REFLECTIONS ON REJECTIONS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Fourth Sunday in Ordinary
Time [C] is, “Reflections on Rejections.”
What are your reflections on rejections?
How have you dealt with the rejections of life?
In the beauty contests of life - no one wins every one of
them.
How have you done when you came in second place - or you didn’t even place - or
you didn’t even make the team - or the cut - and you feel cut?
Have you ever said or felt like saying, “What am I
chopped liver?” or “What am I chum for sharks?” or “I feel like you’re throwing me
under the bus.”
Rejections can feel like a massage with sandpaper. It can be tough being phased-out,
fired, retired, or forgotten.
Tough topic for today.
TODAY’S
READINGS
Today’s readings triggered the topic and the theme for this
homily and it’s not even Lent.
In today’s first reading Jeremiah gives us some
reflections on being rejected.
Prophets are rejected - especially when they tell the
truth. As we know - the truth often hurts - but it can set us free.
However, when people sense a correction or a suggestion that will hurt is coming - the speaker, the prophet, is often rejected.
When we're baptized, we're anointed prophets, priests and kings - and queens.
However, being a prophet - speaking up - let's be honest, it's a calling we often avoid. Everyone knows the messenger is often shot - shot down.
Parents are often
prophets when they are trying to tell their kids they can date better. But kids
won’t listen till they are crying in their beer - another choice prophets and
parents are always screaming about - telling about - hinting about - and
rejected for.
Jeremiah hears the Lord telling him to stand up and tell
others all that I command you. Then the Lord adds, “Be not crushed on their
account!”
The Lord tells Jeremiah that I “have made you a fortified
city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass.” Prophets need good bullet proof vests.
That’s the first reading.
Today’s gospel has Jesus being celebrated till he starts
challenging - especially his home town. He fires back at them that prophets are
never accepted in their home town.
Once more parents and siblings tell someone in the family when they are playing with fire - and they are going to be burnt - if they continue as is.
Rejections - reactions - remarks soon follow.
"Well, what about when you...?"
Today’s gospel ends with his whole town driving Jesus out
of town. They want to throw him off a hill on which their town was built - but
he passes through their midst and went away. I don’t know how Jesus did that,
but that’s how Luke tells the story.
THE CROSS
We Christians have as our central symbol the Cross. It’s THE
ultimate sign of rejection.
We have that big gigantic cross up front - at St. John
Neumann’s Church. The big one here is in the back - off to the side on the way out.
Big crosses scream out the message of
rejection loud. I heard that some didn’t want that big cross at St. John
Neumann’s.
Sometimes I think that big cross is too much - too tough - too in your face.
Would butterflies and the beautiful birds of the air be better? How about the
Risen Christ?
I wonder at times how much in the
past 15 or so years, how has that big cross at St. John Neumann influenced the reflective
life of those who come to Mass here.
I got the thought it could be even tougher - if it was a really blood crucifix. Or what would it be like to have added to the
wall the cross is attached to - a black paint sprayed on graffiti word, “Reject.”
Imagine having that word as a nickname?
I don’t know about you, but I never liked preaching that
says that our rejections and our sins - were hitting and hurting Jesus the day
he died on Calvary.
Yet - yet - yet - I
have to keep on reflecting on the impact of my mistakes. How do my words, my sins, my
way of treating others, my gossip, hit the Body of Christ.
The title of my homily for today is, “Reflections on
Rejections.”
BIRMINGHAM
I’m sure you heard the poem “When Jesus Came to
Birmingham.” It's Birmingham in England - from which our city in Alabama is named.
It’s a poem by G. A. Studdert-Kennedy. It goes
like this:
WHEN JESUS CAME TO BIRMINGHAM
When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a
tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do, '
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and
through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.
HOW WE TREAT
ONE ANOTHER
This will be a good homily if we reflect on rejections
and then we treat one another better this week than last week.
This will be a good homily if we reflect on rejections
and then we love one another better this week than last week.
How can we love one another better? Answer: by putting into practice
all the things what love is like in today’s second reading: being patient,
being kind, not being jealous, not being rude, not seeking our own interests,
not rejoicing when another makes a mistake, and on and on and on.
There are lots of people crouching against a wall and
crying for Calvary.
Translation: the Birmingham poem triggers the thought of suffering alone being worse than suffering with others around.
There are lots of people who feel all alone because they
have experienced the one or all of the 4
D’s: Divorced, Dumped, Dissed or Dropped.
Then there are the little rejections.
How many times have we been in a conversation and someone else jumps right into the middle of our conversation in person or by cell or iPhone?
How many times have we experienced someone yawning in our face, looking at their watch or looking over our shoulder as we're telling them a fabulous story?
FEELING ALL ALONE
The Bible says very early on that it's not good to be alone. Even Adam and Eve hid from God - who wanted to walk with them in the cool of the evening.
I have in my room a Styrofoam cup with some writing on it. It's something someone
told me about a girl in West Virginia. She was in a small college and was doing
horrible and an academic dean asked her why she was there.
She answered, “I came here
to be went with and I ain’t been went with yet.”
When I heard that at a coffee break in a small parish I
was preaching at in Southern Ohio just across the Ohio River from West Virginia, I said, “Let
me write that down?" And I fished out of my pocket a ballpoint pen and wrote those words on my Styrofoam coffee cup - without spilling my
coffee.
There are millions of people on this planet who cry that
same cry, “I came here to be went with and I ain’t been went with yet.”
The opposite of rejection is acceptance.
Our pope has declared this year, the year of “Welcome” - “Mercy”
- “You matter!”
The Christian is called to be Christ - to be like Christ
- to welcome all people. The Christian is called to spend time and love and
self with others - and take away some of those feelings of rejection that so
many people feel.
Where to start: in house - in one's own home.
Where to start: in heart - in one's own heart.
CONCLUSION
This week, I would challenge myself and all people to start with
oneself and with God.
Unless we feel acceptance and being loved by God - who sent
Jesus into our own home and heart, to accept us - then we won’t be bringing
that God of love - that God love - to others.
If we feel rejected by God, then we might do the same to others by rejecting
others.
So start with self and then bring the love God feels towards us - towards
others.
When we love one another, we are taking away the
rejections of our world. Amen.
