“The greatest wisdom
often consists in ignorance.”
Baltasar
Gracian
Monday, July 23, 2018
THE LORD
IS NOT A
MOUNTAIN!
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 16th Monday in
Ordinary Time is, “The Lord Is Not A Mountain.”
Today’s first reading from the Book of the Prophet Micah
begins with a very visual image. The Lord says, “Present your plea - your voice
- to the Lord before the mountains.” [Cf. Micah
6: 1-8]
“Stand before the mountains -
yell - and hear your voice. Hear the echo of your sounds. Pay attention to what you are saying,
pleading, asking, praying for?”
In other words, listen to
your own prayers and pleas.
EASY TO PICTURE
It’s easy to picture a mountain.
We’ve been there - or we saw them in movies or on television.
When kids draw - they often draw
mountains - so easy - along with trees and cats and dogs.
So imagine yourself standing
there facing a gigantic mountain.
What is your biggest prayer in
your life right now? For family? Self? Friends? Our world?
Yell it out. Hear your echo.
Listen to what your saying - attentively. Carefully.
Then Micah says to us: Listen to
what the Lord speaks back to you.
WE ARE NOT MOUNTAINS
We are not made of stone - but
sometimes we are stone deaf. Sometimes we feel like a rock or a stone. Isn’t
thatthe sense of Simon and Garfunkle’s
song, “I am a rock. I am an island….”
Prayer, a conversation, is two
sided.
Unfortunately, sometimes we talk
to each other and we’re really not being with, listening to, looking into the
other’s eye and being - and hearing what the other is saying.
God is not a mountain. Yet God
is pictured as a mountain - in the scriptures.Mountains don’t have eyes, ears, a heart, an understanding.
Yet mountains can be very
powerful.Imposing. Overshadowing.
Overwhelming.
I was on Gibraltar. I was inside
Gibraltar - inside the big caves and tunnels within. It was a moving moment.
I’ve hiked up some of the Rocky
Mountains and the Presidential Range of Mountains in New Hampshire.
Momentous moments
I’ve prayed on Mountains.
However, God is not a mountain.
God is 3 Persons - a community
of 3 persons who are so together, they are 1.
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Today’s message is to be in
communion with God - however you imagine him: mountain, ocean, father, mother,
shepherd, spouse, bread, wine, fortress, wall, woman in labor, farmer.
Whichever, whatever, image you
use when you’re with God, make sure it’s personal and particular - one to one
with God.
Make sure you’re not alone - as a person standing before
a mountain - but as a spouse or child in your parents arms.
CONCLUSION
Let me end by making a few conclusions.
So God is not a stone mountain.
God’s voice is not an echo.
As Elijah discovered while he was hiding on a mountain,
“God was not in the earthquake, the wind or the fire. God was the sheer silence.”
The title of my homily for this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time [B] is, “3 ThingsJesus TaughtMe.”
The last line in today’s gospel is, “… and he began to
teach them many things.”
When I read that,a question hit me: “What did Jesus teach me?”
I began jotting down different things Jesus taught me and
then picked three.
I ask you to do the same thing.
Tell yourself 3 things Jesus taught you.
That’s my homily. Simple.
Do that with each other. Share and compare notes.
TO GET THERE, LET ME GO THIS WAY
Looking at life, what have you learned and who taught
you?
I once made a workshop on stress and the heart and
health.
A guy named Jim Gill, a Jesuit priest - a former Navy guy
- who became a Jesuit, then a doctor, then a psychiatrist, gave us a few talks
about stress.
He told about a doctor in the San Francisco area who
taught people to go into a bank - where you have to do some business - and
there are several lines.Pick the
longest line - and when you get to the 2nd in line - get off that
line - go to the back - and pick the longest line again.
While on that line do the following. Think of your high
school senior classmates and in your mind name as many of them as you can.
That’s it. You could pick neighbors on your street
growing up - weddings you’ve been to - books you read - different things Jesus
taught you.
I heard that and have done just that ever since - not
every time - but I’ve done it at Graul’s - toll booths - I don’t have E-ZPass -
getting a table at a restaurant -what
have you.
This works. Lines have never bothered me ever since. No
stress.
Or for example, a priest named Jack Shea - from Chicago -
gave a talk at a workshop I was taking.He said he was once giving a talk in Dallas at a Hotel convention. His
talk was at 11 AM. He said he went down for breakfast around 8 AM.No lines.
He got his breakfast - had it on a tray - and headed for
a table to eat. The place was not too crowded.He sees a guy sitting by himself. So he asks, “Mind if I join you?”
He didn’t know who the guy was - whether he was there for
the convention on Spirituality or something else - but why not. It’s not good
to eat alone.
He didn’t tell the guy he was one of the speakers - just,
“Hi. I’m Jack.”
He found out the guy was there for the convention.Jack still didn’t tell this other guy who he
was. He just wanted to share breakfast with another human being.
The guy in the midst of their conversation told Jack that
when he picks up a book on spirituality or religion he likes to look at the
chapters or the index and see if they list anything about work and
relationships.He said, “It seems that
many books don’t list those two issues or say anything about those two areas of
life. He added, “As far as I’m concerned, except for sleep, that’s where people
spend most of their time - work and relationships.”
Jack said, “I said to myself, ‘Uh oh, as soon as this
breakfast is over I’m going up and look at my talk and make sure I have stuff
on those two areas of life.”
I learned something at that moment and have tried to keep
those two issues out front in my sermons and my writings.
Interesting …. I was driving the other day listening to
BBC on the radio. A Jewish man - who helps folks deal with death - was being
interviewed. He was asked if he noticed any differences between men and women
who were dying.He said, “Yes. I noticed
men have trouble when they see themselves losing it - when it comes to being
able to produce.Women feel it when they
see themselves losing it when it comes to relationships.there they were again: work and
relationships.
NOW THREE THINGS JESUS TAUGHT ME
Now let me give three things that Jesus taught me - 3
things that grabbed me - three things that I have tried to put into practice.
I’ll give my three - I’ll practice what I’m preaching
this weekend - in hopes you do the same.
FIRST TEACHING: FATHER FORGIVE THEM BECAUSE THEY
DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
On the cross Jesus was dying after being beaten, nailed
to that cross, spit at, yelled at - and he says, “Father forgive them because
they don’t know what they are doing.”
When hurt …. when talked about …. when criticized …. when
crucified …. think about the person hurting you. They don’t know why they are
doing it.
Motive - the why - why - why - is very tricky.
It could be envy - it could be pay back - it could be
they were hurt - it could be,we remind
them of all the bullies they have run into in life. Why did this guy kill the 5
folks at the Capital?
Horrible - but whether this guy knows why he did what he
did - maybe we’ll never know.There will
be stated reasons, yet, down deep - will we ever know.
Obviously, the killer has to be isolated - butafter that - we can’t let someone continue to
kill our spirit and spirituality.
Father forgive him because he doesn’t know why he did
what he did.
SECOND TEACHING: LET HIM OR HER WITHOUT SIN CAST
THE FIRST STONE
In many of our relationships, we throw stones at other
people.
We might be doing it because we want to knock people down
a level.
We might do just that because we really want to hurt
ourselves.
We might be doing just that because we don’t want to face
our own sins and we know down deep what we saw this other person doing was
wrong.
I have never forgotten an example in a story by Hawthorne
about Puritan Life way back in this 17th Century New England town. There
was a woman who walked around making the sound, “Tch. Tch. Tch.” and this other
lady said to her, “You need to commit a really good sin, then maybe you’ll
understand the rest of us around here.”
THIRD TEACHING FROM JESUS:TAKE AND EAT, THIS IS MY BODY - TAKE AND
DRINK, FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD
Be in communion with one another.Be in Holy Communion with one another. Eat
with one another.We are not a bunch of
I’s here at church together.We are a
mass of people called a “WE”.
Jesus was always eating with other people.
When we eat with one another, we become one another.
Their lives, their experiences, their day, their work,
their relationships, become usthat is if
we chew on and digest each other and our stuff.
If I’m hearing people, if I’m seeing people, if I’m
knowing people, people are not eating each other up.
People are not being in and with the Mass - called family
- enough.
People are not stomaching each other - enough.
People are not in the I of the other - their eye is on
the TV or their ear is on the cell phone or iPhone.
Want a Eucharistic Spirituality?Eat together. Come to Mass. Eat together.
Come to meals to be with each other. We’re here - not just to be with Christ,
but to be with each other and become the Body of Christ.
See your family table as an altar. Play cards on it. Talk
at it - long after the meal is over. Eat each other up.
See the sacrifice that makes up a good meal together. The
cost of food - with money from our work salary. The time it takes to shop and
pick out and prepare the food the others like and to clean up afterwards.
Learn the meaning of sacrifice.
Let that sink in.
At Mass we hear the stories - of what happened in Jesus’
day.
At meals, we can hear the stories - of what happened in
each other’s life.
Let those words become flesh and dwell among us.
CONCLUSION
The title of this homily is, “3 Things Jesus Taught You.”
These things can be tough to do. It’s called the
Sacrifice of the Mass of all that a good life consists of. When we fail, let’s
forgive and realize the other has forgotten what they are to do in life.When we fail, let’s not throw rocks at each
other.When we forget, let’s remember
our calling to be good shepherds and set a good table before each other.
