EXPOSED
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this first Saturday in Ordinary time is “Exposed!”
I’d like to get at the issue exposing the real me to me—exposing rather than posing—as we see in today’s gospel, not being a Pharisee, but being Levi— but sitting down as the real me with Jesus.
I’d like to get at the issue exposing the real me to me—exposing rather than posing—as we see in today’s gospel, not being a Pharisee, but being Levi— but sitting down as the real me with Jesus.
So to get at, to expose self honesty, self evaluation, self love, the real truth of who I am, and allowing Jesus, in fact, in one way, even more importantly, allowing myself to be loved as I am by myself and by Jesus and then going from there in my life.
FIRST READING
Today’s first reading gives a good image, in fact I think a powerful image—that of the Word of God as a sword—that exposes the truth. It’s an that can challenge us to make some painful but healing decisions to lead a better way of living life to the full.
Picture a sword. Picture a knife. Picture a surgeon’s scalpel or whatever a coroner uses for an autopsy—to cut open—to get in there and find out what’s on the other side of a person’s skin.
This image of the sword or the knife appears in today’s first reading. The author of Hebrews uses that image of a sword or a knife cutting open the human body and exposing:
• soul and spirit
• joints and marrow,
• the reflections and thoughts of the human heart.
As a result all is there to be seen before us. All is exposed. Reality. Truth and lies.
The author of Hebrews is saying that the Word of God is like a sword—that cuts to the truth.
Words can do that. You read scripture and you say, “Shit, I’m not doing this!” Or “I guess I gotta stop doing that!” Or, “Wow, I got a long way to go. I’m not feeding the hungry or visiting the sick.”
God’s word is like a press conference. You stand up there and reporters can pick you clean. They can ask questions that can expose you for what you are. Help! Then there are the newspaper articles and columns that follow. Words can be powerful things. Words can expose. That’s what the author of Hebrews seems to be getting at.
DENTIST OR DOCTOR
It’s like going to the dentist. That would be a good modern analogy what the Hebrews is getting at.
You sit there in the chair ready for an examination. If you have not been taking care of them: flossing or brushing correctly, now is the time for the reckoning.
The dental hygienist looks right into your mouth. There are your teeth, gums, all. Then comes the X-rays and more is exposed.
It’s the same with going to a doctor. He checks and probes and sees what’s what. Then he asks you to step on the scale. Then comes the trip to the lab—where blood and urine and all kinds of other stuff can be done. It’s like the gospel text, “Make an account of your stewardship.” What have you been doing with your body.
It’s at examination time, people who eat too much or eat poorly, or drink or smoke, etc. All comes out in the wash as they say.
Make an accounting of your stewardship.
We could add that provincial visitations or looking at the books or doing evaluations or taking exams is all exposure time.
SELF-TESTS
I thought the Myers-Briggs Jungian Type test or the Enneagram or lots of other self tests can be a great examination of consciousness moment. They can expose our realities. They can expose our sins - our weaknesses and what have you.
Well, Hebrews is saying that the word of God is like a sword. It lifts up the rock and underneath are all kinds of creeping things.
Exposed!
ENTER JESUS
Now when we are exposed, caught, put in the light, we tend to want to run and hide once again. We don’t like what’s showing. Our butt is showing. Our sins are before us.
That’s why today’s readings are also very helpful. Hebrews tells us that we have a great High Priest. He can sympathize with our weakness. So go to him with confidence.
Yet, we find it difficult, because he’s God. Hebrews tells us, that he was tempted, but never sinned. And we have sinned, so where do we turn. We still want to hide.
Today’s gospel is perfect. Jesus eats with sinners and dines with them. Jesus came to call the sinner and not the righteous. Mark tells us that Jesus said, “People who are healthy don’t need a doctor; sick people do.”
We need Jesus the doctor.
Today’s gospel talks about scribes and Pharisees who said of the kind of people Jesus was hanging with, “Tch, tch. Why does he eat with people like this?”t
It’s my experience and my feeling that today’s scribes and Pharisees are not out there. They are not the other guy. They are me. I don’t like me as a sinner. So I hide that side of myself from myself and become self-righteous.
The truth is that I am a sinner. The truth is that I have some good stuff in me as well. I am marbled. I have a crack in me as Emerson said. “Everything has a crack in it.”
That truth can set me free.
The truth is that Jesus wants to sit with me and eat with me and I want to be perfect before I allow him to eat with me. I keep saying, “One of these days I have it all together. Then I can get together with Jesus.
Notice it’s Jesus in the 3rd person. Notice it’s Jesus at a distance.
Today’s gospel—or the Gospel today means that Jesus walks up to my booth, my face as a 2nd person facing me a 1st person and says, “Hello. My name is Jesus. Come follow me!”
CONCLUSION
That’s the truth that today’s gospel and today’s first reading from Hebrews is exposing to us.
If we read these readings in truth, we will be exposed for who we are and what we are—hiding stuff under our rock that we don’t want anyone to see—even ourselves.
Jesus goes under rocks—into our graves—and rises from the dead—in us.
“Lazarus come forth!”
Lazarus come back to life.
Time tells where the truth lies!
Exposed!
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