IT’S HARD TO SHAKE
ALL
THE DUST OFF ONE’S FEET

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “It’s Hard To Shake All the Dust Off One’s Feet.”

“It’s Hard to Shake All the Dust Off One’s Feet.”

We’ve all had the sand in our shoes or sandals' experience at the beach. Kick. Kick. Kick.

Today’s readings – especially today’s gospel – got me into thinking about this issue: trying to get dust off our feet. Jesus tells his disciples to go two by two into different towns and proclaim the gospel – and if they won’t hear you, if they reject you, shake the dust from that town off your feet and go to other towns.


Well, it might be easy for Jesus to say this, but we find it difficult to do this. It's hard to let go, especially to let go of the feelings that result from being rejected insulted, hurt, denied, misunderstood or treated unfairly.

The whole world might tell us, “Let it go!” and we say deep down within ourselves thoughts like these:

- "Easier said than done.”
- “You’re not walking in my shoes.”
- “Easy for you to talk.”
- “You have no clue to what I’m feeling right now.”
- "It’s hard to shake all the dust off one’s feet."

Okay, we can shake some of the dust from our feet – but not all.

How many times have we continued an argument – an anger – a regret – a deep inner scream of “foul” or “unfair” for hours and weeks and months and sometimes even years on our inside face – our private face – with a smile on our outside face, our public face?

BASEBALL

We’ve all seen baseball managers come rushing out of the dugout and head to home plate in a baseball game and yell at an umpire about what they think was a horrible call. Then they start kicking the dirt – kicking and screaming.

We see a grown man having a temper tantrum.

We find ourselves laughing - or saying, "Loosen up guy! It’s only a game. Relax. Let it go."

US

Yet in a way we can all relate to that. We’ve all experienced what we have felt have been terrible calls – unfair decisions – when we lost a job or a promotion or a marriage or we’re angry with one of our kids who is behaving or living a life style that we feel was not the way we brought him or her up.

And these situations are more than a game. They are life. Jobs. Marriages. Raising kids. Raising grandkids. Tough stuff. Tough situations. Important stuff. Important situations.

Or we planned on such and such a thing to happen and we thought it was fair and square and obvious and a “no brainer” and we were turned down by a pastor or a supervisor.

DUST

We are dust and into dust we shall return.

It’s hard to forgive. It’s hard to lose. It’s hard to let go.“It’s hard to shake all the dust off one’s feet.”Things rub off on us.Things rub us the wrong way.

We are clay. We are human. We are sensitive. We have a mind of our own. We think we have given all of ourselves to another and the other just walks out on us.And we want to say to Jesus, "And you want me to just walk away, to turn the other cheek, to walk the extra mile, after shaking the dust of that person off us?"

Not easy. Not easy.

FIRST READING

Who of us can be like Amos in today’s first reading and keep cool and simply say things like, “Hey don’t blame me. Blame God. I was just a shepherd and I worked with sycamore trees and God called me to prophesy and to preach. So take your complaints to God, not me.”

SECOND READING

Who of us can deeply spiritualize life’s situations to the depth and height of Saint Paul as we heard him in today’s second reading? It’s hard to see the big picture, the eternal picture, and say all this is a mysterious part of God’s plan and God’s blessings for all eternity. It's difficult to grasp grace and God's will - to understand destiny, adoption, and that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's the stuff for pushing the mute and pause button in prayer - to pinch ourselves and say after a lot of silence - before we turn to dust, "Thank You God. Thank You!"

DO I END THIS SERMON HERE?

As I was thinking about all this for a sermon I wondered if I should end here.This sermon is kind of short, but summer sermons are supposed to be short. So do I just end by saying my opening comment: “It’s not that easy to shake all the dust off one’s feet!”? Do I hope that message will help a few people here – just knowing that some people can’t let go of hurts and unfairness that easily?

Is that enough?

Or do I say more?

Well, having thought about it, I said, “I better say some more. I stated the problem, but I offered no solution.

Is there a solution or a suggestion on how to deal with situations or people who stress us out and drive us up the wall.*

CONCLUSION: JAMES GILL S.J.

I thought about a workshop I attended that offered something that works for me. It was given years ago by a Jesuit, Father James Gill.The workshop was on stress and health and "Anger Management", etc. way before the movie with that name.

Jim Gill had been a Navy aviator in World War II and came out and went into pre-med. His father was a well-known heart specialist in the San Francisco area. In 1947 Jim Gill entered the Jesuits.

Along the line he started to wonder about those he was living and working with when they had stress issues – basic everyday human problems – and how they dealt with them. He wondered about solutions like, “Say some prayers.” or “Say a rosary.”

He thought, "Sure prayer might work for some, but prayer didn’t seem to work for others.”Now he wasn’t against prayer, but it didn’t seem to work many times. He also wondered about something Bishop Fulton J. Sheen had said. Fulton Sheen was the voice of the time – so to go against something Bishop Fulton J Sheen was dangerous stuff. But he wondered about Fulton Sheen’s comment: “There is no problem a psychiatrist can solve that can’t be solved in the confessional.”

So when it came time for what’s next in his life after finishing his regular studies to become a Jesuit priest, he talked to his superiors about all this and asked about becoming a psychiatrist. That meant becoming a doctor first and a lot more schooling.

He also said that some Jesuits weren’t doing all that well in handling anger and stress etc. Some tried alcohol or acted out sexually etc. when dealing with life – long before this stuff was in the papers.

So that’s the direction he went. He became a psychiatrist and he ended up doing a lot of good work for a lot of folks – especially priests and religious.

During that workshop, he offered 4 tricks or 4 suggestions on how to deal with situations that really tick us off or stress us out.Maybe long sermons tick you off or stress you out, so let me list them and then spell them out quickly:

1) Change the situation.
2) Change our way of interpreting the situation.

3) Change the way our body reacts.

4) Change the way we behave.

It’s a good list – but let me say that # 4 has never been that clear to me.

1) Change the Situation. Can we get out of the situation that is driving us crazy? Can we not drive there? Can we switch our job or the department we’re in, if that is the situation that is stressing us out?

This is the geographical cure. It’s precisely what Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel. If this town ain’t working, move to another town.Obviously this is very difficult in most cases.

2) Change the Interpretation. See the person who is driving us nuts in a new way. The thing that always intrigues me about this is this.:A priest or some other person is driving me nuts. Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Grrrrrrrr. Grrrrrrrr! Yet it seems that other people love this person and see this person in a totally different way than I see him or her.

How is that possible? How do I come up with a new interpretation?

One hint: look into your life and think of someone you saw one way one time and then you saw that person in a new light later. What caused the change?

3) Change the way your body reacts and responds to someone who drives you batty. Walk. Exercise. Breathe. Calm down your body with healthy tricks. Sleep more. Do whatever it takes – if possible.

4) Change the way you behave as a result of having to deal with the crazies and the strange rangers in your life. Instead of venting or sabotaging them or trying to line up armies to speak against the person behind their back, stop the bad music. Or if you just hold it in, then find a person you can vent to - but be careful the venting doesn't turn to poison?

Enough already.

Did anything stick or cling to your this morning. Time will tell.

But I repeat. It’s not easy to shake ALL the dust off your feet.

*I have a whole book on this, but it's out of print for years, Andrew Costello, CSSR, How To Deal With Difficult People. It was my attempt in the late 1970's to answer this question. It has been translated into Korean, if that is your native language and you can't understand English. However, I guess I'm being difficult in saying this, because you can't understand any of this in the first place.