UNDERNEATH

THE BOTTOM LINE

[The following is a story homily for this 23 Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C. The Gospel is  Luke 14: 25-30.]

Everyone who ever knew him, knew him to be the perfect gentleman: the perfect son, the perfect father, the perfect spouse, the perfect brother, the perfect neighbor, the perfect boss, the perfect person.

All his life - he did what was right - never once did he veer off course. Being and doing what is right - was what he thought was the bottom line. “Of course it is,” he thought. “Isn’t that what God wants of all of us?”

Yet, Jack thought, "Something is wrong!" 

There ... he said it to himself - “Something is radically wrong with me!” “Something is missing!” 

So down through the years - he felt - on and off - the itch - the inner sort of twitch - that maybe he should be making some kind of switch in his soul - for something more - or different - or what have you. 

But what?

That scared him - but never once did he tell any of this to his wife - or anyone else - about these inner scratches on the inside skin of his soul.

He went to every game his son - as well as every game his daughter -  played - as well as every art show his wife, Jill, exhibited her paintings. He gave nods to people in the car next to him at long red lights in city heavy traffic - as well as the guard at the front door at the bank he worked.

Enough of that - you got it - Jack was a straight A student and a straight A person.

So from the outside people saw Jack as one of those people who have life radically right. 

From the inside, at times Jack sensed that life was supposed to be different than this life he was living.

At Mass that September Sunday - when the Gospel was read - he heard the word “HATE”. 

"HATE!"

That was a foreign word to him.

It was like the name of a one word horror movie on the marquee movie listings outside the mall - a movie he would never see.

“HATE!”

Jesus was telling great crowds traveling with him that if they want to be his disciple,  they would have to hate their father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, and even their own life.

The priest preaching after that gospel tried to backtrack a bit. He explained that the word “hate” was a stark Jewish way of speaking in early Christian communities. Someone would  say, “Jesus said, ‘You can’t let your families - or reputation - or worries what others in the village might say, if you want to start following me.’”

The stress was: “If you want to follow Jesus you’re going to be considered different - strange - even laughed at. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to expect the cross. You have to expect death to self.”

Jack said to himself: “I have to think about this!”

“HATE!”

He kept thinking, “I can’t hear Jesus saying that - to hate even one’s family members - if you want to be my follower.  All my life I’ve been trying to love everyone - even the difficult ones. Now I have to hate even those I love. Something’s tricky here and I don’t get it.”

“HATE!”

The priest that Sunday morning was repeating himself. Jack thought that he too must be having troubles with that word “hate.” 

The priest said, “Look it up on your computer. Type into Google, ‘Hate. Luke 14: 26.’ You’ll find out that most  translate the original Greek word “MISEO” as hate. 

The priest that Sunday morning continued that the word “hate” is tough and rough - so some translations give notes saying that this was a Jewish way of speaking  - saying bluntly - that nothing should separate us from the love of Christ - that Christ should come first.

That rang some bells for Jack.  But he still sort of couldn’t hear Jesus walking around telling people, “Love me. Make me # 1. Make me first." 

He could hear Jesus saying to make his Father, God Our Father,  first, but not me, myself and I - first. No.

Jack could hear Jesus’ disciples saying that. He could hear St. Paul saying that. He could hear Matthew, Mark, Luke and John saying that, - but he couldn’t hear Jesus saying that. He could only hear Jesus saying: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Or “Love one another as I have loved you.”

“Love!”

“Hate!”

Jack then began wondering, “Does life boil down to love-hate relationships. Could both be the flip side of the other?”

He thought of his two kids when they were very little. If he held one, the other tried to squirm into his arms - till he learned to hold one in his left arm and the other in his right arm. That would work - for a time - sometimes - but one always seemed to want to be number 1.

So as he sat there in church,  as he was talking to himself about all this - lights kept going on. Question mark hooks kept hooking him.

He thought about his father - who was still living - but a couple of thousand miles away and retired. His mom had died 3 years ago: cancer. 

He thought, “I have give dad a call.”

He thought, “Jill and I have to go down to see him.”

He thought, “I have to get some alone time with him - to talk about these wonderings I have often had about him - from when I was small - what made him tick - what his questions were - what he wondered about me."

His father had been a president of a small company. A good education, good luck - as well as having the gift of being in a high energy family certainly helped his dad make it big in this world.

Jack and his three sisters  and an older brother - also got the best of a good education  - at home and at schools - so they  too did well.

Jack's mom always thought they had the perfect family.

Yet Jack still had that itch - that maybe there was something more - something more under that bottom line - that bottom line of loving one another.

At communion time - at that same Sunday Mass - the one with the gospel about hating dad, mom, family, everyone - and putting Christ first - something else hit Jack.

To be bread, to be wine, to be communion, which enables Jesus to get into us - starting as food - for him to get into our very inner being - underneath our bottom lines - Jesus had to die - like wheat which has to be cut down, crucified, crushed to become flour - then mixed and baked to become bread. It's just like grapes also being crushed to become wine.

He received communion.  

Jack got back to his bench in church and sort of knelt and sat next to his wife and kids. 

At that Mass all these thoughts were giving Jack glimpses of the whole scenario - of Jesus. 

He realized the Mass was about to end.  

He would be told to go in peace.

Then he got one more glimpse - one more insight - one more glimpse of Jesus. He said to Jesus - “Okay, now I see why we have to do this over and over and over again - this communion after communion - this Mass after Mass - to be in communion with you.”

His tongue was trying to dislodge some of the communion bread he felt was still felt caught in his back upper teeth on the left. 

He laughed to himself. "There I am  trying to be perfect again, to look perfect - to have nothing caught between my teeth. I guess that's why I always floss and brush my teeth. I have to be perfect."

He laughed at himself - because  that Sunday morning - he got it. He was digesting Jesus. 

He was thinking to himself, "These tiny glimpses - like these tiny bits of chewed bread - still stuck and mushy in his teeth and in his mind - maybe this is how Jesus works. Jesus gets in there under out teeth, under our skin, under our bottom lines - and tells us to be in communion with him - in the messy - in communion with our mom and dad, brothers and sister, spouse, children, the guard on the way into the bank. We have to die to self - like wheat cut down and grapes crushed - ooh that hurts - so that others can rise and be in communion with us and all."

Jack got it that his dad and mom, brothers and sisters, his wife Jill, their children, neighbors, strangers, people at work, customers - were not who he thought they were.

"Now to be in communion with them, I have to hate - kill - cut down - all my preconceptions of them - like that of Jesus - and let them rise from those deaths before me- so that I  can discover who they really are."

“Whoa!” Jack thought. "I need more time here in church - in this moment - to go underneath all these thoughts  ...." 

His kids and his wife were moving out of their church bench - heading for the back of church - for the parking lot.

“Ooops!” Jack thought as he stood up,  “Who said things have to be perfect?”  “Who really knows what the real bottom line is and what’s underneath it."

"Wait,” Jack thought as he too headed for the church door to catch up with his wife and kids, "what just happened here?"