THINK YOU ARE?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 5th Wednesday
in Ordinary Time is, “Who Do You Think You Are?”
That’s a question that is often asked of others -
especially when they seem to be uppity.
It’s a good question.
It can also be a nasty question - when it’s a dig against
someone else.
It’s a great
question when we ask it of ourselves - especially when we bring it to prayer -
and in communion with God.
How would you answer that question: “Who do you think you
are?”
FIRST READING
Today’s first reading from 1 Kings begins with the words,
“The queen of Sheba....”
When I read that, it triggered the comment I’ve heard of others:
“Who does she think she is: the queen of Sheba?”
Here in the 1st Book of Kings, the queen of
Sheba is a queen who comes to see the famous king of Israel, Solomon.
She comes with a lot of servants - probably also with guards and soldiers - as well as a
whole herd or caravan or flock or train of
camels - carrying gold, jewels and spices.
This is what people do when visiting heads of state. A
friend of mine, Anthony Dragonetti, worked on the two Boehm birds - porcelain swans
- the Birds of Peace, which President Richard Nixon in 1972, brought to China - for Mao
Tse-tung. Instead they were presented to Premier Zhou Enlai.
He told me it was valued at $150,000 when a similar pair
were sold in London 5 years later.
We can picture that scene - as well as the Queen of Sheba scene
- arriving at Solomon’s house. We’ve seen that in lots of movies - with similar
scenes.
This queen Sheba is important. The reference books say
she might have come 1200 miles. She might have been from Yemen or then again from
Ethiopia. Her real agenda might have been trade - and not the quest for wisdom.
For my purposes, all this doesn’t make much difference. I
just want to put her on a pedestal. Then I would like to contrast her and Solomon
with a picture of Jesus as the total opposite. Jesus was a servant - kneeling
on the floor washing feet - a criminal who
dies on the cross - pictured wearing only a loin cloth.
Come to think about all this, in a way, my using the Queen of Sheba as uppity is not fair.
I have no clue in the world, what her personality was like.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
In today’s gospel Jesus says what’s important is not what
the externals are like - but what our heart is like.
We’ve all heard wisdom teachers poke fun of folks who
think their you know what is different and smells differently than everyone else’s. I heard an old Italian
lady talking about a stuffy priest - describing him as thinking out of him
came ice cream and Pepsi Cola.
Don’t be surprised with that commment. That’s exactly what Jesus is
saying in today’s gospel. Notice the
word “latrine”.
HUMILITY
Jesus modeled humility - a word that comes from humus -
earth - from which we were sculpted by God - right there at the beginning of
the Book of Genesis.
If there is one issue that hit Jesus’ button, it was show
offs - especially when it comes to putting others down.
As kids, if we were being uppity, my mother used to
say, “Who do you think you are, Lord Killanin?” Translated: don’t think you’re
the Queen of Sheba or King Solomon. Be real. Be humble.
Lord Killanin was an Irishman who was made head of the
OCI - Olympic Committee International. I never found out how my mother knew of him. He wasn’t rich. In his Olympic job he had to ask for money.
Those who had that job before him - were quite rich. He wasn't.
We never knew who Lord Killanin was, but in checking this out for this homily, I found out that my mom
was wrong about Lord Killanin.
Lord Killanin was wanted by some of those in the Olympic
committees because some of those in the Olympic movement wanted Apartheid to be broken. They wanted
Taiwan included in the Olympics and not just China. There was a story that Lord
Killanin was sitting on a bench in South Africa with a dark skinned person and
the police came over and said, “You’re not allowed to sit together.”
I don’t know what happened next, but I assume Lord Killanin
said, “Watch me.”
To be fair to my mom, she was only referring to him as a big shot and
that we kids should not act like big shots with our noses up in the air.
OPTICS
The word that is uppity lately is “Optics.”
When people see you - whom do they see? How do they see
you?
A test would be how we treat the waiter or waitress.
A test would be for us to ask ourselves how we see
ourselves?
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily was, “Who Do You Think You Are?
My message was: don’t be uppity.
My message was change some of those LOVE commands in the
New Testament to SERVE commands.
