OPEN UP YOUR EYES.

IT’S ALL SURPRISE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday of the Third Week of Lent is, “Open Up Your Eyes! It’s All Surprise!”

Every morning it’s nice to sit there, to pray there, and say to God, “I wonder what you have in store for me today!”

Every night it’s nice to sit there, to pray there, and say to God, “Now lets take a look at all the surprises I had today.”

That kind of a morning prayer and that kind of a night prayer - will open up our eyes, our minds, and our hearts, to all the surprises life offers us - that God puts on our plate for the day.

PEOPLE

You can’t tell the book by the cover. You have to open it up and read the story. Expect surprises.

You can’t tell the other person by his or her skin, you have to meet them and greet them and be with them. Expect surprises.

I remember reading a long time ago about the 6 people in every marriage: the he, she thinks he is; the he, he thinks he is; the he, he really is; the she, he thinks she is; the she, she thinks she is; the she, she really is.

Besides that, people change.

Well, this morning I was looking up a quote to put on my blog - for a Quote for the Day, and I spotted the following quote by William James. “Whenever two people meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.”

I was wondering who realized that theory first - and who else said something like that 1000 or 2000 or 2500 years ago.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s first reading - 2 Kings 5: 1-15b - has several characters: Naaman an army commander who had a skin disease,  his master the King of Aram, a little girl who was captured in a raid who became Naaman’s wife’s servant, Elisha the prophet in Israel, the king of Israel, and Naaman’s servants.  If this reading was being staged that would call for various actors - as well as animals, chariots, silver, gold and garments.

That’s a lot of people and the possibility of a lot of surprises in a story.

In today’s Gospel - Luke 4: 24-30 - the scene is Jesus and a lot of people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue. They are not going to accept Jesus as is. Jesus tells them about one of the great mysteries of life - that the Spirit of the Lord can come upon us and all kinds of surprising changes can result.  He tells the people about Elisha the Prophet healing a foreigner and Elijah the prophet taking care of a poor widow of  Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Surprise! They are deaf. They are blind. They are imprisoned in their own inner prisons.

They can't believe that someone from their own town can be different than the way they see him to be.    Jesus has come back and he is different. They want the story to go their way. They have already written how the story should develop. Surprise. Life is the surprises.

The title of my homily is, “Open Up Your Eyes! It’s All Surprise!”

What a sad ending to today's gospel story. After planning on killing him - Jesus passes through their midst and went away. Their loss....

Surprise Naaman, the army commander, who has leprosy, can’t open up his eyes to the surprise on how life and healing can  happen for him. However, he changes. Unlike the people of Nazareth who want to throw Jesus off the cliff and out of their lives, Naaman finally opens his eyes and surprise his eyes are opened and his skin in healed.

CONCLUSION

Pray each day: morning, noon and night:  “Lord open up my eyes and my mind and my heart to your surprises today - not what I expect, not what I’m planning. When I meet the people I meet today - help me Lord to realize that they not to the person I think they are, but they are person they really are - and help me to enjoy the surprises!"