VISIBLE HUMAN, 

INVISIBLE GOD

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Wednesday after Epiphany is: “Visible Human, Invisible God.”

QUESTION?

Did you ever wonder where you got your takes on life from?

This would include your religion, your attitude toward sushi, always being very much on time or always cutting it close - and as a result often being a tiny bit late - and 1000 more attitudes, outlooks and behaviors.

Today’s first reading gave me the theme and title of this homily: “Visible Human, Invisible God.”

But I want to begin with my opening question, “Do you ever wonder where you got your takes on life from? Do you ever wonder why you are the way you are?”

ANECDOTES

I’m talking to my sister Mary on the phone and she says, “I was talking to Peggy [she was my other sister] and  Peggy says, “I got sick. Thank God  I was on vacation.”

Mary tells me, “I laughed and then said to Peggy, ‘Where did we get that from?’  And both said together in unison: ‘Mother!’”  And I added, “That’s funny. That’s me too.”

Obviously we learned our language, our smiles, our opinions from our parents and others.

My parents both spoke Gaelic.  Wow do I wish they taught us that as well as English.

At a workshop on preaching, the speaker asked us, “Whom did you learn the most about preaching from?” It got us thinking and it was a revelation.” Our answers could be correct - or maybe we don’t know and the answers are staring us in the face.

I was driving somewhere. The trip would take 8 hours. I  decided to grab some old cassette audio tapes of people giving talks. I’m listening to this one tape and the preacher gives this great example. I went, “Wow! I used that same example years after and I thought I was original. I wasn’t. I stole that example. I figured I had heard that tape 25 years ago and I used the example from it - 10 years later without knowing that it.

I shut off the cassette and thought about that for a while. How much else did I steal? How much more of other people’s stuff have I appropriated?

I thought. That’s the benefit of listening to tapes and CD’s and talks.

I smiled and said, “I have preached in thousands of churches and preached thousands of homilies and sermons, how many of those have I  planted good news. How many ideas of others have I planted - that I got from other folks somewhere and some time ago.

I am not only what I eat. I am what I listen to and watch.

The most obvious example: we become the TV channels we watch.

One of my top 10 quotes is from Tennyson in his poem, Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.”

TODAY

There’s an example from today’s first reading that I have stolen - or appropriated  - or made my own.

It’s a key idea from the first Letter of John.  Where did he get that idea from?  Was he original or a borrower?

It’s a simple idea.

If we can’t love and be nice to those we can see, how can we say we love God who is invisible.

I have met people who are great God people and they are horrible people people.

That jars me!

I have noticed people praying and praying and praying - including priests I have lived with - who can’t communicate with other people.

I know I’m judgmental in thinking this way - but this First Letter of John got me asking this question in this way.

When I’m hearing confessions if someone confesses they gossiped or talked about someone behind another’s person’s back - as a penance sometimes I tell folks to say something nice to someone next chance you get. If someone cannot  give a compliment to someone whom they can see, how can they give a compliment to God whom they cannot see.

If someone visits Christ in the Blessed Sacrament chapel - and they never visit others - never make a holy hour with an old person - who is shut in - or in Spa Creek Nursing Home facility - or make phone calls to their sister of brother in Atlanta -  how does that holy hour with Christ go? Are they the only one in the room, in the conversation?

From way back I’ve heard people say the rosary - Our Father and Hail Mary - and race through it - as if there is no space in between any word: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswithyou…. blah, blah, blah….” I wonder how they can do that. Is that the way they are with other people who are visible to them - or are other people invisible as well.