THAT MAN IS YOU
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd Saturday in
Ordinary Time is, “That Man Is You.”
Around 1964 – 1965 – there
was an insightful spiritual reading
book, That Man Is You – by Louis Evely.
I’m sure some of you here
had a copy of that book. It was a best seller in the world of religious books.
I looked it up last night
on Google and one can still buy a copy of it: used. Today's prices are from 6 dollars
to 60 dollars to $851.90. Same book. I noticed that it was only $1.45 on its cover.
2 SAMUEL 12: 1-7A,
10-17
The title and the thought for
that book comes out of today’s first reading from 2 Samuel 12.
You know the story; you
heard the story Nathan tells David the king.
A rich man has lots of sheep; a poor man has one sheep – a lamb.
The rich man has guests
and steals the poor man’s one sheep for a dinner for his visitors.
David upon hearing that
story – screams – “Who is this rich man? I’ll make him pay back fourfold.”
And Nathan the prophet says, “That man in you.”
“What?”
Nathan explains: “You got
it all and yet you steal this poor soldier’s wife – one of your own soldiers –
Uriah the Hittite – and then you have Uriah placed in a situation where he’ll
be killed in battle.”
David gets the message and
repents.
HOW TO READ THE
BIBLE
Louis Evely who wrote the
book, That Man Is You, says there is a secret here – a great way to use
and read the Bible here.
Read the stories of the
Bible and put yourself in the place of every person in a story.
This person is me.
Be Adam. Be Eve.
Be David. Be Uriah. Be Bathsheba.
Be David’s other wives. Be the
soldiers who saw all this.
Be Nathan.
Be the Pharisee. Be the
Tax Collector.
Be the Lost sheep. Be the
Good Shepherd.
Be the father, the older
brother and the younger brother in the Prodigal Son story.
Be the good tree, the good
grape vine, or the tree that isn’t producing figs or the vine that needs
pruning.
It’s basically the apostles’
question at the Last Supper. Hearing that
one of them is about to betray Jesus they ask, “Is it I, Lord?” [Cf. John 13: 25.]
In prayer, in reading the
scripture, we can ask of many characters, “Is this me, Lord?”
Louis Evely wasn’t a
Jesuit, but that’s how Ignatius told people making the exercises – how to read
and how to get the scriptures.
It’s what Shakespeare and
the storytellers know.
I’ve been doing this for
some 55 years now and it still works – especially when we put ourselves into
the stories, into the parables, especially when we think about what it’s like
to someone we probably wouldn’t ever
think ourselves to be.
You know the old American
Indian metaphor: walk a mile in the other persons moccasins – or as Hawthorn
put it in a story. He told of a lady who
walked around town going, “Tch. Tch. Tch” with her nose up in the air – till
another lady said to her – sort of Nathanesque.
“You ought to go out and commit a really good sin and then maybe you’ll
understand the rest of us.”
That’s like saying, “Walk
a mile in someone else’s sins.”
Those of us who are “Pro
Life” people or verbal rock throwers – need to walk around town with that kind
of attitude – walking a mile in someone else’s sins.”
