WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “What Are You Looking For?”

I’m sure I preached on this question somewhere along the line because it’s so obvious a life theme, but if I did, I’m not sure just what I said.

It has to be the theme of many songs. I think of Mariah Carey’s song, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” with the line, “Do you like the things life is showing you?” and the haunting refrain, “Do you know?” “Do you know?”

How many times have Best Buy sales folks, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and best friends, asked us, “What are you looking for?”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel Jesus says to these two disciples of John the Baptist, “What are you looking for?”

It’s one of those questions that we’ve heard a thousand times in our life – and if we’re over 65, we’ve said it to ourselves a half dozen times a day – scratching our head, having walked into another room and wondering, “Now what was I looking for?”

“What are you looking for?”

ANSWERS

Our first answers might be:

· Peace in the world.
· That the economy gets better.
· That people out of work would find jobs.
· That the new president and congress and staffs and state and local governments would help turn things around.
· Good Health and Good Health Care for everyone.
· Peace in our families
· Laughter. Joy. Peace. Hope. A good day every day.

Our second answers might become more specific:

· Health and healing for so and so who has cancer.
· An end to drinking and drugs for so and so.
· That a kid’s marriage will turn around – especially because there are kids involved.
· That there be no plane crashes today, but if there are, let them be as lucky as the one the other day in the Hudson River.

Our third answers might be wider or deeper or different, because we might turn to God more or go down deeper into our soul:

· I would want my life to be more pleasing to God.
· I would want my life – what I’m doing each day – my work - my time at home - my outside interests - to make sense to others and be helpful to others.
· I would want to have loved and been loved.
· I want to see my children’s children!
· I would want the world – well at least the places where I’ve been – to be better because I was there. If you cry every Christmas as you watch the black and white movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life” you’re there. You get it.

POEM

I gave two talks to the Anne Arundel County Catholic Catechists yesterday in St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish in Pasadena and I used a poem by the Sufi poet Hafiz. It’s entitled, "With That Moon Language."

WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE*

Admit something:

Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud; otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in the world is dying to hear?

He’s saying if we want to be loved, look deep into the full moon in every eye that is saying the same thing. “Love me.”

What are we looking for? To be loved – so love one another. Sounds familiar? Read the gospel of John – especially his account of the last supper. It’s all about love.

What are you looking for?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

When Jesus asks the disciples that question, they answer with another question, “Rabbi – Teacher – where are you staying?”

Jesus says, “Come, and you will see.”

This scene takes place in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John has been reworked and reworked in the early Joannine Community – and it has a rich, well developed theology.

I was recently reading my notes from a book on preaching, Imagining a Sermon. It's by Thomas Trogher. He urges the preacher to use imaginative theology. The preacher has to evoke. He writes, “I will not cheat the congregation by handing them a souvenir from my trip on the river when I can take them along on the voyage and let them feel the current and the water for themselves.”

How do you do that? The Gospel of John can do that. It can take you on the journey to meet, feel, taste, experience Jesus.

The Gospel of John wants us to come and see Jesus – come and be with Jesus – come and stay with Jesus – come and experience Jesus.

And if you have the overpowering experience that one of the disciples, Andrew, has, then you will go about bringing others to Jesus – so they too can have the same experience.

This is the year of the Gospel of Mark for Ordinary Time – but I smiled when today’s gospel for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time is from John. This is the year of Paul. The Pope also said it’s the year for us to be thinking about Africa.

So if you want to be contrary, make this the year of John or the Letter to James for you.

When I say the rosary I only say the Joyful Mysteries. One of these years I might find myself moving into other mysteries, but I haven’t found myself so moved yet – and this has been going on for about twenty years now. And surprise – I’ve met people who said, “Thank you for saying that. I thought I was the only one.” One lady told me she makes only one station of the cross – the fourth station. Isn’t religion interesting?

The gospel of John provides many, many great questions. But notice this one in Chapter One: “What are you looking for?”

And notice the question in Chapter Twenty: “Whom are you looking for?”

Or the question in Chapter Twenty One, the Last Chapter of John, "Have you caught anything yet?"

Notice the other line in the last chapter of John’s gospel, “None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, ‘Who are you?’; they knew quite well it was the Lord.”

Then they had a meal and Jesus asked Simon Peter three times, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” and three times Peter says “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” And three times Jesus says to Peter, “Look after my sheep – feed my sheep.”

CONCLUSIONS

What am I looking for?

Love – and hopefully in all the right places. Isn’t that what Paul is telling the Corinthians in today’s second reading - to realize our bodies are temples that can hold the Holy Spirit – that we are the body of Christ – and life is to give glory to God – not to immorality?

Today’s first reading has a great text from the first book of Samuel. Three times the Lord calls the young man Samuel – and he is too young to get it. He has to sleep some more. The prophet Eli is there to help him process his calling. [Oh would that the Giants won last Sunday and in that story it was Eli who was sleeping and he didn't wake up.] It seems that for most people we spend a good period of our life sleep walking. Maybe today or this year is the day or year to wake up – if we haven’t yet – and we say and pray to the Lord, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

And today’s Gospel challenges us to discover what and who Andrew discovered in the first chapter of John, “We have found the Messiah. It’s Jesus.” Please God we’ll find Jesus, that we’ll realize that he like everyone else has a sign in his eyes that says, “Love me!” and if we haven’t found him yet, we’ll find him now, love him as the one we are looking for in whatever chapter of our lives we are in now. Amen.**

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*I found the poem by Hafiz in Chapter 8 of “Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again”, by Roger Housden. It is translated by Daniel Ladinski. It is worth reading to get a far better explanation of this poem than the quick comments I made.

** And then there is the book, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists. He discovered that the meaning of life was to practice loving Jesus Christ. How? By putting into practice all those wonderful descriptions of love that Paul gives in First Corinthians 13:1-13 that so many couples pick for a reading at their wedding. Alphonsus had a great love for Jesus being born for us, giving his life for us, especially in the Eucharist and dying on the cross for us. Alphonsus, like Andrew in today’s Gospel, went around telling everyone, especially the poorest and most abandoned, that they are loved by Jesus. Yes – even the poorest and forgotten have that message in their eyes, “Love me!”

*

THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Theory of Relativity.”

You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand his, “Theory of Relativity.”

When some of his students at Princeton asked him to explain it, he said something like this, “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours–that’s relativity.”**

One of my favorite ways of saying the same thing is, “How long a minute takes, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”

How long a minute takes depends whether you’re the doctor or whether you’re the patient in the waiting room; whether you’re the teacher or whether you’re the student; whether you’re the cab driver or whether you’re the passenger looking at the meter.

How long a sermon takes depends upon who’s preaching – or whether you’re wondering about a football game – or where your car is parked – or you're antsy about a crying baby or what have you – or where you are in your life. It’s all relative. It all depends.

TODAY’S FEAST: THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

Today’s feast is the Baptism of Jesus. Today’s gospel from Mark has this sentence in an English translation from the Greek, “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.” [Cf. Mark 1:9]

“It happened.”

I like those two words.

Picture a kid throwing a basketball in the living room to another kid and the basketball hits and breaks a Waterford crystal vase. That kid would add the word, “just” and say, “It just happened.”

It just happened that there was a Waterford crystal vase there on an end table – and one kid seeing another kid with a ball went, “Throw” and just then Ed Reed made an interception and the kid with the ball was also watching the Ravens game on television in the background and the basketball when tossed didn’t go where the thrower intended to throw it – and “It just happened” to break the Waterford crystal.

Jesus at that moment in the river – far from home – just happens to hear a voice from the heavens say, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And Jesus sees the sky open – and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. [Cf. Mark 1:11]

And Jesus changes the pattern of his life.

He’s no longer the carpenter with wood. He’s now the carpenter with words.

He’s no longer the quiet man of Nazareth. He’s now the Word proclaimed to the world.

And then he began walking and preaching – reaching out and healing – and if people just happened to be at the right place at the right time, their life could change – interception – a change could happen in the direction of their game.

Old patterns can break.

It’s all relative. It all depends.

Grace can be amazing – and save a wretch like me.

TAKE SOME TIME

Take some time to look at your life – your moments – the moments you were intercepted – the moments you broke – or were broke – the moments in your life that you changed or were changed.

Other people were in the same place and the same time – and what happened to you didn’t happen to them. Experience is relative.

If I heard the following from priests once, I heard the following a dozen times. Someone comes up to a priest and says, “What you said changed my life.” And the priest says, “What did I say?” Obviously we would want to know the answer to that question. And the person says something the priest knows he didn’t say.

Surprise.

Life is the surprise – the serendipity – the juggling of so many different things – that make what happens, happen.

My mother in Boston said “Yes” to the last of ten years of love letters from my father in New York, and they got married and four kids later I was on this planet.

How about you? Where did you come from? Why are you here? What’s your story? What’s your great, great, great grandmother’s story? It’s all relative.

I also love the saying, “If you want to change somebody, you have to change their grandmother.”

MOMENTS OF CONVERSION

As priest I’m always amazed at conversion moments. In today’s first reading from Isaiah, I love the text, “… so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

To me that has always been an amazing insight from Isaiah 55 - verse 11

Every drop of rain has a purpose.

Every snow flake has a purpose.

Every word we say has a purpose.

I have never forgotten a sermon where someone said that Jesus rained the word of God on the rich young man to let go of everything and come follow him – and he walked away sad, but around the year 285 a man named Anthony – of Egypt - walked into church late – heard those words – dropped everything and followed Jesus. [Cf. Matthew 19:22]

So parents, every time you say good stuff to your kids – every time you pick up a cranky kid and you say, “I love you!” it’s like rain, it’s like seed, it’s like a love letter from New York to Boston. It’s going to produce results.

Amazing.

It’s also scary.

I still remember walking along Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, New York as a little kid and going by a gas station. A guy inside one of the bays starts screaming words at this other guy – words I never heard from my mother or father or at home. Then the guy doing all the screaming throws a tire iron at the other guy. Till this day I can still hear the metallic clanging sound of that tire iron bouncing along macadam.

No wonder e.e. cummings said, “be of love a little more careful than anything.” He could have said the same of hate.

BAPTISM

So Jesus heard those words of love that day at his baptism, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

So we baptize our babies. So we have birthday parties for our spouse and our kids. So we go on vacation with each other. So we visit each other. So we eat with each other. So we send words to each other.

Every moment is sacred – and every person will experience their every moments differently – based on how lightning strikes them in the big moments of their life – and how a lightning bug strikes them in the little tiny moments of their life.

During this meal, during this Mass, just become quiet, and listen. Listen and hear God saying over you, “You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son – with you I am well pleased.”

Just as the priest at Mass says Jesus' words over bread and wine – and they become the body and blood of Christ – so too God’s words over us can have a profound change.

Listen God is speaking.

Listen and God is saying many other things to us as well.

God is sending down messages – like rain – like snow – like lightning – like seed – on everyone of us here – all the time.

Listen – the atmosphere is filled with God – with the Spirit – silent like a dove – as amazing as light traveling at 186,282 miles per second – but a split second different if we were at the equator than if we were at the poles.

CONCLUSION

Of course this is all relative. We couldn’t take all these realities at once. That would be like having Christmas or our birthday 365 days a year. But sometimes – sometimes – some days we have a moment like Jesus experienced that day at the Jordan River. We experience God’s presence and God’s love for us – all around us – surrounding us – embracing us – and we lose consciousness of time. It might happen in a split second and it feels like an hour. It might be an hour and it feels like a split second.

The Spirit of God comes down on us like a dove – and we feel loved – beloved by God – and our life is changed – rebaptized – washed – refreshed in the downpour – the showers – the waters – the rivers – the ocean – the atmosphere of God that surrounds us every moment of our life.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
* Picture on top by Lotte Jacobi

**There are some excellent short film clips on the Internet that explain Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Just type into Google, “Einstein: Theory of Relativity.” Go into the Wikipedia article and go to External Notes at the bottom. Then click on films and animations. There is one short film that shows twin jugglers – one on land – one on a boat – both juggling at the same time – and because the boat is moving – there is a difference. There is another film that shows a man with a right angle box mirror as he watches lightning hitting two poles. If he is on land it hits both polls at the same time, but it hits the poles at different times for a man with a right angle box mirror on a moving train. Huh? You have to see the film. But I guarantee if you looked at these short films and experiments, you’d get something different out of what you were seeing from what I was seeing. It’s all relative. Amazing. Moreover I'm more a poet than a physicist.

LOST

UMBRELLA

It rained all day.

It kept us inside
till we got restless,
till we wanted to
go outside.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
gets us talking.
Sometimes
searching for
lost umbrellas
we find things
we forgot we
were looking for
and we decide
to stay inside
and talk some more.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

GAMES

Games. Games. Games.
Who wants to play games?
I’m even sick
of the word, “Games”.
Give me names, names
names of people
who don’t want
to play games?

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

ROLE PLAYING

Somehow she seemed
like a mother superior,
who would play the part
of a mother superior
in a play or a movie.
We thought she thought
she was superior.
Did she feel she was inferior?
Time will tell the truth to her
as she watches her part
long after the play is over,
long after we the audience
have gone home.

© Andy Costello,

Reflections, 2009

SECOND CHANCE

Family members watched them,
these two, both married before,
both chasing each other,
like kids in a school yard,
like leaves caught in an autumn wind.

Family members talked about them
behind their backs, these two, both broken,
spinning in this new chance to dance,
hoping people learn from mistakes,
hoping people don’t hurt each other.

They talked about fear of Winter.
They talked about hope for Spring.
They talked about past and future.
They talked about thaw and resurrection.
Isn’t life filled with second chances?

Family members, like birds in trees,
sitting there watching
above the frozen fields of leaves,
some chirping songs of hope,
some chirping sour notes.

They got through the Winter to Spring.
Birds singing, building nests, starting again,
family members getting used to the two of them.
Then together they celebrated a new marriage
that April – a second chance.

© Andy Costello,
Reflections, 2009

CHOICE OF CHAIRS

When hurt,
I choose to sit in soft chairs.

I smile outwardly.

I sulk inwardly.

I am a stuffed chair
in a stuffed room.

I sit here with the hope
you’ll come and say,
“It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Will you?

I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t happened yet.

I guess stuffed chairs hide their feelings
better than hard wooden chairs.

Or am I being stupid?
Am I simply being stubborn?

Why don’t I just get up and walk over
to you in your chair and say,
“I’m sorry this happened. Let’s next.”

© Andrew Costello,

Reflections, 2009