INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this feast of Christ the King is “Personality Tests.”
It’s been my experience that people are fascinated by
personality tests.
Somehow a personality test gets a person to look at stuff
they are not be seeing in or about themselves.
So this homily is a bit about personality tests.
DOCTOR’S OR
DENTIST’S OFFICES
We might have had the experience of being in a dentist or
doctor’s waiting room and we see someone reading People or Reader’s Digest or some magazine and
we notice they rip something right out of the magazine and put it in their pocket or pocketbook.
Being nosey and inquisitive, when I see someone rip
something out of a magazine, I wonder what was so great, that it would get
someone to rip something out of someone else’s magazine. So after they get up
and go into see the dentist or doctor, I go over and pick up magazine to see if
I can check out what they ripped out – what they were so fascinated by. Next I
see the pages that are missing and I go to the table of contents.
Surprise. I’ve noticed a few times that the other person
ripped out a personality test.
Or we are in a doctor or dentist’s waiting room or on an
airplane and again we are reading a magazine and surprise there is a
personality test and it’s no surprise to notice that some earlier reader of the
magazine used a pen or pencil to take a personality test in that magazine.
I guess that’s what these magazines know and that’s why they keep on coming up
with different personality tests. I’ve noticed they now have them on websites.
I’ve also noticed that people love personality tests – any kind of a personality test – at workshops
on marriage or marriage preparation or community building, etc. Workshops on
communication skills often feature some kind of a personality test. They are a component in many job skills or communication skills programs.
TYPES
People seem to be helped or feel okay to find out, “I’m an
extrovert.” or “I’m an introvert” and this is me and it’s okay to be me.
People begin to understand that they are more head than
heart and that’s just the way they are.
People seem to enjoy discovering they are more a bear than a
bull, that they are more cautions than risky.
Some people are more thinker than feeler.
There are the 4 H’s: Head, heart, hunch, handy – and people
have one ability more than another.
There are the 3 centers: head, heart, gut and people seem to
be more one than the other two.
Some people are more practical or more impractical.
I think this like of personality tests shows up in the fact
that most newspapers have one’s daily horoscope. We make fun of them, but we
still read them. And we laugh when they are on the money.
People like Chinese restaurants, not just for Go Moo Gai
Pan; they also like them because they often have placemats which gives a
Chinese sort of horoscope. Your personality comes from the year of your birth.
Was it the year of the snake or the year of the monkey?
TWO BENEFITS OF PERSONALITY TESTS
First it can get us out of self-centeredness. I like the quote, "The greatest
sin is our inability to accept the otherness of the other person."
Secondly it gets us to work with each other - and cooperate
with each other.
JESUS ON PERSONALITY
TESTS
Well, way before modern personality tests, we see Jesus
using them all the time.
Right in the beginning of his preaching he tells folks there
are four kinds of people. When it comes to hearing the word of God: some
people are as thick as cement – and others are as fertile as rich soil. Some
people are shallow and some people have depth, but they have too many irons in
the fire.
He mentions all this in the parable of the sower: there are
those who hear nothing. They are like seed that falls on the path. Then there
are those who are like seed that falls on shallow ground. They look great on
first reaction, but after that, forget it. They are shallow. Then there are
those who look great on paper, but they have too many things going on in their
life. Then there are those who are also good soil and they get serious with the
word and produce 30, 60 and 100 fold.
What kind of a person am I?
Or Jesus tells the story about a king giving money or coins
to different folks – some go out and make more and some are scared of the king
and the consequences of failure, so they bury the coins in the ground. Then the
king comes back and asks for an accounting of what they’ve done..
Some people build their house, their lives on rock and some
build their homes, their lives on shifting sand.
Which is more me?
Am I a good tree or a bad tree? Am I producing good fruit or
bad fruit?
What road am I on? There is the road that looks great but
it’s going nowhere and there is the narrow way that seems stupid, but it’s the
road that leads to life.
What kind of a person am I?
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel
is a great personality test. That’s where all this is leading to.
Am I a sheep or a goat?
Take the test we have here in the Gospel of Matthew. Am I a
sheep or a goat?
I don’t like this test, but it’s a test we better take.
It’s a great test, because it gets at sins of omission more
than sins of commission.
Am I a sheep or a goat?
Not only is this a great test, but it also seems to be a
good metaphor.
Up until 1940, goats were not liked in Palestine. They tried
to keep them out of the northern part of Palestine, which is much more fertile
than southern Palestine. Goats eat roots; sheep don’t. When your ruin roots you
kill the soil and then there is erosion and the earth slides down to valley and
blocks the water and this is a no no.
The sheep produce – and just eat the green, green, grass of
the pastures.
So am I a sheep or a goat?
Am I keeping this world going or am I wearing it out.
Am I a sheep or a goat?
That’s the challenge.
Jesus spells out the test. He gives the specifics. I pass or
fail, I am a sheep or a goat, depending on whether I feed the hungry or give
drink to the thirsty, whether I clothe the naked or not, whether I visit the
sick and those in prison or not.
This is some test.
Ugh, ugh.
If I have it right, we’re not fascinated by the poor and the
hungry, but we are fascinated by stars, popes, presidents, and athletes. We are
not fascinated by nursing homes or soup kitchens, but we are fascinated by
places like Lourdes or Fatima, the Grand Canyon or Grand Cayman.
I remember flying from Columbus, Ohio to Dallas, Texas. Deon Sanders was on our plane. Wow. Nice suit. Nice smile. He was
flying first class.
I remember flying to Florida and there was Howard Cosell in
our plane. Wow.
I remember being in
the Chicago airport and there was Tiny Tim holding his ukulele.
I remember being in the Miami airport and there was F. L.
Bailey, the famous lawyer, in an open shirt, hairy chest, with lots of gold
chains.
I fail the personality test Jesus gives – because I don’t
see the poor and the sick and the imprisoned.
I fail the personality test that Jesus gives, because I’m
not feeding the hungry and getting a drink for the thirsty.
This gospel challenges us to see all people in all places.
Don’t we also not only like to have bragging rights for
seeing famous people, but also to say we’ve been to famous places and the
center of town.
We don’t brag about being in soup kitchens or back streets
or nursing homes. Well Mathew preserved the words of Jesus so that we’d go to
where the poor and infamous are. Matthew is telling us that Jesus, the Lord of
History, is in and with the poor and the hungry and the sick and the
imprisoned. What a great vision – to
have that insight.
At the bottom of happiness and life’s meaning, it’s
compassion. It’s the Golden Rule. We see this in all religions – and hopefully
all religions keep on preaching this message. It took the Buddha a lot of
searching, but he finally had the enlightenment that compassion is the name of
the game.
It took the Old Testament many pages till we get to the
prophets who tell us take care of the widow and the orphan – and not turn your
back on the poor.
The meaning of life is found in the words of the Centurion
on Calvary. He saw that this rejected, bloody, beaten, crucified man – “truly
was the Son of God.”
We see stars, we also need to see the sores of the people in
the slums.
The meaning of life is found in raising children, going to
the wake in the evening after a long day, visiting a neighbor in the nursing
home, volunteering to teach English as a second language, helping others in the
St. Vincent de Paul society, helping an aging parent, teaching our kids to
read, to love and to catch a Frisbee or a football.
So care, children, husband comfort wife, children,
CONCLUSION
Conclusion. Today’s homily was called, “Personality Tests.”
It will be a good sign and a good move, if during this mass,
when nobody is noticing things, like coming back from communion or going up,
you take the missalette and rip out today’s gospel, this personality test from
Jesus, and pocket it.
This is the last Sunday we use this Missalette - with a new one appearing next Sunday - the First Sunday in Advent.
Amen.
