PICKY,  PICKY,  PICKY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Saturday in Ordinary Time is, “Picky, Picky, Picky.”

There are two types of people: Picky, Picky, Picky People and Unpicky, Unpicky or whatever is the opposite of picky, picky, picky people.

I don’t see myself as a picky, picky, picky person, so I can pick on picky, picky, picky people in a homily.

But we all know down deep that picking on people is not the best approach for challenge, for healing, for change, for conversion, for growth, for niceness.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel has this theme of picky - picky.

It’s called Phariseeism.

The Pharisees are constantly picking on Jesus - for his non-fussy, non-meticulous, non-persnickety way of doing life.

The Pharisees sat back or stood back watching Jesus and his disciples - for mistakes.

There is a gospel text, “The Pharisees stood far off watching ….” [Check Luke 6:7.]

Here is Jesus and his disciples in today’s gospel walking through a field filled with growing grain on a Sabbath. They are hungry - so they start picking  heads of grain, rubbing it in their hands to separate the chaff - and get to the good stuff for nourishment.

I was trying to picture what that would be like - and I picture people at a baseball game with a bag of peanuts in those light brown shells - twisting and breaking the shell - to get the peanuts inside - and dropping the shells to the cement floor of the baseball stands.

If you’re a daily Mass goer, you have heard enough gospels readings where the Pharisees are trying to pick a fight with Jesus over some trivial pursuit of theirs.

Sometimes Jesus walks away. Sometimes Jesus challenges back at the challenger. Sometimes Jesus says, “Let me tell you a story.”

If there is one message we hear loud and clear from Jesus it’s this: the Sabbath is for us - not the other way around.

If people buy clothes, cars, houses with one eye to impress others - various people pick religion as a way to impress others - but the tricky, tricky, tricky thing about religion is that it’s dealing with spiritual stuff which is invisible. Bummer - if you want to be seen and to impress others.

What to do. Well, Picky, Picky Pharisees   make much of religious practices that can be seen and measured.

So Jewish law, Pharisaical law, religious laws were made up in the form of visible physical stuff:  rules for fasting, lifting, walking, working,  what you can and can’t do on the Sabbath.

Trouble is:   this made the Sabbath a day of rules and regulations rather than a day of rest. So people were not getting a break. They had 6 days of hard work then a strict day called “Sabbath” which was not an easy Lazy Boy Chair day - or a day to take the kids to the park or the Lake or to go hill climbing or get something sweet to eat.

In today’s gospel Jesus counters with a story about David. Maybe invoking him, the Pharisees would see a hero who didn’t have a picky, picky, brain. David and his men were starving. They entered the house of God and grabbed the bread offerings which only the priests could eat.  Hey if a hero like David could do that, what’s so bad about taking a grape off a vine or some grain off a grain stalk?

CONCLUSION

Being the world’s or the neighborhood  police - being the family spy looking for people who are breaking all the rules, takes energy - and can be draining - and we might forget we get to pick what we’re looking at - and sometimes what we’re inwardly complaining about - or enjoying or praising.

Uh oh! Better end this homily now.  Picky, picky people - when it comes to preaching - can be picky about length of time of preachers pontificating from the pulpit.

September 7, 2019

HOW  DOES  IT  FEEL?

Touching a cold front door knob - in early January ….

Being handed a college degree in May ….

Putting my hand on my grandma’s shoulder ….

Holding the roller coaster bar ….

Rye bread toast Saturday morning  breakfast….

Touching her hand and rosary in the casket ….

Being handed the Bread of life ….

Catching a foul ball at a Major League game ….

A slice of really red cold  watermelon - Fourth of July ….

Signing the divorce papers after a long wrong marriage ….

Waving back as the boat leaves the pier ….

Putting a caught garter from a wedding on my car mirror ….

Putting my first kid's baby shoes on my car mirror ….

Computer typing this list ….

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  7, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.”  

Lisa Kirk, 

New York Journal American, 

March 9, 1954

SEPTEMBER  RAIN

The wash of rain - cleaning the dust

off my blue car - clearing the sidewalk -

soaking the grass and the brown fields -

great sound on the porch and the patter

on leaves - seeing the defiance of grey

gravestones - hearing the musical swish -

the back and forth of windshield wipers -

appreciating living in the northeast -

knowing those in the southwest who

once lived in the northeast - miss their

roots and the fall of rain - on so many

a September day till the dislike of cold rain -

but like many things in life, that’s not yet.

  

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  6, 2019

Thought for today: 

“I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face.” 

Katherine Mansfield’s last words.

September 5, 2019

POCKET  CHANGE 

Three dimes, two nickels,

a quarter and some pennies:

loose change in my pocket....

That’s how I treat some  people

in my life, loose change, present,

but just there - lumped together....

Not important - and sometimes

given away to the poor beggar

or the guitar player on the corner....

Then there is my wallet with my credit

cards, a few Andrew Jackson's - and

my medical and identity cards: ME.

© Andy Costello, 

Reflections 2019

September  5, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future.”  

Gail Lumet Buckley, “The Hornes:

An American Family, Knopf, 1986

September 4, 2019

GNAW

“Gnaw”:  now that’s an interesting verb

and word. Its meaning never gnawing me.

I haven’t ignored it. In fact, I never used it.

But now that I heard it used - I’ve been

asking myself, “Is there anything or

anyone biting and chewing and gnawing

me - like a dog with a bone or - like a

lion gnawing on a gnu and gnarling as

it gnashes its teeth? How about God?

Francis Thomson is the only one I ever

heard of - who did some thinking about this.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September 4, 2019

Thought for today: 

“Her whole life was governed by her desire not to be blamed, so she never did anything and got blamed for that.”  

Gerald Brennan, 

Thoughts in a 

Dry Season, 1979

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “I Know Who You Are?”

The man in today’s gospel from Luke 4: 31-37, the man with the demons, meets Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum and announces, “I know who you are!”

In Mark’s gospel the man in the synagogue in Capernaum is described as having demons - as well as convulsions.

I think one point is: the scribes and the Pharisees don’t get who Jesus is, but the demonized, the crazy, the poor, the sick, the unimportant people, the outsiders, they know who Jesus is.

Obviously a point I’d like to make in this homily is to ask, “Do I know Jesus? Can I say, ‘I know who Jesus is?’”

QUESTION

Stepping back a bit, can I ask, “Do I really know any other person?”

Hopefully married couples know each other.

And parents know their kids somewhat, but ….

DADDY

Two or three years ago my sister Mary was going through, sorting and tossing out old family papers.  And she found a newspaper clipping of an obituary of my father’s brother who fell off a building working construction in Pittsburgh.  Talking we figured that my dad, still single had to take a train from Manhattan, New York where he was living, to Pittsburgh, get his brother Willy’s body, and take it to Portland, Maine for burial.

Thinking about that, I said to myself, “What was my father thinking having to deal with all that?”

Thinking about that I wish I had known that.  I would have loved to know what my dad was thinking and feeling. My dad was absosultely quiet and I have to admit I didn’t know him.

I once went by bus with him from the Port Authority Bus Station to Portland Maiine. I still don’t know him - after that long time. And my dad is long dead 1970.

OBITUARY

I’m asking and addressing the question in this homily: “Do I know other people?”

I once did obituaries for our province newsletter.  Someone would die and I’d call around to get information.  Sort by accident I found out that a guy named Ed Jackson knew guys much better than anyone else. I would write up the obituary and guys would say, “Wow, Andy you really knew so and so.” I’d say, “No, I didn’t but Ed Jackson did and he wasn’t even stationed with the guy who died.”

So I guess some people know people better than other people.

BACK TO JESUS

So I’d assume that some people know Jesus better than a lot of other people.

Talk to them.

I’d assume that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did a lot of research on who Jesus was and they certainly help us to know him better. And I’d assume that each of the 4 gave their take.

I like the Myers Briggs test- and I like to think that Matthew was head, Luke Heart, Mark Hand- practical - no talk, more action and John was the dreamer, the imaginer.  So each gave their take on Jesus.

I assume this is why we come to Mass - to be with Jesus - to hear him in the gospels, to eat with him and him, and get to know him.

CONCLUSION

So can we say,  “I know who you are Jesus Christ.”          

September 3, 2019

CELL PHONES

When it comes to cell phones,

there are lots of takes. You see

some folks getting calls every

five minutes. Some answer on

the spot. Some ignore the call.

Some check who the call is from -

make a plus or minus sign with

their face - and then hit something.

Some people make comments

about  people with cell phones -

being addicted - being trapped -

being smart or being more  

concerned with the person on the

other side of the call than with the

persons they are with. Some have

not given any thought to any of this.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  3, 2019 

Thought for today: 

"Once I realized that Christianity is not a creed and that faith is more a matter of embodiment than of axioms, things changed." 

The Future of Faith 

by Harvey Cox

FIRST  CHILD

The first child gets to say 

for the rest of her life, 

“Well, I was the first child.” 

She might be the only or 

she might be the first of 

four or more - or “No more!” 

That first child has advantages 

and disadvantages - but only

time will explain this and that.

Time will tell parents about

nature versus nurture - about

God and mystery and history.

Time will tell how all this fits into

the story of our lives - in giving,

in receiving and a lot, lot more.

Time will tell that every child is a gift,

first, last, middle or only - and each of

us gets to name and describe that gift.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  2, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Work is a powerful medicine.” 

St. John Chrysostom

[c. 347-407] 

in a Homily.

37  SECOND  HOMILY

The following is a  37  second homily for this 22 Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.

When I read today’s gospel - Luke 14: 1, 7-14 - I often feel guilty. It tells the parable of not taking the top seats at the dinner table - as well as inviting the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to one’s dinner table. I can do the table placements, but I don’t do the inviting of the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, into dinner in my house.

Then it hit me, “Dummy. You’re it. You’re blind - lame - poor - crippled and Jesus has  invited you to his dinner table.

Enjoy the meal.  Enjoy his love of you. Oh.

Painting on top: Christ 

at the House of Simon

the Pharisee, by Pierre 

Subleyras, c.  1737    

READING,  WRITING AND ARITHMETIC

Everyone around the world ought to be taught a bit of reading, writing and arithmetic.  How were you taught? How were your thinkers. 

I found this teacher on line.

I want to use my blog to tag and study these two talks and lessons.

THE  NEXT  STEP 

A twig snapped - as I walked

the forest floor - telling me

how fragile my future might

be. You never know what’s

next - what might be about

to happen with my second

step or the one just after that.

If we lived our life worried

about our next step - then

we might not take that step.

We might stutter and stammer

our speech and our steps and

never get out of sight - of our

front steps or of our front door.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2019

September  1, 2019 

Thought for today: 

“Inflation is like sin; every government  denounces it and every government practices it.” 

Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, 

Observer,  June 30, 1957