NOT EVERYONE SEES

THE SAME WAY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this First Tuesday of Advent is, “Not Everyone Sees The Same Way.”

This is something that is obvious. We know it. Today’s readings are one more reminder of that obvious truth.

“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”

When we forget this obvious truth - we end up with stale mates and road blocks on the road to each other. It blocks our abilities to work with each other. When I forget this and then realize what happened, I bring up the old saying that I like to quote, “The greatest sin is our inability to accept the otherness of the other person.”

Someone else said that and at times I see why they said that and what they meant by it.

When we see - or at least get glimpses - of what the other is saying, we can say today’s Psalm response: “Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.”

When we see what Isaiah is saying to us in today’s first reading, the Spirit of the Lord can rest on us - a spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength - and the wolf in each of us can be with the lamb in each of us - so too the bear and the cow, the lion, the snake and the child.

When we see this we see why Jesus said in today’s gospel: "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."

JOHN AMBROSE

The title of my homily is, “Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”

How many times and in how many ways do we learn that message?

It triggered the memory of going to a Baltimore Ravens football game a good 8 years ago with Father Denis Sweeney, Father John Tizio - as guests of John Ambrose - before he died of cancer.

We went in his Hummer. That was the only time I was ever in a Hummer. Woo. Big car. Big mobile. To John I’m sure it was just a car. I felt a wow in it. As we got very close to the stadium to the parking lot John went to, I noticed various people walking along dressed in Ravens’ Purple stopping to look and point at the Hummer.

I got a weird thought. This is how it must feel like to be a beautiful woman - everyone stops to look at you. The beautiful women here know exactly what I’m talking about. The Hummer had tinted windows from which I noticed people going “Wow! That’s some Hummer.”

To John I’m sure he saw it as just another vehicle.

We had great seats. We’re sitting there and I say to John on an upcoming play that it’s going to be a pass. He says to me, “Nope. Look at number 86 over there.” And sure enough it was a run. It hit me that former professional football players must see a football game differently than I see a football game. He played for Arizona State as well as the Colts for part of one season.

“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”

MICHELANGELO

We’ve all heard the example of Michelangelo. He would look at a block of marble and see Moses or David or the Blessed Mother in it. We would see just a block of marble.

How does God see us? What does God see in us?

“Not Everyone Sees the Same Way.”

CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GO WITH THIS SIMPLE BASIC MESSAGE?

What now? What do we do with this simple basic message that we all don’t see alike. I’m not sure, but here are 5 leads:

1) It could lead us to communicate better with each other - checking out how the other sees.

2) It could lead to less assumptions - or clarification of assumptions.

3) It could lead to less judging others - or throwing rocks.

4) It could lead us to learning more - because we could discover other takes that differ from the take we take on something.

5) It could lead us to prayer - asking God why in the world and how in the world did you ever come up with the idea of mosquitoes and hippopotamuses - or what have you - or how in the world did you come up with these neighbors or family members of ours - who are so, so different from us. Amen.