THE  PUBLIC 

AND THE  PRIVATE  ME

Diego Rivera portrait 

of Jacques  Lipchitz (1814)

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 2^nd Tuesday in Lent is, “The Public and the Private Me.”

As we all know, we all have a public and a private self.

As we all know the real me is the me when nobody is looking.

Question: How well do I know the real me?

Answer: When the real me is pausing to look in on the real me and we start to get particulars.

JESUS

Jesus was very aware of this reality.

In today’s gospel Jesus  talks about the Pharisees and their need to make their public self look great. Jesus says, “All their works are performed to be seen.”  They love to be up front. They love titles - being called “Rabbi” or “Master” or “Father”.

Worse they try to load others down with excessive laws and burdens - to make themselves look good and others look bad.

The Gospel of Matthew comes from after Mark - which is dated from 64-69 and before the year 110.

I was taught that the stuff in a gospel is aimed at people around the time it was written - so that tells me not only were there Pharisees in the time of Jesus but also in the early church of Matthew or whatever gospel we’re looking at.

So what else is new? There are always going to be people who are Pharisees - up front and trying to be seen - as well as trying to lord it over other people and make them feel inferior, guilty and sinful. And the biggest offenders can be those up front - like priests.

Tassel wearers, beware when you’re wearing tassels. Instead, keep trying to touch the tassel of Jesus and don’t shake your own.

THE INNER ME

So the call of Lent is to go into the inner room - into the all by myself me - and look in the mirror and see oneself.

And to see ourselves as we really are can be and ought to be quite humbling.  Notice the last sentence in today’s gospel, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

SPILLED SPAGHETTI

If we look in the mirror we can see the spilled spaghetti stains of life.

Sin is a spill - like an oil spill - like a ballpoint pen that leaks - like tomato sauce on a white Irish sweater.

In time can wash our hands and our sweaters - and slowly get the oil and ink stains and tomato sauce stains off.

But when we are within - when we’re talking to ourselves as the private - the me I really am - we know the mistakes and the spills and the mess of our lives.

It’s difficult to wash blood red spaghetti stains of the fabric of our soul and our memory.

Isaiah in today’s first reading tells us, “Come now, let us set things right…. Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow. Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.”

It’s been my experience that white wash, that cleansing of sins, sometimes takes a lifetime - a long time.

I think of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, and how long  and now shameful it was for Hester Prynne to wear the dress with the Big A in front. A is for adultery.

The private me of every person is wearing inwardly A’s for abortion, or G for some big hurt we caused on another for gossip or E or P or M or S or what have you.

We are our own library and librarian.

My mind took notice of a scene in another of Hawthorne’s stories, The Marble Faun.  There is Miriam and there is Hilda. Hilda is the type who walked around  looking down on others - making “Ttch! Ttch!” - “Naughty, Naughty” - sounds on folks she considered sinners.  In Chapter 23, Miriam says in so many words, “Honey you ought to go out and commit  a really big sin and maybe then you’ll understand the rest of us.”

Here’s how Hawthorne has Miriam challenge Hilda,

"I always said, Hilda, that you were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you loved me best. You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and therefore you are so terribly severe! As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you need a sin to soften you."

CONCLUSION

We are both public and private persons.

Lent is a good time to  get within ourselves and grow in holiness and humility - and stop worrying about our public perception and public self.