RESTLESS
"Unrest of spirit is a mark of life."
Karl Menninger [1893-1990], This Week, October 16, 1958
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
THE FLIP SIDE
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 23 Wednesday in Ordinary Time is, “The Flip Side!”
We know there’s another side - the other side of the story or what have you. We might not see it, because it’s often the hidden side - but if we did see it, we might not see the side we’re seeing.
One of life’s great lessons is that we all don’t see the same thing the same way. It all depends on who we are, where we stand, and a hundred dozen other things. My right is your left and your left is my right - and vice versa. Is that right? What’s left to say?
The classic example for this is: “How long a minute takes depends on what side of the bathroom door you’re on.” Or, “How long a sermon takes depends on which side of the pulpit you’re on.” Or “Walk a mile in the other person’s flip flops!”
I couldn’t find the history of the word “flip” as in flipping pancakes so as to cook the other side or as in the job of flipping hamburgers at Burger King.
Flip means to turn over - to reverse - to making cook both sides of the pancake - to make sure both sides are heard - that all sides are seen or considered.
I don’t know about you, but this is one of life’s lessons that I learned. People can get stuck if they just seei one side of a story or suggestion or hope. Sometimes they fail to flip things over and see another’s point of view or another side of the question or answer or what have you.
Sometimes those who don’t like second opinions or other possibilities get angry at the person who brings up alternatives. They might call that other person flippant.
Life is interesting.
Sometimes there are two drivers in the same car - and sometimes there are people in the back seat and everyone has different opinions and directions on how to get to the same place.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
In today’s gospel - Luke 6: 20-30 - Jesus gives 4 beatitudes and 4 woes.
Luke is flipping words and images around - hoping some will land on listener’s minds.
Like Matthew, Luke takes some words of Jesus and flips them around to get his message across to the Christian community he’s speaking to.
Take Jesus’ beatitudes. Matthew in his presentation of the Sermon on the Mount has Jesus speaking just to his disciples [Matthew 5:1b]. Luke has Jesus preaching to his disciples and to everyone - but on the plain [Luke 6: 17].
The key is to hear the words - not to be worried by the geography or the setting - but to be challenged by the message - and see what Jesus wants us to consider.
Reading Jesus’ 4 beatitudes and 4 woes or Matthew’s 8 beatitudes of Jesus, we might start thinking that maybe the poor are happier than the rich.
It might sound flippant, but maybe the hungry don’t get fed up with slow waiters and waitresses - because they can’t afford an expensive restaurant - and so they don’t have waiters and waitresses in the first place to get angry at. Or maybe they enjoy the hamburgers and fries at 5 Guys more than someone enjoys salmon at Carroll’s Creek.
Maybe the immigrant with different skin or different nose is happier than someone who is a 5th generation local because they don’t get hot and bothered with “Look at who has moved into the neighborhood.”
Luke presents Jesus’ flipping comments about the rich here in today’s gospel - and I’m sure they didn’t like it. They might be thinking he is being rather flippant.
Maybe those without something are happier than those with something. If you have nothing left to lose, you might not worry about losing something.
Scratch a brand new expensive car and you’ll get a scream. Scratch a clunker, so what else is new?
NUN IN PERU
I remember hearing a talk by a nun who was working with the poor in some city in Peru. They got robbed over and over. It was computers, TV’s, stuff. Each time they had to put out money for more locks and bars for the windows. Then after one robbery, they said, "The heck with it. If we don’t have anything, they won’t rob us any more." And it worked. I don’t know if I could do it, but it worked for them.
TITLE OF MY HOMILY
The title of my homily is: “The Flip Side.”
So a thought for the day: maybe coming up with a flippant approach to life might bring us more happiness - than if we just stick to one side and one take on what happens to us. But of course there has to be a flip side to that approach. We might become cynical or Stoical or uncaring or blah or what have you or labeled a “relativist”.
I don’t enjoy traffic jams or red lights - but maybe if I saw the flip side - the other side - I might not get upset like the person in that car behind me who seems to be hitting her steering wheel with her head. Maybe if I got the green light or there wasn’t the traffic jam - I might have gotten a ticket for speeding or had an accident - and my car flipped over.
Maybe by not getting accepted into Harvard, one gets to meet one’s future spouse at Walla Walla Community College - and it was the best thing that every happened.
The person with the great musical ear goes crazy when the piano or the singer is off key, but the person with the tin ear - might end up enjoying just about any kind of music.
I have met gourmet cooks and eaters - who look down on Taco Bell food and Taco Bell diners. Their loss - being locked into only the best.
Those who get the TV remote - if they are flippers - might catch the best plays of the day in three sports and catch scenes from two movies they love as well as hearing some news. But the flip side, they might be driving those they live with crazy.
So as Jesus did in yesterday's gospel, from time to time, it's good to step back - hide - go to the mountains - get a better seeing point - and then flip around in your mind what you're thinking and see and figuring.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
COMPLICATED OR SIMPLE?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for the 23 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Complicated or Simple?”
Have we ever said to someone or has anyone ever said to us, “Do you want the complicated or the simple version?”
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel - Luke 6: 12-19 - is rather simple. Jesus goes out to a mountain to pray. He spends the night in communion with God. Nice. A lot of people do some of that here with our Eucharistic Chapel - which is soon to be back in service.
Then at daybreak Jesus gathers together his disciples and selects 12 of them to be his apostles. He calls them on a first name basis.
Next: coming down the mountain with them he begins his ministry again. He has already done some healings and some reaching out to folks before this - but now it’s going to be big time. Then they meet a large crowd from all over the place - people who came to hear Jesus and be healed by him.
Don’t we all need those two things from Jesus: to hear him and to be healed by him? We can picture those two things. It’s simple.
TODAY’S FIRST READING
Today’s first reading - Colossians 2: 6-15: now that’s complicated.
If you listened to it carefully - did anything grab you? When I read it last night, I scratched my head each time I read it. I underlined its verbs. It has lots of verbs that are active or have a charge and some change in them: receive, walk, rooted in, built upon, establish, taught, abound, captivate, dwell, share, circumcise, uncircumcise, bury, raise, bring to life, forgive, obliterate, oppose, remove, despoil, lead.
Saint Paul announces in this letter that in Christ dwells the fullness of the deity and we share in this fullness in him. Christ brings us into God - into God’s fullness - into his power. That’s an amazing statement. That’s an amazing teaching. That’s an amazing revelation. Through our baptism - through his dying for us - we are brought into the life called “being in God in Christ.” Pinch yourself. It’s complicated. It’s a lot of words - but pinch yourself. We are in God by being in Christ.
Sometimes I picture that as standing in a gigantic power plant with all engines roaring - or standing at Niagara Falls with all the water flowing. Sometimes I picture that as being with God in the Rocky Mountains - or at the edge of the Atlantic. Smallness standing in the roar of greatness.
COMPLICATED
It’s complicated. Next I picked up Barclay - his Daily Study Bible Series - because when things are complicated or dark or cloudy, he can often give some light and insight.
However on today’s text, William Barclay makes the following comment. “There can be no doubt that for us this is one of the most difficult passages Paul ever wrote.” Then Barclay really complicates things with what he says next: “For those who heard or read it for the first time it would be crystal clear.” [1]
They would know what he is challenging them about. They knew about the teachings others were giving that Paul said were wrong.
The title of my homily is, “Complicated or Simple?”
It’s complicated - very complicated - according to Barclay because Paul says we don’t understand what these false teachings were that Paul says were causing problems in the Christian community - that was started there at Colossae.
Paul in today’s text uses the word “philosophy”. It’s the only place in the Bible that the word is used. That’s interesting. However, in the Acts of the Apostles 17:18 Paul is in Athens and he uses the world philosopher - and mentions Stoicism and Epicurean philosophy. And that’s the only place in the Bible the word “philosopher” is used.
If these were the 2 philosophies that Paul was concerned with here in the town of Colossae, things would not be too complicated - because we know what those two philosophies were about..
What the Christian community was dealing with was Gnosticism.
Gnosticism - Gnostics - are words and ideas we hear about from time to time.
Do you want the simple or the complicated take on Gnosticism?
The simple explanation is that someone gets some knowledge - that makes them feel better or smarter or more knowledgeable than others. You can hear the root word “gnosis” in the word “knowledge”. I’m in the know. You’re not. We see this same kind of behavior and thinking in most systems and organizations and not just religion. You’re dumb. I’m in the know, dummy.
The complicated explanation of Gnosticism is even more complicated because there lots of Gnostic systems - teachers and documents - and we don’t have most of their texts - and those we do have are head scratchers.
I’m sure you heard of the Gospel of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, etc.
We have those documents - but we don’t know just what the Christian Community in Colossae were facing - what leaders and what teachings in Gnosticism they were hearing and dealing with.
CONCLUSION
Now I can’t leave this hanging - after saying all those things. So how to make this practical - if possible? The Gnostics can really gum things up with some weird teachings. Let me take the verbs and the descriptions and the advice of Paul in today’s first reading and try to apply them to our lives.
So here are 3 things to do each day:
1) Receive is the first verb I choose. Mornings are for receiving: a new day, new life, a fresh start, a new again. Receive Christ each day - be in communion with him - sit with here in church or in morning prayer at home and then come down from that mountain moment of prayer and walk with Jesus each new day.
2) Build On: The next verb would be Build On. Build on yesterdays. Build for tomorrow. There are 4 verbs that have that as a theme in that first reading: plant or root in or build on or establish, or re-establish each day Christ as the foundation of my life. Paul tells us how to do that: listen to Christ as teacher. That’s just what that crowd was doing in today’s gospel. So we listen to the scriptures - see the messages in the Bible as seeds - planted in our field - and water them, work them, and be grateful for the fruit that appears.
3) Cut - the verbs used in that first reading are: circumcise, strip, bury. Each day we can cut out the hurts, the digs, and listen to the other. It’s Jesus call to die to self so others can rise.
Or to try to finally make the complicated simple here are 3 gestures:
[1) Hands out and open in receiving gesture- each new day as a morning prayer.] Then say “receive!”
[2) Hands hammering gesture.] Then say, “Work, work! Build. Build. Plant. Plant!”
[3) Hands cutting - fingers like a pair of scissors gesture.] Then say, “Cut! Cut!”
“I hope that’s simpler!
NOTES
[1] William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, Westminster Press, 1975, page 134
REGRETS
Quote for Today - September 6, 2011
"Regrets are as personal as fingerprints."
Margaret Culkin Banning in Reader's Digest, October 1958, "Living With Regrets."
Questions:
Looking at your life, name your greatest regret. Write it down - which will help you face it rather clearly.
Have you ever told folks - especially those very close to you - what that regret was?
Tell another, unless it could hurt another, what your regret or regrets are - and see if his opens up them - or maybe ask another what their regrets are - and if they start telling you some - then ask what the biggest one was.
You could even talk about resentments.
Okay, you don't want a pity party, so talk about accomplishments or life's surprises - or ask, "Did any good come from your regret?"
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