FAVORITES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Friday in the Second Week of Lent  is, “Favorites.”

This is one of my favorite themes: favorites.

I love to ask parents who have more than one kid, “Who’s your favorite?”

The first response is usually a blocking hand [Gesture] and then, “I have no favorites.”

The second response is often, “I love them all - but differently.”

The third response is sometimes, “The one I’m with.”

The fourth response is sometimes, “The one who needs me the most.”

The fifth response - but only later on - and usually out of ear shot of all the kids - and often one to one -  and often with a bit of hesitation - and sometimes with lowered voice, “Joey! I always loved Joey. He is my favorite.”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s first reading from the first book in the Bible, Genesis 37: 3 begins quite bluntly and without hesitation, “Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons” and then the author gives the reason, “for he was the child of his old age.”

So he makes Joseph a long tunic. It’s the famous coat of many colors.  Then the story quickly gives the plot, the conflict, the turn, the twist, “When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much more that they would not even greet him.”  Bummer!

Then when they see him coming from a distance - his father had sent him to them when they were sheperding out in the fields -  they plot to kill him.

The Book of Genesis has many key stories. This one ranks up there near the top - because it’s tells us how the Israelites get to Egypt.

And today’s story ends with them not killing him, but selling him for 20 pieces of silver.

We know Jesus is sold out for 30 pieces of silver. The price of betrayal  had gone up.

The Joseph story is great story telling. That’s why it has been preserved in the Writings - the Sacred Scriptures.

The bottom line is that the tellers of the story are not mainly concerned with favorites - but with how God saw Israel as his favorite - and how he rescues them from their slavery in Egypt - the key theme of the second book in the Bible, Exodus.

And I’ve heard Scripture Scholars saying that Creation is not the favorite theme of the Bible. It’s Redemption. The key book is Exodus not Genesis. Genesis just sets the scene.

Where we are from, who are parents are, our childhood, our growing up, that’s all setting the scene stuff. Exodus - Redemption - Starting again after our falls - after finding ourselves addicted to self, money, sex, drugs, youth, or whatever,  that’s when real life begins.

Want to be God’s favorite: mess up. Become a lost sheep - a lost Son - a lost coin with God’s image stamped on us. [Cf. Luke 15]

THE CHANGE - CONVERSION STORIES

I remember visiting a couple once. The kids were grown up and gone. The husband was sitting there in the living room - within ear shot of his wife - who was pulling together the last stuff of a supper salad. He says to me, “I married her because she was beautiful. I married her for sex. Then after two years I had to change. I had to stop being a jerk. I had to turn off the TV and be attentive to her and talk to her.” In that first sentence his wife yelled from the kitchen - her husband’s name - when he said he married her for sex. Translation: shut up. But she lit up at the second part. He came to his Book of Exodus.

Most people who consider the movie, The Natural, as one of their favorite movies,  knows the scene when Roy Hobbs [played by Robert Redford] is in a hospital bed in a maternity ward. Iris Gaines [played by Glenn Close] says to Roy Hobbs - who is feeling horrible for what he did to her in his life and what he had done to ruin his life. As it is worded in the novel by Bernard Malamud from which the movie was based, Iris says to Roy, “We have two lives... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness.”

There it is:  the story of how life works.

7 CONCLUSIONS

Here are 7 conclusions on this theme of favorites:

Of course we don’t say to one kid over the other, “You’re not my favorite!” or “So and so is my favorite.”

Sometimes we say to every kid, “You are my favorite” - so that long after we’re gone, they’ll discover at some Thanksgiving Dinner we said that to everyone - and they laugh at it.

If we aren’t the favorite, maybe we didn’t do what is right and there is work and self growth called for.

Of course teachers, neighbors, friends have favorite friends, neighbors, co-workers, teachers. We do. They do. Get over it.

We have our favorite priests etc. etc. etc. I love the saying about priests and others, “One third like you. One third don’t like you. One third don’t care.”

We have all heard the saying: “Be yourself!”  Well, there’s a healthy, “Be yourself” and an “Unhealthy be yourself!” It’s unhealthy if you are insecure and you do things to buy friendship or to try be the favorite or what have you. It’s healthy if you after 25 buy the saying, “Be who you is, because if you be who you ain’t, then you ain’t who you is.” And then you don’t care who’s the favorite. It’s nice to be, but it’s also nice to not have to work at it as a motive.

God has his favorites. The poor. The downtrodden. The dumped. The hurting. The Sinner. So the key thing is to bring to God into our conversations about where we stand in life with ourselves and our God.  Maybe through suffering we need to learn to say to God what Teresa of Avila said to him - when asking him, “Why do you let me suffer?” And God said, “Because that’s how I treat my friends.” And she said back to God, “Well maybe that’s why you have so few friends.” Ouch!