CROWDS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Crowds”.
VINCENT NICHOLS
Last week I picked up a back issue of the British Catholic magazine, The Tablet. Paging through it, I began reading an article entitled, “The Field Narrows”. It featured 4 possible bishops who might be appointed bishop of Westminster, England – the big job. In describing Vincent Nichols, the then bishop of Birmingham, who eventually got the job of Westminster, the Primatial See of England and Wales, the article tells the story of Vincent going to a Liverpool Football club game – which he loved to do as a young man. Standing in the stands, being part of a big crowd at a soccer match, he says to God whom he inwardly hears calling him to think priesthood, “Why don’t you just leave me alone? Why can’t I just be one of the crowd?” (1)
With this inner comment, he was being vintage Isaiah and Jeremiah, prophets, who had similar reactions when God was calling them.
“Why don’t you just leave me alone? Why can’t I just be one of the crowd?”
WE KNOW THE FEELING
We know the feeling. We’re at a meeting and someone asks, “Who wants to be secretary and take minutes?” Hide!
When we were little kids and the teacher asked a question, every kid in the classroom raises his or her hand, yelling, “Teacher! Teacher!”
It hit me as I remembered being at kids’ Masses that every kid seems to raise their hand when the priest asks a question. Are there any kids who don’t raise their hands? Are there any kids who hide behind other kids? The next time I’m at a kids’ Mass and I ask a question – if I remember – I’m going to try to see how many kids don’t raise their hands. Are there any little kids who never raise their hand?
When we’re teenagers, and the teacher is the type that loves to call on kids, our head goes down. We want to hide. We want to be part of the crowd – because we know that some in the class make fun of those who are smart or not scared to step out of the crowd and into the limelight and raise their hands and answer questions.
Today’s three readings trigger for me thoughts about the question of crowds and individuals.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
The gospel begins with these words, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them saying, ‘Blessed….’”
Scholars tell us that Matthew is presenting Jesus here as the New Moses – the new Law Giver. Just as Moses came down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments and the Law, so Jesus goes up the Mountain and preaches from there the new law – as the New Moses – to the crowds.
In January of 2000 I was with 22 priests in Israel. We got out of the bus and the retreat master and tour guide, Father Stephen Doyle [1934-2010], a Franciscan. took us to the Church of the Beatitudes. It was more on a hill than a mountain. Standing outside he read the Beatitudes we just heard from Matthew and then said, “We have an hour of quiet – so do some thinking and praying in quiet.” I found a great spot looking down these big green fields that led down to the Lake of Galilee in the distance. Off to the side I noticed a group of folks coming out of 3 buses – all Koreans – with cameras and Bibles and they turned right and paraded down a road towards the Lake. Halfway down they stopped and went into the field and sat down and I noticed their leader open up what I figured was the Bible and the gospel of Matthew. I couldn’t hear him – and I don’t understand Korean – but I imagined even better what the Sermon on the Mount looked like.
For this Sunday and every Sunday till the First Sunday of Lent – March 13th, we’re going to hear the Sermon on the Mount. Today we begin to hear Jesus’ big sermon with the 8 or 9 Beatitudes.
All through the gospels we notice Jesus talking and being with crowds. But we also begin to hear about different individuals who stand up or stand out in a crowd: the couple who run out of wine at their wedding feast, the woman who touches the hem of his garment, the blind man who screams out from the side of the road, Zaccheus whom Jesus spots up a tree, the woman in the crowd who yells out, “Blessed is woman who gave you birth”, etc. etc. etc.
Here we are in church – a crowd – but we are all individuals. I knew a priest in Ohio who began Mass every Sunday by asking the crowd, “Is anyone celebrating their birthday today or this week?” A few would raise their hands and he’d ask the different people to stand up and give their name and their birthday. Then he’d ask, “Is anyone celebrating an anniversary today or this week?” He’d ask their name and what the anniversary was. There might be a laugh or some clapping. Some loved it – to be singled out; some looked at their watches and went crazy with the delay.
On TV the last few days we see these vast crowds of folks in Egypt marching and running and throwing rocks and being hit with gas canisters.
On Friday night the news showed a crowd and then someone put a circle around a man in a big plaza to point him out. Then he fell to the ground – shot – dead.
There are around 7 billion of us on this planet – alive – but some of us die and are killed every day. We are quite a crowd! We are billions of stories.
Sometimes we’re a crowd – in malls, in traffic, at games.
Sometimes we become individuals. We get a phone call and we’re one to one with someone, somewhere when right in the middle of a vast crowd. Then there are moments when we are big time special and singled out in a crowd. It’s the moment of our wedding and we’re married and the whole crowd knows who we are. They know our names without having to look at the program or the matches or napkins or wedding favors. That is our moment – when we’re not the crowd at a wedding, but we’re the bride and groom and we’re standing out above the crowd – and if you’ve been to a Jewish wedding, you know the moment when they lift the bride and groom up in chairs and dance them all around the room.
We know the difference between crowd moments and individual moments: a kiss with a beloved, lunch with a friend, coming in the front door and being greeted by a two year old after a long day at work, shooting a foul shot in basketball and the game is tied and there are 2 seconds left, or we’re at bat with two outs, bases loaded, last chance in a game, and it’s all up to us – or we’re the pitcher and it’s all up to us to get that last out.
I went to the Turkey Bowl up in Ravens Stadium for a few Thanksgiving games to watch Calvert Hall play Loyola – because my grandnephews, Pat and Mike, who played for Calvert Hall High School. When they were on the field, I didn’t just see a team on the field, I saw Patrick and Michael on the field.
We know we can treat others as a crowd – as nobodies – as unnoticed – or we can make each other’s day.
TODAY’S FIRST READING
Today’s first reading from the Prophet Zephaniah has the word “remnant”. In Hebrew it’s the “Anawim”. I remember hearing a sermon by a priest named Arthur Finan – who preached a whole sermon on just that word, “Anawim” or “Remnant”. He said, “Often we don’t notice the tiny crumbs by the side of a toaster. Sometimes they fall to the floor unnoticed. Tiny bread crumbs. Well they are like the Anawim – those unnoticed people – nobody cares about or notices. Well, God notices them. Their names are written on the palms of his hands.”
I got that message. I hate it when people sweep crumbs off a table or a counter onto the floor. They are much easier to pick or sweep up from a counter or a table.
I got that – and ever since then I try to see waiters and waitresses by the name on their uniform – or I try to catch their name when they say, “Hello, I’m Carrie, and I’m your waitress today.” That was the name of our waitress at Bob Evans in Middletown, Delaware, the other day when Joe Krastel and Jack Harrison and I had lunch on our way back to Annapolis from our big meetings in New Jersey. They got Big Farm hamburgers and I ordered last and got a salad and busted them for being Big Boys.
That sermon about the Anawim or Remnant impacted me – so I talk to strangers and toll booth folks – I don’t have E-Z-Pass. I try to notice and say “Hi” to people when walking around, when going in and out of stores, especially when I’m don’t have my priest uniform on.
CONCLUSION: TODAY’S SECOND READING
And let me conclude this sermon by reading today’s second reading which has this theme big time. These words from Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians can give us an attitude of respect towards all people – and like the Beatitudes in today’s gospel, if we take on these attitudes, we will have beatitude.
We heard the New American Bible translation from the Greek (2) – now let me close with a reading of the Good News Bible’s translation from the Greek of 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13, 17
“Now remember what you were,
my brothers and sisters,
when God called you.
From the human point of view
few of you were wise or powerful
or of high social standing.
God purposely chose
what the world considered nonsense
in order to shame the wise,
and he chose
what the world considers weak
in order to shame the powerful.
He chose what the world looks down upon
and despises and thinks is nothing,
in order to destroy
what the world thinks is important.
This means that no one can boast
in God’s presence.
But God has brought you
into union with Christ Jesus,
and God has made Christ to be our wisdom.
By him we are put right with God;
we become God’s holy people and are set free.
So then, as the scripture says,
‘Whoever wants to boast
must boast of what the Lord has done.’”
* Painting on top: "The Sermon on the Mount" (1442) by Fra Angelico [c. 1395-1455]
(1) The Tablet, “The Field Narrows,” A Tablet Special Report, page 6, March 7, 2009
(2) “Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.Not many of you were wise by human standards,not many were powerful,not many were of noble birth.Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,those who count for nothing,to reduce to nothing those who are something,so that no human being might boast before God.It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,who became for us wisdom from God,as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,so that, as it is written,“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”
