I do? What’s their secret? What’s their tricks? Can I learn them? Can I put them into practice?

These are the things we need to reflect and pray about.

How come one person can walk into a room and fill that room with great joy and another person walks into that same room and sucks all the air out of that room in one minute?

Doesn’t everyone know it’s the nature of a dysfunctional person to get everyone constantly talking about him or her? They push buttons. they consume lots of personal energy.

Doesn’t everyone know that someone once said, if you want to change a person, you have to start with their grandmother?

Doesn’t everyone know the secret of dealing with button pushing is to know one’s buttons and then learn to laugh about them?

Communication is all about taking the time to talk about situations – not for the sake of whining or tearing down another – but to understand another or others – as well as ourselves.

The other person might be a Herod – and the best move is to escape to Egypt – like Joseph and Mary did with the child Jesus in today’s gospel.

So with some people, in the long run, the secret might be to avoid traveling in the same elevator with them.

But in marriage, we often have to take the same elevator.

Couples who have to go through life in the same elevator might need outside help to talk things out. And sometimes, unfortunately, things can’t be worked out.
The other person might be pushy and unable to treat a spouse right and always needs to be right – and bossy – and never willing to be subordinate to the other as Paul says.

The other person might only see what they want to see.

Take today’s second reading. The statement, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands” is only 6 words. Maybe someone doesn’t see the next 6 words “as is proper in the Lord.” The life of Jesus is a life of subordination to his Father. Maybe a study of the life of Jesus will give new insights into what subordination could mean. Maybe a husband who is very bossy misses the next 10 words, “Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.” And maybe everyone misses the whole paragraph of words in front of these 6 words – words that are not in brackets.

CONCLUSION
In fact, let me conclude this sermon on “What are Your Buttons,” with Paul’s words opening words in his second reading: “Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another, as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were called in one body.”

Now that would make for great family life and a great marriage. Amen.