September  21,  2020

Thought for Today

“For those who could use a bit of praise – give it to them. People can’t read their tombstone.”

 Someone

               GOD,  IT’S  NOT  FAIR

 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “God, It’s Not Fair.”

 How many times does God hear those 4 words every day?

 “God, it’s not fair.”

 VARIATIONS GO LIKE THIS

“God, if you think this is funny, it isn’t.”

“Enough’s, enough, O God.”

Or the two word question God and parents always hear: “How come?”

TODAY’S READINGS

The title of my homily is, “God, It’s Not Fair.”

I think today’s readings can be summed up in those 4 words: “God, it’s not fair.”

We heard in today’s first reading from Isaiah 55:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

How old do we have to be – to learn that we think differently from God and God thinks differently than the way we think?

We heard in today’s second reading from Philippians:

I long to depart this life and be with Christ,
for that is far better. 
Yet that I remain in the flesh
is more necessary for your benefit.

We heard in today’s gospel,

    “These last ones worked only one hour,  

    and you have made them equal to us, 

    who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’

    He said to one of them in reply,

‘My friend, I am not cheating you. 
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 
Take what is yours and go. 
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? 
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? 
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Sometimes things are not fair.

Sometimes you have to laugh.

Sometimes you have to look out prison bars and see stars – while the person in same cell with you – only sees mud.

A BUNCH OF EXAMPLES

One evening, four of us  went to hear Gary Snyder, the poet, speak at Bard College in upstate New York.

We got there early and got front row seats. Neat.

It was a rather small room and by the time 7:30 arrived the room was packed with people – many of them standing. Someone came in and walked to the front – went to the microphone and  said, “We’re filled. There are not enough seats, so could you all go out the door in the back and cross the corridor into the much bigger room we have there.

The four of us ended up in the back of this second room – in the corner.

I immediately thought of Jesus words, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Not fair.

Recently I went to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Bureau to switch my driver’s license from Maryland to New Jersey.

The line was around the building and then back into entrance ramp. I asked someone what time to come in the morning. I went the next morning at 6:45 and the line was even longer.  I asked a guy with a clipboard and a plastic name tag, “Is everyone of these people here just for their driver’s licenses? He said, “Yes!”  Then he said, “Wait a minute. How old are  you?” 

I said, “80.”

He said, “Go to the front of the line.” And he walked me there. And I wasn’t wearing a priest collar.

If someone  did that on  a restaurant line or a Supermarket check out line in this Coronana 19 era – there would be a lot of screaming.

Who said, “Life is fair.”

When my brother died of melanoma – skin cancer – which he got at 49 and died at 51, his buddy Marty Goldberger did one of the eulogies.  Marty said he got a letter from his son David who was in Israel for a year.  David felt bad he was missing the funeral.  He wrote that when he was a little kid he was once playing ping pong in their house with his dad.  My brother shows up and says to David. “That’s an interesting ping pong paddle you have. Can I see it.” He hands it to my brother who then says to Marty, “Okay three over for serve.”

David immediately said, “Hey Mr. Costello. That’s not fair.”

My brother standing there ready to play Marty says, “Kid let me give you your first lesson in life? Who said, ‘Life is fair.”

I think that’s one of the first things in life that kids say, “It’s not fair.”

It’s one of the first things in life that kids learn. Life is not fair.

Do mothers instinctively know, “Never buy a square or rectangular cake with icing?  They only have 4 corner pieces – pieces with double icing. When it come to kids – and also some adults:  Always buy round cakes if they have icing.

LIFE  101

If nobody died, this earth would be very crowded.

If nobody died, stock in nursing home chains would be a good stock.

Life would be boring if everybody saw the same way.

Baseball stadiums would  need cardboard cut outs all the time – if everyone hit a homerun every time – while at the same time every pitcher pitched a no hitter – every time.

Unless you’re an only child, family dynamics wouldn’t work – because someone has to be the oldest and someone has to be the youngest – and someone has to go to bed earlier than the oldest kid.

Salaries differ and sometimes the person who is a lazy loaf  gets a lot more money than the workaholic.

There would be no talk shows or Saturday Night Life or Shakespeare or Parables by Jesus – if every day – everything was the same.

CONCLUSION - SOLUTIONS

If you want to be a person of peace, you have to laugh – lots of laughter.

If you want to be a person of peace, you have to learn patience and acceptance.

If you want to be a person of peace, you have to become a philosopher.

 If you want to be a person of peace, you have to listen to the fortune cookie wisdom of Jesus: turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, know that it’s where you live, you get the weather you get, and some people are better at Algebra and some people play ping pong better than others, and PS - save some of your questions for the next life.

September  20th 2020

 

WHEN  WE  DIE

 

When we die, I'm assuming there's
more to come.  How about your thoughts?
What's your forever?  Is it nothing
or do you see a forever more something?

If it’s a something: what’s your
assumption?  Is it an infinity –
a divinity – or the Trinity – an
eternity  based  on your hopes?

 
I’m dying with Jesus’ images about
the Eternal Welcome in Luke  15. I’m
assuming there will be a continuing
personal relationship with God.
 
I’m  assuming we  finally arrive
after a long walk on the shoulders
of the Laughing Shepherd  into the
big open pen called Heaven.
 
I’m assuming I’ll be like a lost coin
found in dark corner – under a bed
or a bureau that God the Woman will
shine me up and show me off to everyone.
 
I’m assuming I be like the lost son
welcomed home by God the Running
to Greet me Father who will welcome me 
and hug me and banquet me forever.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

September 20, 2020

Thought for Today

“Friends are made by many acts – and lost by only one.”

 Someone

September   19,  2020

DRENCHED

 
Have you ever had a day
when you felt drenched by grace?
 
Hope so. It’s a day when everything
goes right – from morning till night.
 
Hope so. It’s a day when your body
enjoys being yours – no aches – no pains.
 
Hope so. It’s a day you get what a
Hail Mary says:  “… full of  grace.”
 
And you want more – and so you pray:
“Now and at the hour of our death. Amen”

Hope so ....
 
 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

 September 19, 2020

 Thought for Today

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”  

 

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

WHAT EVER HAPPENED

TO SUSANNA?

The title of my homily for this 24^th Friday in Ordinary Time is, “What Ever Happened to Susanna?”

Her name appears only once in the New Testament – in Luke 8:3.  She’s here in this  short episode we heard for today’s gospel.

Joanna and Mary of Magdala – two of the three women – who were with Susanna  mentioned by name in today’s gospel – will show up again in Luke 24: 10 – but instead of Susanna – Mary the mother is named as a trio.

What ever happened to Susanna? 

There is that other Susanna in the  thirteenth chapter Book of Daniel. She’s mentioned by name 10 times.

 That Susanna might be simply a figment in the imagination of the teller of that Susanna story – but it’s a significant story.  Yet this Susanna seems real.  That’s the beauty of the gospels when we find details like the names of 3 women who travelled with Jesus.  It adds “and many others” but names are not given for them.

To me it’s like  the saying in John 6:10, “There was much grass in the place”. That seems to tell me – this happened in a specific place – and someone remembered specifically there was a  lot of grass there.

Here’s a side story – to make a point.  Mark Dorley’s father came up to me in Lima, Ohio, in December of 1999 with a question. “I heard you’re going to Israel in January. Do me a favor. Look for grass when you’re there.” He mentioned his reason for his question.  “Every time I see Israel on television – like on the evening news – it looks like the place is all dust and all desert. I wonder: Where are all these green pastures I hear about?”

That was his question.

Well, we landed in Tel Aviv and drove that evening to Tiberias where John 6:10 takes place – where there is much grass. Sure enough I saw plenty of grass up there in northern Israel – especially near the Lake.

Based on that way of thinking,  I accept that there was this woman named Susanna – who lucked out to travel with Jesus – and then get her name mentioned for posterity – in just one verse in scripture. It’s like that one verse in John: “There was much grass in that place.”

And Sister Gerri will tell us to follow her – take her into our imagination – even if  she doesn’t get into a boat with Jesus.

John Shea – a good scripture story teller – and writers like him – can take that one sentence and paint for us what it would be like to be Susanna and what it would be like to travel with Jesus. I’m sure some writers  would say this caused critics to say Jesus was breaking the traditions – traveling and working with women.

“Typical Jesus.”

“And what’s worse Jesus is also traveling with that Mary, called Magdalene, who had seven demons.”

And scripture scholars will point out that Luke likes to mention names early on who will appear later on – like Joanna and Mary Magdalen – here in today’s gospel and again in Luke 24 – at the time of the Resurrection. 

Scripture scholars – as I read last night reading up for this homily – say things like this: “Characteristically, where Luke mentions a male figure or group, he often links it with a corresponding female figure or group – for example Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, in chapter 4 the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syria, in chapter 7 the centurion and the widow of Nain, an in chapter 15 the shepherd and the woman with the coins. The group of women who followed Jesus are given special prominence in Luke by introducing them at this point and alluding to their role when they are introduced again in Luke 23:49 and 23:35 [cf. Luke 24:10; Acts 1:14; 13:31).

Good. Interesting stuff.  But what ever happened to Susanna?

 I guess the answer is very simple: that’s life. Men and women working together. And in the meanwhile different people drop out of the picture. – and disappear out of our life after just one meeting.

 Well, there’s always the resurrection as we hear in today’s first reading. Amen.