HEY  JUDE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Hey Jude!”

Today’s first reading is from The Letter of Jude. Today - the 8^th Saturday in Ordinary Time -  is the only time - but only every other year -  that this reading might be read at Mass. It’s a quiet, unknown, rarely heard "book" in the Bible.

It’s called, “The Letter of Jude”, but scholars vary on whether it was actually a letter. It’s a document from the early church - perhaps from around 80 or 90 A.D.  It doesn’t even have chapters - just verses - 25 of them. It  can be read calmly in 2 minutes.

SONG BY THE BEATLES

Reading its title, triggered for me the song by the Beatles, “Hey Jude” - which came out in August 1968.

Do you remember the comment made by John Lennon that the Beatles are better known than Jesus Christ? That comment caused uproar and reaction. From what I remember - and from what I looked up - he didn’t actually say what they said he said - the stuff that caused the uproar. He simply said kids were into rock and roll and the Beatles more than they were into religion. For Christians that would mean they were listening to the Beatles more than Jesus Christ.  If he had said  that their song, “Hey Jude” was more popular than say, The Letter of Jude in the New Testament, I don't believe he would have caused an uproar.

Last night I listened to the song, Hey Jude, twice and then I read The Letter of Jude twice.  No doubt about it, the song Hey Jude would have more grab and influence than The Letter of Jude.

The song lyrics of Hey Jude tell Jude to take a sad song and make it better. The song says, “Don’t be afraid.” The song says, “Don’t carry the world upon your shoulder.”

Paul McCartny said he wrote the song while driving  to see John Lennon’s son - Jules. The kids parent’s marriage had broken up - due to John Lennon’s affair  with Yoko Ono. Paul wanted to show some support to Jules. After mulling over the words, he changed "Jules" to "Jude" - because he thought it sounded better that way.

The song had the longest run of any of the Beatles’ singles on the American Music Charts.

It has a nice beat - if you like the Beatles - and it’s a rather long song - 7 minutes. Check it out and check out The Letter of Jude.

LETTER OF JUDE: 4 OBSERVATIONS

I found it difficult to come up with something helpful for a homily in today's two readings. So besides my off beat comments about the song, "Hey Jude," I'm going to simply present 4 observations that I picked up about the Letter of Jude. If I sound a bit off this morning, it's simply because this homily feels a bit odd or out of sync to be honest. 

1) The Letter of Jude is only 2 minutes. Some say the best words are in it its ending - which we heard today. There we find mention of the Trinity:  the Father - referred to as this only God of Our Savior, then Jesus Christ our Lord, as well as Holy Spirit.  That is very important - and perhaps that's why this letter made it into the  Bible.

2) That brings up the question of the canon - the so called “List of the Books that make up the Bible.”  This book made it. Compared to books like the Early Church book, The Didache (1) , if you read both, you’d say, “What?”  Folks in the Early Church said just that about The Letter of Jude. “Why is this book in the Bible?”

3) Last night I went looking for what others said about The Letter of Jude. I was amazed to notice that that William Barclay came up with a 50 page commentary on Jude. (2)

4) Lastly, I found out last night in my checking out commentaries on Jude, that Jude is a polemic. It's an attack. The author is yelling. He is complaining. He’s warning everyone about certain people who are getting into the Church and they will be ruin of it.

Other than my bringing up the Hey Jude song by the Beatles, this last point might be of the most interest - this description of The Letter of Jude as being a polemic.

Without being polemic myself, let me quote from a Lutheran Biblical Scholar named Gerhard Krodel. He wrote the following in his comments on The Letter of Jude.

“As a teenager in Germany I heard one particular sermon, a pure denunciation of the idolatry of the Nazi religion of “blood and land,” of Moloch worship and the hatred of Cain. It was not  based on Jude, but it made a lasting impression. The enemy then, as in Jude’s situation, was the compromiser and synthesizer within the church.”

Then Gerhard Krodel concludes his comments on The Letter of Jude this way. “However, most situations don’t present us with clear cut alternatives, but with various shades of gray. Polemics itself becomes demonic the moment the preacher loves it, venting his spleen, riding his hobby horse, putting people down for the sheer fun of it, and imagining that he speaks of God.  Since time and again teachers and preachers have engaged in polemics for the wrong reason (e.g. the earth is flat and the Bible is inerrant in every historical detail) and at the wrong occasion (e.g., when God's grace and Christ’s Lordship were not really at stake but rather the preacher’s myopic view of them) it may be just as well that Jude has not become a household word.” (3) 

NOTES

(1) The Didache, Faith, Hope and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities,  50-70 C.E., Aaron Milavec, The Newman Press, New York, Mahwah, N.J. 2003


(2) William Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude, Revised Edition, The Daily Study Bible Series, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, pages 155 to 207.

(3)  Gerhard Krodel, "The Letter of Jude", page 98, in Proclamation Commentaries, Hebrews-James-1 and 2 Peter-Jude-Revelation, Gerhard Krodel, Editor, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1977

FAMILY

June  2,  2012  Quote for Today

"No son is as good as his father 
in his sister's eyes. 
No father is as good as his son 
in his mother's eyes."

Irish Saying

LOVE AND LIKE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Eight Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Love and Like.”

I put a “Quote for the Day” on my blog. I have a bunch of quote books and grab one and look for a quote that grabs me.

The one I found and put on my blog for today is: “We like someone BECAUSE. We love someone ALTHOUGH.”

Once more: “We like someone BECAUSE. We love someone ALTHOUGH.”

Then sometimes I ask some questions. For today's quote I asked: Is that your experience? Then I asked 2 further questions that I would be interested in hearing answers for: “Name 5 people you love and then list 3 things they do that bug you about them? Name 5 people you like and then list 3 things they do that bug you?”

It hit me: Would it be harder to name faults and annoyances in those we like compared to those we love?

Looking around the room, it looks like all of us have had a lot of experience. Some people are easy to like; some people are difficult to take.

My niece Monica once told me. She’s over 50 now. “There’s one in every office.”  I asked her, “What do you mean by one?” “You know,” she said, “someone who is a royal pain you know where.”

Is that true? Does every office, every parish, every neighborhood, every group, have one person whom we just don’t like?

I’m a member of a religious community in the Catholic Church: the Redemptorists. I’ve been stationed in New York City, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, upstate New York, Ohio, and now Annapolis. Looking back I’ve said to several people, I’ve always been blessed to have at least one guy in each place where I have been stationed who was a great guy - in other words, someone I liked. Thinking about my quote for today: is the reverse true? To be honest, I’ve never sat down and thought about answers to that question.

There have been difficult people - some strange rangers - that I have lived with. There have been more than one in a few places. One of my books is entitled, How To Deal With Difficult People.I've jokingly told guys I lived with, “Thanks for the help in writing that book!”

SOME OBSERVATIONS

For starters there are two types of people: those who are easy to like and those who are difficult to like.

I like the saying, “There are two kinds of people: those who cause happiness when they enter a room and those who cause happiness whenever they leave a room.”

As priest I’ve been to more different nursing homes than most priests in the United States. Having lived on the road for 8 ½ years and given lots of parish missions -  part of our parish mission was to visit nursing homes in the afternoons. From that experience I realized there are two kinds of people in nursing homes - or anywhere - those who are an easy visit - and those who are a difficult visit. By difficult I don’t mean dementia or aging. I mean they have a difficult personality, attitude, or overall ambiance.

I saw that as a little boy on our street in Brooklyn. There were two kinds of older people: those who when your spaldeen (pink rubber ball) went into their front yard, they were happy to get it for you and say something like, “Hope you’re having a great game!” and those who are grouches and make it difficult in retrieving your spaldeen.

Then and there without knowing it,  I made my first conscious life decision. It was not to be a grouch when I get old.

Today’s first reading has this sentence. We’ve heard it a hundred times. It’s why I am preaching on this theme of Love and Like. The sentence is this: “Above all, let your love for one another be intense,
because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8.)

It doesn’t say: "Above all, let your liking of another be  intense, because liking covers a multitude of sins."

Liking is easy. Love can be difficult. Forgiveness can be difficult.

That’s what our faith teaches and preaches.

So getting back to my earlier question and wondering: I would think it would be easier to find things that bug us and things we don’t like in those we love - more than in those we like.

Next, I would think - but I’m not sure - but I would think - it would be more difficult to pick 3 things we don’t like - 3 things that bug us - about those we like - compared to those we love.

CONCLUSION

Today’s gospel - Mark 11: 11-26 - talks about a fig tree. We see variations of this story in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Israel was compared to a fig tree - and the preachers and the prophets would use the image in sermons - challenging the folks to produce good fruit in their lives.

I found in The Parables of Jesus, a book by Joachim Jeremias, a piece on gardening that I never noticed before. [Cf. pages 119-120.] He says that in Israel the fig tree is unique compared to other trees and bushes and plants. At times in the year, a fig tree really looks dead. Then comes a time you can look into its very thin branches - which are translucent - and see the sap rising. What looks dead - is about to come back to life.

We’re getting older - maybe we look dead to some folks who are young - but don’t count us out. We can always start producing fruit. Grouches can change and surprise everyone. I’ve see that happen to at least 3 priests. Maybe they changed because they started to love more than to just like or dislike others - and love covers a multitude of sins.


Amen. 

LIKE  AND  LOVE

June  1,  2012   Quote for Today

"We like someone BECAUSE.
We  love someone ALTHOUGH."

Anonymous.

Questions: Do you agree with the truism above?  Name 5 people you love and then name 3 of their faults or things that they do that bug you?  Next name 5 people you like and then name 3 of their faults or things that bug you about them?  Which was easier to do?

VISITATION

THE  VISIT

I was in the hospital and you showed up with a funny helium balloon and your love. Thank you.

I was down - really down - because I had done something really dumb - and you’re the only one in the family who was willing to be seen with me. Thank you.

I was in jail and I heard you defended me by mentioning the old Indian saying, “Don’t judge anyone till you have walked a mile in their moccasins.” Thank you.

I was in the nursing home and you came with haste to visit me - wrinkled incontinent me - and you stayed with me for 47 minutes. Thank you.

I was standing there 5 yards from the casket. We had been married 37 years and cancer visited us and you came in haste at the end of a  busy day to stand on line and then to be with us in the funeral parlor. You didn’t have to say a word. Thank you.

I was by myself - just standing there at the gathering feeling like a stranger in a strange land -  with a strange accent - and you saw me, came over and said, “Hello!” Thank you.

I was me - labeled "homosexual" or what have you - and the church and some others were ranting at us  -  wanting to throw rough rocky words at us and you didn’t. You understood. Thank you.

I was overweight and you didn’t give me “the look” or hand me "the diet". You simply were there with me. Thank you.

I was fired from the company - dropped - whatever word they used - and you called me two weeks later to hear if I and the family were okay - and “What’s happening?” and whether I got another job or job offer. Thank you.

I was at the coffee break and people were arguing politics, politics, politics and I was sick and tired of politics, politics, politics - and you came over and showed me pictures of your grand kids - and we had a great conversation about the college one was going to, the job another just got, and another was about to come home from Afghanistan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank You, Lord.

I was the reader at church and read the wrong reading and 13 people gave me the “Stupid!” look - but you said nothing - better you smoothly changed your sermon and referred gracefully to what I had read. Thank you.

I was pregnant - nervous because maybe I was too old for this - but you came in haste to visit me and I could hear my baby jumping for joy within me - and because you too were pregnant and I could hear myself chanting, “My soul sings out the greatness of the Lord; my spirit finds joy in God my savior. Amen. Thank you.”

OOOOOOOO

Painting on top, "Visitation"  - found on line by typing into Google, "Paintings - Visitation".


This is a reflection I wrote this morning for today's feast of the Visitation - May 31, 2012..

©  Andy Costello, Reflections, 2012

STUCK  

IN  SOME  OTHER  DAY

May  31,  2012  Quote for Today

"Don't make the mistake 
of letting yesterday
use up too much of today."

Anonymous

GRAPE  

May 30,  2012  Quote for the Day

"The sun, 
with all those planets
revolving around it 
and dependent on it,
can still ripen 
a bunch of grapes 
as if it had nothing else
in the universe to do."

Galileo Galilei