IT’S AN INSIDE JOB

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is, “It’s An Inside Job.”

RELIGION

Religion is an inside job.

Religion, if it’s not deep in the heart of me, then it’s not good religion. If it's not in me, it’s externalism. It’s show. It’s staged. It’s spin. It’s façade. It's an attempt to hide stuff behind the façade that we don’t want others to see.

Religion is an inside job.

The look, the scent, the outside sounds are not the inner me, the inner soul. The skin, the clothes, the titles, are not the person.

Everyone married more than six months knows this more or less. Everyone working close to others knows this in at least a year – more or less.

Marriage and relationships, like religion, are inside jobs.

Religion is a relationship: with God and each other. We can’t hide from the other. We can’t hide from ourselves. We can’t hide from God.

Of course we try – and that’s what today’s readings and message challenge. They want us to go inside – to be honest – to get to the heart of the matter – to say “Hello” to God in our inner room.

True religion is the inner stuff – that leads to great outside random and unrandom acts of kindness – or as James puts it in today’s second reading: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

Religion – is an inside job – that flows into wonderful outside showings of caring and daring, grace and gratitude, love and life.

MOTIVE

Motive.

Jesus challenged folks to look at our motives.

Motive is tough detective work.

Religion – true religion – gets us to look at motives and then to move it. Quick! Do something for someone quickly. Make each other’s day.

Unfortunately, we often waste all kinds of energy that could be used for service - on worrying about our past - the what if's - the dumb moves - the hurts - the scenarios that we imagined - but never happened.

Maybe people don't like to enter their inner room - because the whining and the resentments in there are too, too loud. Inner "Unfair!" cries - regrets, resentments, reign.

We need to say, "Enough already!" Stick a fork in them. They’re finished. We blew it back then – but today we can start laughing, loving, pinching ourselves. We’re alive. We’ve made it to this day. So let’s start enjoying our gifts, with the ones we’re with – and the ones who need our love.

GOSPEL

Today’s gospel picks on Pharisaism – Gospel Pharisees and today’s Pharisees – the type of Pharisaism that is hypocritical – the type of Pharisaism that is legalistic – the type of Pharisaism that is loaded with externalism – show.

In today’s gospel the Pharisees go against Jesus because his disciples are not following the so called “Big Tradition” of ritual washings. Jesus goes after them and says, “Nothing that enters one from the outside can defile a person. It’s what comes out from within that defiles a person.”

Jesus is not against washing before meals – cleaning pots and pans – kettles and beds. But he is against rituals that miss the purpose behind them – or rituals that are only done to make oneself look better or feel better than the other person. The spiritual competition game.

Jesus quotes Isaiah in today’s gospel, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Lip service is out. Prayers and service from the heart are in.

Jesus is for heart washing – heart cleansing – heart felt changes in the center of the person – that lead to love and kindness and caring.

Religion is an inside job.

Jesus continues in today’s gospel with a scathing list of sins of the heart: “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness [lacking legal or moral restraints], envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

Woooo! Tough stuff today.

Tough message today.

The Word for today should humble us. It should challenge us. It should get us to say, “Wait a minute! Is there a message for me here today?”

And James in today’s second reading says, “Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.”

So we start with humility. We start with prayer, saying deep within our heart, “Lord, I can’t do this. It’s too deep and too difficult. Help!”

James then states how the inside job has to flow into the outside world we live in. He says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding ourselves.” As the song goes, “Don’t talk about love. Show me!”

Religion is sheer simplicity – inside conversion – leading to outside love.

That I think is the message from today’s readings. It’s simple. It’s basic. Religion is an inside job – that flows into outside love.

CONCLUSION: A STORY - TETSUGEN

At this point in preparing this homily, I realized I needed a concrete example to help bring this message to heart. After a little research, I think I found a good example in a book by Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight – A Book of Story Meditations. So let me close with that story. It’s from another tradition, but I found out: sometimes something from out there brought in here – will help us in here to get it right out there.

Once upon a time there was a student of Zen Buddhism named Tetsugen. He lived in Japan and realized the sacred writings, the sutras that were in Chinese, were not available in Japanese. The writing was the same – but the languages were different. So he had a dream – a dream to have 7,000 copies of the sutras printed in Japanese.

He traveled the length and breath of Japan collecting funds for the project. Some wealthy people offered him as much as a hundred pieces of gold, but mostly he received small coins from peasants. Tetsugen expressed gratitude to each donor, regardless of the sum of money given.

After ten long years of travel, he finally had collected enough money for the printing. Just then the river Uji overflowed and thousands were left without food and shelter. Tetsugen spent all the money he had collected for his cherished project on these poor people.

Then he began the work of raising funds again. Again it was several years before he got the money he needed.

Then an epidemic spread all over the country, so Tetsugen gave away all he had collected to help the suffering.

Once again he set out on his travels and, twenty years later, his dream of having the scriptures in the Japanese language finally came true.

Today, the printing block that produced this first edition of the sutras is on display at the Obaku Monastery in Kyoto, Japan.

Now comes the moral of the story: The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugen got out three editions of the sutras in all: and the first two are invisible and far superior to the third.

Religion is invisible. It’s an inside job – that hopefully is on display all around the world.

HOW’S YOUR
SECOND ACT?

INTRODUCTION


The title of my homily for this 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is, “How Is Your Second Act?”

“How Is Your Second Act?”

PRODUCER ARTHUR HOPKINS

When I read today’s gospel I thought of an example that I had read and jotted down somewhere along the line.

Years ago – 1931 to be exact – the theatrical producer Arthur Hopkins [1878-1950] wrote a book entitled, “How’s Your Second Act?” I never read the book, but I love the title. He used to receive dozens of manuscripts for plays. Before he would read any script, he would always ask, "How is your second act?" Playwrights would have a wonderful first act. The question was: does your drama begin to fade and fall apart as the play moves on. You might have a great beginning, but how’s your second act?

He also held that “the final test for producers was the amount of new talent they brought into the theater.”

How’s your second act? Are you bringing new life into our world?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel has this group of people finally getting a glimpse of whom Jesus is and what he is about.

And they are beginning to realize that Jesus is more than just giving free bread. He’s is much more. He is the Bread of Life - and so much more.

And they respond by saying, “You’re feeding us tough stuff. These are hard sayings.”

And they leave.

And Jesus asks Peter and the other disciples, “Are you going to leave as well?”

And Peter responds, “No. To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Now of course, this is early church stuff. The new Christians are over their initial enthusiasm of baptism and conversion. They are now entering the second act. And the first act is a tough act to follow.

HARD SAYINGS IN THE GOSPEL

There are lots of hard sayings in the gospels:

Go the extra mile.
Turn the other cheek.
Take up your cross and follow me.
The grain of wheat must die, otherwise it remains just a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it brings forth abundant life.
This is my body.
This is my blood.

SECOND HALF, FIFTH INNING, ETC.

How’s your second act?

The honeymoon ends. Marriage enters its second year. The football team gets off to a great start, but there is the second quarter and there is the rest of the game. There are the adjustments the other team makes at half time. People get injured. How good is the bench? How good has the conditioning program been? Who will be tired when the going gets tough?

In baseball, the pitcher has to face the same hitters a second time. Can he adjust? How good is his second act? How good is his second time around the league? And there is also the next game and the game after that and the game after that. The baseball season has 160 games plus.

Life has its second acts, its third acts, and its fourth and fifth acts. How’s your second act?

Bernard Basset had an excellent book entitled, “The Noonday Devil.” Each day is like a lifetime. We might get off to a great start, but how do we deal with The Noonday Devil?

JURY ROOM EXAMPLE

I don’t remember where I read the following story – so I don’t know who gets the credit – but it’s a good story. Once upon a time there were twelve men sitting behind closed doors as a jury after a trial. Eleven of the men were working farmers. The twelfth was a retired farmer. The eleven working farmers pushed for a guilty verdict. The retired farmer wanted a “not guilty” verdict.

Problem: the verdict had to be unanimous.

The eleven jurors did everything they could to convince the “Not Guilty” farmer to switch to a guilty verdict. A rain storm was predicted for later on in the day, so they wanted to get in their hay. The retired juror just sat there looking out of the window as dark rain clouds slowly approached. Time ticked on. The eleven Guilty verdict farmers kept looking at their watches and the clouds. There was a loud clap of thunder. The eleven panicked and all eleven changed their votes to not guilty – and after the trial the retired farmer walked down the courthouse steps with a big smile on his face – as he looked at the dark clouds getting closer and closer.

How good are we when it comes to sticking to our convictions?

TODAY’S FIRST READING

In today’s first reading, Joshua calls together the 12 tribes and says that it’s test time. Then he says, “As for me and my house, we are going to follow the Lord.

TODAY’S SECOND READING

Today’s second reading is about marriage. The words about a wife being subordinate to her husband often rankles some people.

I like the wisdom in the saying, “A text out of context is a pretext!”

We have to remember that Paul is writing this letter in the first century. And in the first century, in the Mediterranean Basin, males were the bosses. It was a patriarchic society. Marriages were arranged between families. Individualism was not in. Family was in. Romance was not a priority. Women and men might not have feelings for each other or become friends their whole marriage, but that wasn’t the main aim. It was to continue the family. A husband's place was outside the home; the wife’s place was inside the house. She cooked, made babies, and continued the family. Her friends would be the other women in the village or town or her sisters down the street or on the other side of the village. She would be very close to her children. However, sons came into the father’s ambiance when they came of age. And sons were more important than daughters.

Sound familiar? Some of these ideas are still around – and not just in other parts of the world.

In that context, today’s reading from Ephesians [5:21-32] has some challenging comments for the people of his time. Paul is telling couples to love one another and for the man to cherish his wife. Too often people just look at the “subordination” of wife to husband words. Formerly, the word used was “submission”. Notice in the missalette these “buzz” words can be left out. However, the words are still there in Paul and he is calling for radical thinking both in the family and in the structure of the church.

To do all this in a marriage, as well as in the church, especially in the second act, and in the third act, that’s the tough stuff. These are hard sayings.

To make life work, we must die to ourselves. The ego must go. Eeeee goooooooooo!

CONCLUSIO AND SUMMARY

The title of my homily is, “How Is Your Second Act?”

Where are we in the game of life? Where are we in our marriage?

As the old saying goes, “What’s so remarkable about love at first sight. Love is when people have been looking at each other for years and still love each other.”

Where are we in the trial? Do we have staying power – even when dark clouds are moving in and there is thunder in the distance?

What inning, what quarter, what stage, of life are we in?

How good are we in the long run? How good is our staying power? How good is our growing power? How good is our renewal power?

The first day or week on the job might be great, but how are we in two years, ten, twenty years?

The priest might be great in his first three years, but how is he in thirty-three – forty three – fifty three years?

Today we come to the end of the sixth chapter of John for our Sunday Gospel. We have been listening to this chapter for 5 straight Sundays.

We notice that many of the crowd that started the 6th chapter have dropped out – in the second act – or the 4th inning – or when Jesus’ words became tough – when they heard that the bread of life is not just our daily bread – but is Jesus himself - and we need to eat him - for everyday and for eternal life.

John writes, “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’”

So here we are – because we have come to believe and are convinced that Jesus is the Holy One of God – and we walk the walk each day with Jesus as our staying power. Amen.

STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

How many times in our lives have we said to ourselves in the privacy of our brain, “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”?

Or a variation might be, “Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!” or “Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!” or “Uuuuuh! Uuuuuh! Uuuuh!”


Or if we are déjà vu dumb – that is, we keep repeating the same mistake over and over again, we might use the Jim Carey movie title, “Dumb and Dumber” and we might even add the superlative, “Dumbest!”


A lady after the 8:30 Mass this morning said to me, “Stupidity is doing the same stupid thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time.”


How many times have we said to ourselves, “That was the dumbest thing I ever did.”?

Now that would be a good dinner conversation.

We talk to ourselves. In fact, we talk to ourselves more than any other person on the planet. In fact, I’m wondering if people are being stupid or dumb – by spending too much time talking on cell phones or texting each other – time they could be talking to themselves – another word for thinking. Thinking is good. Healthy thinking and praying is good. Stinking thinking or stupid thinking is bad.

This weekend is the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock – and there are all kinds of articles and commentaries on radio, TV and newspaper about that weekend. The one that intrigued me the most was that people were standing on lines that were a mile long to get to the few pay phones in the area. It was before everyone had cell phones. It was raining. Small stores ran out of food. There were long potty lines. The New York Thruway was totally stopped so people decided to sleep in their cars – right on the New York Thruway. I’m sure a lot of people were saying, “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Looking back, many seem to be saying now, “Smart! Smart! Smart!” “I was there! I was there. I was there!” and I can brag about it.

BANGING OUR HEAD

It’s interesting: when we say, “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” we often hit our head. That’s where our brain, our mind, our thinking skills are kept.

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s first reading from The Book of Proverbs triggered for me the theme for this homily on stupidity. It begins, “Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table.”There are a whole series of books in the Bible called the “Wisdom Books”. They contrast wisdom with stupidity – smart with dumb – right with wrong – clever with foolishness.

In our growth process – in our spiritual development - it is wise to stop from time to time to reflect upon what’s inside our brain - our attitudes - our "speeches" - our "buttons" - what we're off on. Are we being wise with our use of time and energy? Are we smart or foolish? Are we being healthy or unhealthy with our bodies and our earth?

This is why religions have religious schools – and catechisms – and Bible readings and homilies.

To return to the opening words of today’s first reading, “Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table.”

What’s on your table? What’s in your house?

Close your eyes and take a tour of the house called you. What does it look like? People walk around the neighborhoods of Annapolis and see red brick and porches, old houses and new ones, steps and gardens. People walk around Annapolis and sometimes go into other people’s homes. Some are tours. Some are parties or what have you. Annapolis has a lot of different neighborhoods and areas. And when we’re inside a home for the first time, the owners say, “Let me show you the house?” We see the different rooms. We spot the pictures on bookshelves and refrigerator doors. We see what’s on tables. We take it all in.

Interesting.

I only have one room and I have a saying, “Show me your room and I’ll tell you who you are.” I’m a slob, so I keep my door closed.

We could say the same of a house, “Show me your house and I’ll tell you who you are?”

Then when we sit down to dinner – at another’s table – we see even more about another person or family.

Next time you’re at someone’s dinner table, listen to what others are talking about. Listen to what people are worried about – what people laugh about – what people eat – and we’re finding out who they are.

INNER ROOM

Jesus visited a lot of people. Jesus invited himself into different homes and into the lives of various people.

Jesus talked about each of us having an inner room.

We’ve all heard the Capital One Ad, “What’s in your wallet?”

Robert Fulghum once asked a group of men to put their wallets on a table and have everyone show what’s in their wallet.

Interesting.

Show me your wallet and I’ll tell you who you are?

Jesus would say, “Invite me into your inner room and I’ll tell you who you are.”Our inner room is in here – inside our skull – the skull we hit when we say, “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

Our inner room is in here – inside our skull – the place where a thousand conversations and judgments take place each day.

WISDOM & STUPIDITY

Wisdom! Wisdom! Wisdom!

Wisdom is the opposite of stupidity, foolishness, dumb, dumb, dumb.At different points in our lives – like each Sunday when we come to church for Sabbath Rest – like vacation – like walks – like being alone in car rides – it’s good to check out what we are talking to ourselves about – what’s in our house? – what’s in our inner room?

Listen to yourself and you’ll find out a lot about yourself.

Jesus is a carpenter. His first question would be: Is your house built on rock or sand? Does it have strong columns or is your life shaky?

Nobody has a monopoly on stupidity or sin? Popes, presidents, priests and parents, coaches, cab drivers, and computer folks, the big guys and gals and the little guys and gals, all do stupid things.

How about you?

What did Forest Gump mean when he said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Was he saying, “Nobody is stupid, but we do stupid things.”

Commentators on the movie like to say that was a very wise line because it’s tricky. It might get folks thinking – “Who’s stupid? Who’s really stupid and who’s really wise?” Surprise! It might be the person with the I.Q. of 75.

LEARNING FROM OUR STUPID MISTAKES

We become wise when we learn from our mistakes – especially from our really dumb moves.

I was the youngest of four kids – and one night my mom and dad were out – and my brother or one of my two sisters sent me to the living room to turn out the lamp. We had the two bedrooms in the back of the house. The lamp in the front of the house didn’t have an on and off beaded pull chain. It had broken off. You had to turn the bulb off by hand. It was hot and I pulled my fingers away from the hot bulb immediately and put my fingers in my mouth.

What to do?

I took off my t-shirt and put it over the lamp to cover the light and make my brother or sisters in the back of the house think I had turned it off. Luckily they smelled the smoke and quickly ran out to the living room, pulled the smoking and almost burning t-shirt off the lamp and then proceeded to beat me up.

I never did that again. But I was being logical. I learned from that mistake the first and only time I made it.

When playing Monopoly it took me about 5 times to learn, “If you own Park Place – never trade it to the person who has Boardwalk. Monopoly can be a very long game and the person with hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place has the best chance of winning.

How many times do we have to commit the same sin before we learn? How many next mornings, DUI’s, screaming children, car dents, headaches, vomiting, loss of jobs, does it take for an addict on drugs or booze to hit bottom and get their house in order.

We make mistakes.

That's why we say, "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid."

That's why pencils have erasers and churches have confessionals.

So the key thing is to see what we're doing is stupid and then not to be déjà vu dumb.

CONCLUSION

These 5 Sunday’s, besides readings from Ephesians and other books in the Bible, we have been listening to the 6th Chapter of John – and the central message is that a key table to sit down to every Sunday is this meal with Jesus – who feeds us with himself – and his wisdom – and gives us the ability to live forever.

Smart. Smart. Smart.