VISIBLE HUMAN,
INVISIBLE GOD
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Wednesday after Epiphany is: “Visible Human, Invisible
God.”
QUESTION?
Did you ever wonder where you got your takes on life
from?
This would include your religion, your attitude toward
sushi, always being very much on time or always cutting it close - and as a
result often being a tiny bit late - and 1000 more attitudes, outlooks and
behaviors.
Today’s first reading gave me the theme and title of this
homily: “Visible Human, Invisible God.”
But I want to begin with my opening question, “Do you
ever wonder where you got your takes on life from? Do you ever wonder why you
are the way you are?”
ANECDOTES
I’m talking to my sister Mary on the phone and she says,
“I was talking to Peggy [she was my other sister] and Peggy says, “I got sick. Thank God I was on vacation.”
Mary tells me, “I laughed and then said to Peggy, ‘Where
did we get that from?’ And both said
together in unison: ‘Mother!’” And I
added, “That’s funny. That’s me too.”
Obviously we learned our language, our smiles, our
opinions from our parents and others.
My parents both spoke Gaelic. Wow do I wish they taught us that as well as
English.
At a workshop on preaching, the speaker asked us, “Whom
did you learn the most about preaching from?” It got us thinking and it was a
revelation.” Our answers could be correct - or maybe we don’t know and the
answers are staring us in the face.
I was driving somewhere. The trip would take 8 hours.
I decided to grab some old cassette
audio tapes of people giving talks. I’m listening to this one tape and the
preacher gives this great example. I went, “Wow! I used that same example years
after and I thought I was original. I wasn’t. I stole that example. I figured I
had heard that tape 25 years ago and I used the example from it - 10 years
later without knowing that it.
I shut off the cassette and thought about that for a
while. How much else did I steal? How much more of other people’s stuff have I
appropriated?
I thought. That’s the benefit of listening to tapes and
CD’s and talks.
I smiled and said, “I have preached in thousands of
churches and preached thousands of homilies and sermons, how many of those have
I planted good news. How many ideas of
others have I planted - that I got from other folks somewhere and some time
ago.
I am not only what I eat. I am what I listen to and
watch.
The most obvious example: we become the TV channels we
watch.
One of my top 10 quotes is from Tennyson in his poem,
Ulysses, “I am part of all that I have met.”
TODAY
There’s an example from today’s first reading that I have
stolen - or appropriated - or made my
own.
It’s a key idea from the first Letter of John. Where did he get that idea from? Was he original or a borrower?
It’s a simple idea.
If we can’t love and be nice to those we can see, how can
we say we love God who is invisible.
I have met people who are great God people and they are
horrible people people.
That jars me!
I have noticed people praying and praying and praying -
including priests I have lived with - who can’t communicate with other people.
I know I’m judgmental in thinking this way - but this First Letter of John got me asking this
question in this way.
When I’m hearing confessions if someone confesses they
gossiped or talked about someone behind another’s person’s back - as a penance
sometimes I tell folks to say something nice to someone next chance you get. If
someone cannot give a compliment to someone
whom they can see, how can they give a compliment to God whom they cannot see.
If someone visits Christ in the Blessed Sacrament chapel
- and they never visit others - never make a holy hour with an old person - who
is shut in - or in Spa Creek Nursing Home facility - or make phone calls to
their sister of brother in Atlanta - how
does that holy hour with Christ go? Are they the only one in the room, in the
conversation?
From way back I’ve heard people say the rosary - Our
Father and Hail Mary - and race through it - as if there is no space in between
any word: “HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswithyou…. blah, blah, blah….” I wonder
how they can do that. Is that the way they are with other people who are
visible to them - or are other people invisible as well.
