UNCONTROLLABLE: WORDS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 19th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Uncontrollable: Words.”
I’m preaching this homily to myself this morning, because I want to get a handle on something that I find very difficult to control: words.
One of life’s lessons is the reality that once words are out there, out of our mouth, we can’t control them. I don’t golf or bowl, but I’ve tried both a few times way back when. I learned that once the ball is off the tee and into the air, it’s out of my control, so too a bowling ball. I can try to give them a good send off, but once they are gone - they are gone - out of my control. That’s obvious.
This is obviously obvious about words. Once they are out there - what we said can be interpreted in a way we didn’t intend - or words can be twisted intentionally or unintentionally - misunderstood or understood.
So my first thought is: "One of life’s lessons is the reality that words are uncontrollable. They are slippery eels."
OTHER PEOPLE ALSO HAVE MOUTHS
That's us. What about others? We can’t control the words of others - what comes out of their mouths.
That is also very obvious and it can be a bummer.
Remember Art Linkletter’s old line, “Kids say the darndest things.” So too priests, so too husbands, so too wives, so too parents, uncles, aunts, the other person. You never know what the other might say.
How many times in a week, do we say, “I wish he didn’t say that!”?
HERE AT ST. MARY’S
If we say something in the pulpit that someone doesn’t like, sometimes they put their objection into words. Sometimes the pastor receives an e-mail or a letter or a phone call from the listener. It was Father Jack Kingsbury’s policy to forward the e-mail or letter to the priest with the complaint.
I don’t know what the new pastor, Father John Tizio, will have as his policy, but I assume it will be roughly the same. I’ve received a few of them. I didn’t like them, but it’s good that people have a chance to comment or voice their complaint to the priest in person and articulate what bugged them.
Not everyone likes the words that fly through the air. We all remember the proverbial, “I shot an arrow into the air ….”
However, words are what make us human - and communication is all about human words - as well as about the person on the other side of the tongue and ear.
QUESTION - TODAY’S FIRST READING
Maybe you're wondering: What triggered this question and topic about "Uncontrollable: words?"
I assume that people who come to daily mass have the assumption that the priest will say a few words about the readings or a reading.
Well when I read today’s first reading, I said to myself, “Oh no! No! No. No. Not again!”
Today’s first reading - Deuteronomy 31: 1-8 - is one more reading where it has God zapping and destroying people.
I remember a rabbi saying to me that I have to read the Koran - if I am going to be a priest in today’s world. So I bought a Koran and read it. I began to notice example after example of God burning and destroying people and the call to exterminate people.
I began wondering: Is this Islam? Is this why there was September 11th or what have you? Then I began noticing that our scriptures have some of the same violence - God destroying people.
Another two questions popped up: Should we avoid all these texts? Should we only use texts that say just the opposite?
Thinking about all this: I couldn’t come up with a good reason for us to proclaim this violence in church. Should there be censorship? Should we avoid these R Rated readings - R for Violence.
Who would be the censor? Is the plan to put it all out on the table?
Nope. I assume the reason is because the Catholic Church decided to give the People the whole Bible over 2 and 3 year periods. Once you decide that, then there are some readings some people will like and there are some readings people won’t like.
Of course, at weddings and funerals people get to pick - sometimes or most of the time - in some places.
In the meanwhile we get all these readings from Jesus telling folks to put down the rocks and the swords along with texts about hellfire and the grinding of teeth and people being wiped out.
UNCONTROLLABLE
Then once more it hit me loud and clear, I have no control over any of this.
And the more I learn that I have no control over the readings at Mass - plus how people hear the readings at Mass - the more peaceful I can be.
The message is loud and clear: I can’t get my way. This is the way life works.
As priest I still hear people complaining about what some nun taught them in catechism as a kid and it drove them away from church - or made them scrupulous - that everything is sinful. Why do they keep on picking on nuns? What about all the good they did?
They pick on priests as well. There is always the someone who was hurt by something a priest said to them in confession. Or someone mentions how their outlook on God is a hell and damnation God - because of words they heard years ago from the pulpit.
One of my favorite string of words is from the Talmud: "Teach thy tongue to say, 'I do not know!'"
Maybe I ought to follow: "Teach thy mind to say: 'It's out of your control.'"
Control. Uncontrollable. It’s life.
Who can control the wind? Who can control the words? Who can control the reactions?
Okay we can turn off the TV or turn off some of what we’re taking in - but I’m saying here, to be human is to enter into the world of thoughts and words.
So sometimes I can’t even control my own mouth - let alone my thoughts and judgments and distractions.
And obviously, I can’t control what comes out of other people’s mouth.
Someone just mentioned yesterday that he heard on EWTN that a priest said that getting a tattoo is sinful - because it’s destroying one’s body. “Is that true?”
I said, “I disagree.”
I wasn’t going to get into that one.
Afterwards I said to myself, “Good move keeping your mouth shut - except for 2 words!” Then I laughed to myself, “If that’s what the guy heard the priest say on TV, I’m sure I’ll hear that question or comment again.”
Well, if anything, that comment will get people to think. It will get people to say to themselves, “You don't have to believe everything you hear on TV or from the pulpit.”
Think. Process. Go figure. Talk. Communicate. Read. Study. Google. Learn.
No kidding.
I can also hear people thinking: “What are they going to say next: pierced ears are wrong too? Try that one and see if the fund raising goes down. As to the tattoos, it will be a conversation starter for the next 50 years. Mommy what were you thinking when you got that tattoo on your back?”
CONCLUSION
So I have no control over what others say - only what I say or don’t say - and only sometimes.
That would be the message I am talking out loud about today.
Driving back today I might say to myself, “Dumb move with that sermon. It was too, too wordy. You could have said what you said in 25 words or less - or talked about the Gospel and the Kids or Lost Sheep."
Yet I think it’s something worth addressing - and talking about - because when we forget this reality about, “Uncontrollable: Words” - we get ourselves upset from time to time - and sometimes big time.
Then I laughed again, because I then said to myself, “Actually, after we get over being the little children Jesus talks about in today’s gospel. [Matthew 18: 1-5] we are all called to grow up and become adults who know that much of life is all our of our control. It’s uncontrollable. Amen.”
