COMPARISONS

INTRODUCTION

The title, topic, and theme of my homily for this 22   Friday in Ordinary Time  is, “Comparisons.”

A life skill we all need is, “How To Deal With Comparisons.”

It’s a life skill we need as little kids – when a brother or sister or another gets a bigger piece of cake – or a corner piece of cake with more frosting.

It’s a life skill we all need as little old people when we’re shrinking or have more wrinkles or health problems than others.

It’s a life skill we need when others are talking about their wonderful kids or grandkids – their successes, their salaries, their status in life – and our kids – well, a few of them we consider unmentionable.

Comparisons…. Comparisons …. Comparisons ….

And then there’s death…. Sometimes they are a blessing compared to other’s; sometimes they feel like a curse.

God help me learn to deal with comparisons.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel- Luke 5: 33-39 - has the scribes – they’re the ones with the education – and the Pharisees – they’re the picky, picky religious perfect ones. Today they are about to nit pick on Jesus. They are comparing John the Baptist’s disciples and their disciples to his disciples. They are sliding in the innuendo that Jesus disciples are having too good a time in life – and they don’t fast and pray enough.

Comparisons…. Comparisons …. Comparisons….

So Jesus throws them a comparison right back into their talk and thinking patterns, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”

Translation: Lighten up turkeys. Lighten up! Celebrate!

Then he says, “Okay there will be days when it’s time to fast – when the bridegroom is gone – but not now, turkeys.”

Picture a sweet wedding celebration on a Saturday in September. Then picture people showing up with Ash Wednesday ashes on. It doesn't compute. 

Then Jesus compares old cloth and new cloth – old wine and new wine – old wine skins and new wine skins.

The new is the new and the old is the old.

Sometimes one is better than the other.

Think turkeys, think.

Comparisons …. Comparisons ….  Comparison ….

I once heard a series of talks by a well-known Catholic speaker. He kept saying in talk after talk after talk that life is a battle. Every day we got to wake up and enter the battlefield.

I finally raised my hand. I asked him,  “Do you really see every day as a battle?”

He answered, “Everyday!”

So I said, “I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree with your metaphor, your comparison - and how you see life.”

I think of Father Al Rush – an old priest I used to work with – who often said, “Andy, I don’t think God wants life to be as tough, tough, tough – rough, rough, rough – as some people make it.”

COMPARISONS CAN CRUSH

Comparisons can crush. 

Comparisons can cut. 

Comparisons can also be creative.

The house next door can have a great lawn – and a good paint job – and some nice Japanese Maple Trees and hedges and flowers – and my place can be a mess. If my neighbor’s property gets me to do some yard work – getting me and my  lawns - front and back – in better shape – along with my tummy – great.

If it gets me complaining – tearing him or her or them down – then not so great.

Comparisons can crush. 

Comparisons can cut.

A priest once told me that he was standing in the back of the church – ready to proceed down the aisle for the Mass. The Cantor and Singer welcomes everyone. Then she asked everyone to silence all electronic devices. Then she said, “Our celebrant is __________” At that, hearing the priest’s name, someone said rather loud, “Oh no!”

How’s that for a comparison that cut and crushed.

LAST NIGHT – PEACE

Last night at St. John Neumann there was a service for peace.

Some lady afterwards said, “Where was everybody? How come the kids weren’t here? How come their parents weren’t here?”

I said, “Jesus said, ‘Feed the sheep. Don’t count the sheep!'”

I didn’t go much further in our at the back on the way out of church conversation – but I wondered if that was her life – always comparing what is with what isn’t. Does this cause her regular agita of the soul.

Envy is wanting what the other person has: looks, car, kids, spouse, beautiful skin, clothes, property, you name it. Underneath envy is comparisons.  Comparing myself to what another has. I want that.

It’s at the underneath of war – and world problems.

It’s at the underneath of why there is a lack of peace.

Jealousy is wanting to hold on to, protect, what I have and not wanting to lose it to another.  At the bottom of that is also comparisons. 

Envy and jealousy and comparisons – all have to be put on the table for discussion when it comes to war and peace.

CONCLUSION

Comparisons can crush and they can be creative.

In the meanwhile: the question – Am I a happy camper?

I think that’s a key life question: “Am I a happy camper?”

Be who you is, because if you be who you ain't, then you ain't who you is.

Be where you is, because if you be where you’re not, then you’re not where you is.

And one last  great secret of happiness from Thornton Wilder.

Haven’t we gone out to supper with others, who don’t enjoy their meal because our meal – on our plate looks better.

Well a character in Thornton Wilder’s play, The Skin of our Teeth, 1942, Act 1, says a line I love, “My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate that’s my philosophy.”

It’s also my theology.

HELP!

Poem For Today - September 5, 2014

HELP

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone,
Help!

When I was younger

so much younger than today
I never needed

anybody's help in any way
But now these days are gone.

I'm not so self-assured
Now I find I've changed my mind

and opened up the doors

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways
My independence seems to vanish in the haze
But every now and then I feel so insecure
I know that I just need you like I've never done before

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in anyway.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?
Help me,
Help me,
Ooooooo. "Help!"

© John Lennon wrote

this song, but it’s

credited to Lennon-

McCartney.

HAVING AN 

IMPULSE FOR PEACE 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my reflection for this evening "Prayer Service for Peace" is, “Having An Impulse for Peace.”

My take on this evening is that we are here to take an hour to be peaceful – to be with each other and pray – to sing – to hope - for peace.

I’m assuming all peacemaking – like all politics – remembering what Tip O’Neill famously said: “All politics is local politics” – I want to say, “All peacemaking is local peacemaking.”  That means working to be peaceful with family, neighbors, and the folks one is with in local traffic and one’s own workplace. 

Better: I’ll go a step further and say, “All local peacemaking is inner self peace making.” As the song we’re going to sing at the end of our service tonight goes, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

I’m also assuming that the impulse for this evening is that the world – right  now - seems rather antsy and angry – with too much agita and aggression.

Antsy – angry – agitated – aggressive – all words beginning with A.

I’m sure we could also move to words beginning with the letter B: belligerence - bullying – battles - bombs – and we could move to C and D and all the way to Z.

I don’t know about you – but I’m nervous around zealots.

The Letter “P ”also has it’s words: peace, prayer, pause, presence.

We’re assuming that tonight we’re not the only ones in sacred places – being peaceful and praying for peace in our world – aware of each other.

Ferguson – Ukraine – Iraq – Syria – Lybia – Somalia -  déjà vu and déjà vu after déjà vu – over and over again.

It’s 2014. We're 100 years after the start of World War I – in which 10 million military people and 7 million civilians were killed – and the seeds for World War II were planted.

It’s 2014.  200 years ago – in December  - the day before Christmas - of that year - the War of 1812 ended – after 2 ½ years of fighting. And unfortunately  –  the Battle of New Orleans was fought in January of 1815 – because news of  the Treaty of Ghent had not reached  the British in the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana nor Andrew Jackson yet.

It’s 2014 – 150 years after the 4^th year of the United States Civil War.

That’s world news – that’s old news….

I’m sitting there watching the 10 o’clock evening news out of Philadelphia with my sister, my brother-in-law and their son Gerard. At 10 PM Gerard says, “What are watching this for?”

I’m sure he wanted a baseball game instead.

He went on, “Why are we watching this? The first three stories are going to be 3 murders in Philadelphia and Camden, then a fire, and then another murder or a robbery.”

Sure enough. That night it was 4 murders and 2 fires.

I never forgot that observation by my nephew Gerard.

It must be the easy way to do the evening news: because it seems that’s the same formula for the 10 o’clock evening news out of Baltimore each night as well.

I have never watched the 10 PM news in Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas or L.A. – yet I assume that’s the evening news there too.

What’s it like to watch the local evening news in Bogota or Barcelona, Mumbai or Moscow?

Do those who watch World News have the same “uh!” and “Oh no!” feelings all over the world?

Lately the lead stories on the 6:30 or 7 PM World News – seem to have more news  about non-peaceful moments – and so we gather here tonight.

THE COMMITTEE

The committee that met to pray and prepare for this meeting tonight  provided some talking points about peace – and gave them to me. Thank you. May every group and organization do the same.

THE TITLE OF MY THOUGHTS

The title of my thoughts for this evening is: “The Impulse for Peace.”

I noticed on the program that one of the action steps for after this meeting – after this get together – is that people make a One Minute Prayer for Peace Every Day at Noon.

That’s doable. I’ll try that.

That’s workable. I’ll practice that.

I know somewhere along the line – amongst other things – in the morning after I wake up – and get out of bed – I pull the blinds in my room – look out to see what kind of a day it is – and I do 74 – extended arm lifting exercises. 74 is my age. I started doing that when I was 33 or 34 – with 33 arm things – and each year on my birthday I add one more. It works. It has become second nature.

Somewhere along the line I also found myself standing there in the dark before getting into bed at night – stretching out my arms. I then say the Our Father out loud. Then I do 3 genuflections – one to the Father, one to the Son, and one to the Holy Spirit. I thank them for a good day. That’s been going on for some 40 years or so.

[Gesture showing muscles] If you too want muscles like I have, there's the secret.

Years and years ago an old man – on the Tennessee Border -  probably younger than I am now – told me that every morning – when he wakes up – he keeps his eyes closed – and wiggles his toes. If they wiggle, he told me, he says to God, “Thank You God for another day of life.”

So now tonight – September 4, 2014 – someone is going to suggest every day at noon from now on to say a One Minute Prayer for Peace. Who knows, maybe 50 years from now – all of you – well some of us – will still be doing that – starting tomorrow at noon?

Since the title of my thoughts for this evening is: “The Impulse for Peace”, may I suggest beginning this way: take your pulse. [Gesture] Catch your pulse – pulsing – pulsing – pulsing. Thank God you’re alive. That’s one of things they check when it looks like we’re leaving this life.

Then after saying, “Thank You God that I’m alive” or however you want to word it, ask the Lord for impulses for peace.

Each noon time monitor what your day has been like so far?  What have been your impulses: antsy – anger – agitation – aggression.

Or peace, prayer, pause, presence to the people we’re with?

THREE TYPES OF PEOPLE

I noticed in the “Talking Points About Peace” that the committee came up with  – there is mention of 3 Types of People.”

I always like People Typing Tests – because they get me to think. Which one am I? Jesus offered at least 7 people typing in his parables.[1]

This 3 Types of People When It Comes to Peace labels them this way: Peace-Breakers, Peace-Fakers, and Peace-Makers.

Right now put your thumb on your pulse and listen to your heart: which of these three impulses is more you?

The Peace-Breakers confront, cause agita, division, disagreements. They are manipulative, witch hunt, gossip, slander, are opinionated, and judgmental. They tear down – cause friction, and are mouthy. Thank God none of us here tonight are like that.  I love that old saying, “There are two types of people, ‘Those who cause happiness wherever they go and those who cause happiness whenever they go.”

The Peace-Fakers want harmony, peace at all costs, no violence, no hostility, but avoid allowing interpersonal or international relationships. They won’t or don’t want to deal with justice issues – the deeper issues – and so they come up with a counterfeit peace. I was trying to remember the peace diagram I heard in some talk – some years ago. For peace, everyone needs to be in on a piece of the action, get a piece of the pie, so as to have peace of mind. I think there were two more pieces to that – but I only  remember 2 pieces: the giving everyone a piece of the pie and everyone a piece of the action. In other words, if we don’t get everything out on the table – we’ll end up having a nice peaceful looking pond – but lurking in that water are lots of sharks and alligators.

The Peace Makers are the good gals and good guys. They are the peace makers that Jesus said they are blessed. The info the committee game me said that they respect, think before they speak, and don’t have the outcome all figured out before we begin to be with each other.   They also experience the cross – the great symbol here in this church. We all want it this way – and surprise someone right there across from us at the table – wants it another way.  Life is loaded with cross purposes. Sometimes peace makers are crucified. Look at Christ. Case in point.

So when we take our pulse each day – at noon – take also a pulse on what our predominating impulses are flowing through our blood that day – that moment. Then pause and pray.

Some days – let’s be honest – we’re peace breakers. Some days we are peace fakers. To be honest, some days I just don’t have the time right now – to sit down and talk with so and so – and some days – hopefully – most days – we can be blessed peace makers.

CONCLUSION

And in that one minute at noon each day – to smile – because we’re not in this alone. We’re with each other as we are tonight. Amen.

+++++++++

[This was a talk I gave last night - at a Prayer Service for Peace -  September 4, 2014 at St. John Neumann Church, Annapolis, Maryland.]

NOTES

[1] Let me see how many I can find: 

• Fasting: Gloomy or Clean Faced Matthew 6:16-18;
• Narrow Gate or Wide Gate? Matthew 7:13-14
• House on Rock or House on Sand? Matthew 7:24-27;
• Good Tree - Bad Tree Matthew 12:33-37;
• Parable of Sower - 4 types? Matthew 13: 1-9
• Wheat or Weed? Matthew 13: 24-30-Matthew 13: 36-43;
• Workers in the Vineyard? Different Hours? Matthew 20: 1-16
• Two Sons - Yes or No? Matthew 21: 28-28-32;
• Faithful or Unfaithful Servant? Matthew 24: 45-51;
• Wise Virgin or Foolish Virgin? Matthew 25: 1-13; 
• Three Servants  Given Talents According to Ability - Matthew 25: 14-30;
• Sheep or Goat? Matthew 25: 31-46;
• Good Samaritan? Which of the 4 Characters am I? Luke 10:29-37;
• Martha or Mary? Luke 10: 38-42;
• Regular Sheep or Lost Sheep? Luke 15: 1-7;
• Prodigal Son, Older Brother or Father Luke 15: 11-32;
• Rich Man or Lazarus? Luke 16: 19-31;
• 10 Men Healed of Leprosy? Luke 17: 11-19;
• Pharisee or Tax Collector? Luke 18: 9-14;

ME AND YOU! 

ENLIGHTEN ME! 

Poem - September 4, 2014

SUBURBAN WIFE'S SONG 

When you are gone, I lie upon your bed

And you are there, dark as the light of stars,

Closer than measurements of heart, and loud

With the silences of all our daily years;

And then the door key, lights in the living room,
The slamming wood, the briefcase on the floor,

The way you say, "Where's everyone? I'm home" -

And do not know how far you are.

© Robert Hutchinson,

pp. 690-691 in

The New Yorker 

Book of Poems, 1974

Painting: Room 
in New York, 1932
 by Edward Hopper

A HILL JUST  TO THE LEFT 

OF THE  ROAD 

NORTH OF POUGHKEEPSIE 

Poem for Today - September 3, 2014

A HILL

In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur,

I had a vision once—though you understand

It was nothing at all like Dante's, or the visions of saints,

And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends,

Picking my way through a warm, sunlit piazza

In the early morning. A clear fretwork of shadows

From huge umbrellas littered the pavement and made

A sort of lucent shallows in which was moored

A small nayy of carts. Books, coins, old maps,

Cheap landscapes, and ugly religious prints

Were all on sale. The colors and noise,

Like the flying hands, were gestures of exultation,

So that even the bargaining

Rose to the ear like a voluble godliness.

And then, when it happened, the noises suddenly stopped,

And it got darker; pushcarts and people dissolved,

And even the great Farnese Palace itself

Was gone, for all its marble; in its place

Was a hill, mole-colored and bare. It was very cold,

Close to freezing, with a promise of snow.

The trees were like old ironwork gathered for scrap

Outside a factory wall. There was no wind,

And the only sound for a while was the little click
Of ice as it broke in the mud under my feet.

I saw a piece of ribbon snagged on a hedge,

But no other sign of life. And then I heard

What seemed the crack of a rifle. A hunter, I guessed;

At least I was not alone. But just after that

Came the soft and papery crash

Of a great branch somewhere unseen falling to earth.

And that was all, except for the cold and silence

That promised to last forever, like the hill.

Then fingers came through, and prices, and I was restored

To the sunlight and my friends. But for more than a week

I was scared by the plain bitterness of what I had seen.

All this happened about ten years ago,

And it hasn't troubled me since, but at last, today,

I remembered that hill; it lies just to the left

Of the road north of Poughkeepsie, and, as a boy,

I stood before it for hours in wintertime.

© Anthony Hecht,

Pages 295-296,

The New Yorker

Book of Poems,

Selected by the 

Editors of The 

New Yorker,

Morrow Quill

Paperbacks,

New York, 1974

HAVING  THE  MIND  OF  CHIRST

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Having the Mind of Christ.”

A FEW BIG QUESTIONS

Today’s 2 readings present a few good questions – starting with the one we heard at the end of today’s first reading from 1^st Corinthians 2: 10b-16. Paul asks: “Who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?”

Listen carefully to people. People are telling God what to do all the time. They are screaming and streaming to God counsel – and they get angry with God - when God doesn’t follow their advice – in war and in peace.

Listen carefully to people – especially ourselves. I have a question: is the most basic inner scream, “My will be done – on earth as it is in heaven?”

I sense we say the Our Father a zillion times – but still say inwardly – and down deep: “My will be done! The way I see things is the way things ought to be.”

Today’s gospel – Luke 4: 31-37 - has as its main character -  a strange screaming man in a synagogue in Capernaum. Luke describes him as a man with the spirit of any unclean demon.  He asks Jesus two questions – both of which ask: “Why are you here?”  He asks that question this way: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?’

Then he yells, “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!”

Today’s readings are asking life’s basic questions: who, what and why?

KNOWING

We all want to know whom another is – especially those around us.

At times we want to know who God is.

At times we say, “I don’t even know who I am at times.”

Paul is saying in the first reading that there are two types of people: the pneuma people – those who live by the Spirit – and those who live only by the psuche – those who live just by natural life – as does anything that is alive, dogs, cats, gnats and hippos.

So we have a choice: to live a low life or to live a high life.

That scares me – because at times I am eating too many pretzels – being too lazy – thinking only of myself – hiding from work and others.

I know I have to pray: “Come Holy Spirit.”

I know I have to say that more than my inner sounds, inner complaints, inner gossip, inner gripe sessions.

Too often I’m muttering grumbling sounds: “Uummmm!” Or “Aaarg!” Or “Crud” or “Crap” or worse whining’s.

Not enough….  I have to listen to Christ. Not enough…. I have to have the Clean Spirit of God wake up in me and I have to say what this man in today’s gospel says, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?” Then he says something we often forget because we’re living a low level of life. He says, “I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”

CONCLUSION:

Paul – at the end of today’s first reading answers his own question about who knows the mind of God. It’s us.  “But we have the mind of Christ.”

I don’t know about you, but as already indicated in this sermon, I hesitate saying that – or praying for that.

I do pray that I be like this strange ranger in today’s gospel – who said, “I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” 

I want to know that Jesus is the holy one of God.

Luke said this character in that synagogue in Capernaum was filled with an unclean spirit.

So I suspect - when our unclean spirits mutter inner complaints and sometimes obscenities about life and others and sometimes ourselves – they can lead me to say, “At least my rumblings and grumblings know I need You Oh God  and I need Your Spirit, so that I can lead a higher life having the mind of Christ.”

TODAY! 

WHO'S THAT KNOCKING 

ON MY DOOR? 

Poem for Today - September 2, 2014

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

© Jelaluddin Rumi,

translation by 

Coleman Barks