WHAT’S INSIDE THE BOX?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time [B] is, “What’s Inside the Box?”

Here's a box. [SHOW SMALL WHITE BOX] What's inside it? I'm not going to tell you till the end of my homily. Boo! Bummer!

How many times have we looked at a box and wondered, "What’s inside?"

It could be a box the UPS or Fed Ex driver is bringing to the door of a neighbor. It could be a gift in a wrapped box at Christmas or at our birthday. It could be a box in a bottom drawer we discovered after the second of our parents died and we are sorting out their stuff. It could be a box on a chair next to a stranger across from us at the airport. What’s inside the box?

Who invented boxes - if they could be called an invention? What have they been made of? What will they look like in the year 5012? Did a caveman give a gift in some kind of homemade box to his cavewoman?

To be human is to give gifts in boxes. To be human is to want to surprise another and see their face as they open up a gift. To be human is store stuff in boxes. To be human is to want strong boxes for special things that we want to keep safe - maybe even calling the box, “Our Keepsake Box” or simply call it a “Safe”.

To be human is to wonder what’s inside the box? We’re inquisitive. We’re nosy. We guess. We’re intrigued. The little kid on December 23 - when nobody is looking - sneaks to gifts under the Christmas Tree and shakes the boxes with his or her name on them - and maybe even the boxes of others. Maybe even grannies do the same at a nursing home Christmas tree.

What’s inside the box?

WHY A HOMILY ON BOXES?

Yesterday I read today’s readings carefully and thought about them? I said my regular prayer for an insight that would be interesting and helpful for all of us.

I checked out what I preached on these readings in the past - in my computer box that has over 3,000 past homilies.  I like to be come up with a new homily. Here at St. Mary’s Saturday lunch and supper and Sunday lunch we have leftovers - but on Sunday night we like to go out - date night - and it’s nice to have a fresh Cobb Salad or ravioli or hamburger or what have you. I can’t cook. I don't like to cook. However, I like to try to cook up a sermon that has something to digest - even something to chew on. Nobody likes gristle in their roast beef - and sometimes someone tells me something I said was confusing. That's gristle. We want something to nourish us. I’m not trying to be self serving here - but I do want to serve up the Word of God as best I can. Come Holy Spirit.

Today’s gospel is one of 5 consecutive Sunday readings from the Sixth Chapter of John on the Eucharist. I could continue to go there. The Mass is a meal and Jesus the Lamb of God is our nourishment and our strength. Today’s first reading from First Kings mentions food as well - food for the journey. It has the story of Elijah running and escaping King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Today he rests under the Broom Tree. Resting under a tree is a great image - but I preached three variations on that theme the last three times we had these readings - that is 3, 6, and 9 years ago.

So I decided to take a hard look at today’s second reading from Ephesians 4: 30 - 5:2 - to shop for a sermon there. The word “sealed” grabbed me - “EspHragiSTHETE” in Greek. Paul uses the image that all of us are like a document or a sack that is sealed. Those seeing the seal - those reading the seal - know this is the real deal. We have been sealed. Then he talks about what should be inside the document called “me.” Inside should be the good stuff: kindness to each other, compassion, forgiveness and love. He says that we grieve the Holy Spirit if inside of us instead is: bitterness, fury, anger, a reviling attitude, and evil malice.

That’s a clear contrast there. Paul - Jesus - various  writers and prophets in the scriptures - like to give such lists.  

As I reflected upon that image of a sealed document, it hit me: use the image of a box. That would be understood today more than those sealed with wax documents that are in some movies about earlier times. We buy boxes of this and packages of that in the supermarket or drugstore and we check that they are sealed - not tampered with.

So that’s the genesis of this homily entitled, “What’s Inside the Box?”

What’s inside me? What’s inside you? It’s show time. It’s show and tell time.

If I sat down and wrote a letter or a document that described me. “Dear Everybody: this is me. This is my autobiography. This is where I came from. This is how I got here. These are my moments. These are my discoveries. These are my ingredients. This is what makes me tick. These are my dreams. These are my disasters. These are my learnings. This is what I hope my legacy will be.” Then as I looked at it, as I reread it, do I see the Spirit of God sealing it? Or as Paul begins today’s second reading from his Letter to the Ephesians. would it  grieve the Spirit to read our life? Or the contrast as he ends today’s second reading, would the finished copy of our life sitting there on our kitchen table - would it have a fragrant aroma. Isn’t that a nice image? Have you ever opened up the Sunday papers or a magazine and you smell a sweet aroma and you say, “What’s that? Where’s that coming from?”  Surprise it’s one of those scratch off perfume ads stuck in the adds or in a magazine.

Surprise! Wouldn’t it be great if people who know and love us tell others behind our back their take on us: “What a gift! What a sweet person!”

Wouldn’t it be horrible if people who know us and read our lives describe us in these two words: “He stinks!”

POETRY AND SONGS: WHAT’S IN THE BOX

There are various songs and poems that use the image of the box - to describe a person.

We marry each other, because we think the other is a gift.

We stay married to each other, when we discover the gift keeps on getting better with the years. We discover the other is not the wrapping or the box, but the gift inside.

We grow when the other grows. They grow when we grow. The marriage is working. The family is working. Those who know us think and sometimes say, “What a great family!”

What a great company! What a great neighborhood! What a great parish!

We hate it when we discover that the gift wasn’t what we expected - worse, that the gift keeps on getting worse. Bummer. Ugly.

What’s in the box?

BACK TO TODAY’S SECOND READING FROM EPHESIANS

Paul placed two boxes in front of us today.

One smells sweet. One stinks.  Which is me?

One is filled with bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling and malice.

The other is filled with kindness to each other, compassion, forgiving one another, and living in love - as Christ loved us - that is, making sacrifices to God and each other with love.

Clear choices. Clear menu. We know both.

CONCLUSION

Not so clear is the story of Elijah in today’s first reading.  Ahab’s soldiers are tracking him down. He sits under the broom tree in the desert - finds there a bread like substance and a jug of water. He eats, drinks, rests and is restored. He gets up and gets moving again - nourished - but what the future holds is not clear cut.

In today’s gospel the crowd is murmuring against Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They can’t see him as more than Jesus - whose parents are Mary and Joseph.”

They box him out or box him in - and can’t see him as the gift he is.

They can’t hear his words that he is the gift from God the Father to our world - the gift of eternal life - the bread of life - that has come down from heaven - that those who eat this bread will live forever - that this bread is the flesh of Jesus for the life of the world.

At the end of John 6 - we’ll hear this two Sundays from now - many rejected this gift of Jesus and walked away. They really hadn’t opened up the box, the gift that Jesus is - and savored his sweetness - and let his aroma fill their lives.

We’re here Jesus. We’re here to taste and eat how good you are. Amen.

We're here to become better gifts to be opened up for each other. Amen.

[SHOW SMALL WHITE BOX] Now what's in this box?  Answer: nothing. Boo! Bummer. The gift that was in it is somewhere else. 

Is there a possible message here? It's very difficult to put this into words or pull this off. On Easter Sunday morning they went to the sealed cave to anoint Jesus.  The grave, the cave, was empty. The box was empty. Jesus had risen from the cave, grave, earth, his before, to a new phenomenn - to become the Risen Lord and his presence fills not just the earth - but the Universe - the All - the Pleroma - as Paul called it. And that presence surrounds us right here - right now - once we accept - meet - and move into communion with Christ - over and over again - in the Bread, in our neighbor - especially the poor, the sick, the hungry, the jailed, the hurting - and in the Depths and Center of the Trinity. Amen.

MONOPOLY 

THE GAME OF LIFE?

Quote for Today - August 12,  2012


"Then one day it stops.  Other people keep going. Somewhere on the board, somebody is just getting started. But for you, the game is over. Did you play wisely? We all want God, Anne Lamott writes, but left to our own devices, we seek all the worldly things - possessions, money, looks, and power - because we think they will bring us fulfillment. 'But this turns out to be a joke, because they are just props, and when we check out of this life, we have to give them all back to the great prop master in the sky. They're just on loan. They're not ours.' They all go back in the box."


John Ortberg, When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In the Box, page 16, 2007. I'd recommend this book by John Ortberg. He begins with the image of playing Monopoly with his grandmother - and all she taught him. On the cover of the book is the wooden letter holder from the game called Scrabble. Check it out. What's in your box? What games are you playing? Are you winning? Losing? How much longer will the game go on? What have you learned in the moves?  I bought this book in a bookstore in Ireland and remembered it when I was working on my sermon for this Sunday: "What's Inside The Box?"

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YOUTH AND TRAGEDY

Quote for Today - August 11, 2012

"The deepest definition of youth is, life as yet untouched by tragedy."

Alfred North Whitehead [1861-1947],  Adventures of Ideas, 1933



Discussion points: 

Name the 3 most significant tragedies in your life?

Name some specific learnings from each tragedy?

Ask another who knows you what they think are the tragedies of your life?

Don't interrupt the other in the telling. Give them time. Give them a week or a month. You can ask them why they think the way they think - and how they saw you reacting, recoiling, recovering, resenting specific tragedies. Don't invite yourself to tell them what you think are their key tragedies - unless the other invites you.

Do you agree with Whitehead's thesis?

If you didn't bring faith into your comments and learnings, what would that be like looking at each tragedy?

WILLING

TO DIE TO GIVE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for the feast of St. Lawrence is, “Willing to Die to Give.”

Having read the readings and reflecting on the life and death of St. Lawrence, I wasn’t sure just what title to give to a homily for today.

I toyed with the words, “Dying”, “Giving,” and “Willing.”

So I settled on the sentence, “Willing To Die To Give.”

Am I willing each today to die to myself by giving to others of me, myself, and my time and my life?

TODAY IS THE FEAST OF ST. LAWRENCE

St. Lawrence the Deacon was willing to die to give his life for others and for Christ.

He didn’t just die for a theology or an ideology. Those who killed him thought the Church had treasures to be grabbed - and so they grabbed Lawrence to get the gold. We’ve often heard that St. Lawrence pointed out: “Yes we have treasures. They are the poor.”

We’ve all heard the Early Church teaching that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Dictators have often hesitated to kill leaders who opposed them - lest they make martyrs of them.

So St. Lawrence, one of early deacons in Rome, died for the cause of Christ. He gave his life for his community.

He knew Jesus’ words, “Greater love than this no one has than to lay down their life for their friends.”

Lawrence knew the words of today’s gospel, that the grain of wheat must die - otherwise it just sits there. But if it’s planted in the field - it will die and rise bringing forth a harvest of wheat for our world.

Lawrence knew the words of today’s first reading from 2 Corinthians 9:6,  “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Lawrence was burnt to death - and the joke we hear every year - is part of the our Church Tradition. He supposedly said to his torturers who had him on a cooking grill. He said, “Turn me over! I’m done on this side.”

TITLE OF MY HOMILY

The title of my homily is, “Willing to Die to Give.”

Each day we are given the seed of 24 hours. What do we plant with those moments of time?

Each life has talents to give - and we have energy to burn - for whom and for what? If we give, if we’re willing to make sacrifices, if we’re willing to be unselfish, then life becomes better for those around us.

This message of being willing to give - to die to oneself to give - is at  the center of Christianity. This is  the meaning of Christ. This is the meaning of the cross - here big time in this church with our big cross - but we also see the cross at the beginning and end of a rosary, on walls. It’s the sign made on us at baptism. It’s the gesture and the sign we make each time we come to church.

We see it in the Eucharist - the result of wheat seed that died - by being planted in the soil - and we benefit from that death - because the wheat grew and was harvested and made into flour and made bread.

CONCLUSION

Let me close by pointing out that this vestment I’m wearing is red - the color of martyrs. That’s obvious, but what you can’t see is that this vestment has sown on the inside the words, “In memory of John Ginley.”  He was a New York Fireman who died on the job at the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11^th. He and his 3 brothers - used to come on retreat with their dad - all firemen - to our retreat house at San Alfonso West End N.J. - when I was stationed there in the 1970’s.

We have in our midst and around the world, people who are willing to die by giving of themselves each day. Question: Am I willing to die each day - so that new life is given to the world each day?

O O O O O O O 

PAINTING ON TOP: "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," disputed Caravaggio painting.

JUST DO IT!

Quote for Today  August 10, 2012

"This is the Thing that I was born to do."

Samuel Daniel [1562-1619], Musophilus  [1599], Stanza 100


Questions:

Have you ever said to yourself in private the quote given above?

If someone asked you, "Why were you born?", what would be your answer?

Did you ever say the above quote - but later learned to take it back?



Image on Top: Samuel Daniel, Front piece engraving from the Civile Ware [1609] by Thomas Coxson. 

ARGUMENTS

Quote for Today  August 9, 2012

"You don't have to attend every argument you're invited to."

Submitted to Guildposts - August 2012 - by Brenda Ashford

ILLUSION

Quote for Today  August 8,  2012

"Rob the average person of their life-illusion, and you rob them of their happiness."

Henrik Ibsen [1826-1906] The Wild Duck, Act. V.


Questions:

Is that line from one of Ibsen's play true for you - based on your observations about life - self and others?

If it's a life illusion, could someone know it before their end? 

Are there little illusions - besides big illusions - besides the big, big life illusion Ibsen might be referring to?  Have you experienced the unmasking or the discovery of some illusions - name them?