WHAT HOLDS US BACK?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 26^th Wednesday in OT  is, “What Holds Us Back?”

Today’s gospel  - [Luke 9: 57-62]  - triggers that thought - that question - especially . But Job also had a lot on his back to weigh him down - and hold him back. [Cf. Job 9: 1-12, 14-16.]

So a few thoughts on the question, “What Holds Us Back?”

I suspect this homily is more for procrastinators like me - compared to those who get a lot done every day.

FURTHER QUESTION

The next question should be: from what?  Holds us back from what?

Answers: from being a better Christian, wife, husband, grandmother, grandfather, son, daughter, brother, sister, listener, giver, worker.

What’s holding us back from being better?

I sense that’s like a sign above every work desk: “What’s holding you back?”

CANDIDATES - EXCUSES - EXCUSES

I don’t know about you, but time and laziness hold me back from doing all that I would like to do in life.

Once I hit 75, I find myself repeating Clint Eastwood’s line from the Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force, when Harry Callahan says, “A man has to know his limitations.”

So for starters, laziness and limitations hold me back.

So to, too many pulls in too many ways - and then an inner voice says, “Baloney! You’re just too lazy.”

No? Yes?  But at times I have a lot to do. Don’t we all?

MAKING LISTS

So we make our lists.

Sometimes we write them out.

Most of the time the things we are putting off are like a dripping faucet - drip, drip, drip. Get moving. You know what you’re supposed to do, do, do, do.

At other times they are like a bulldog growling at our feet. “You gotta, gotta, gotta….” 

So life has a lot of gotta, gotta, gotta’s. Life has lots of do, do, do, do. You gotta do this.

Listen to self. We’re a broken record. Listen!

“I still haven’t called the doctor. I still haven’t written that Thank You note. I still haven’t paid that bill. I still haven’t cleaned that closet. I still haven’t gotten rid of that stack of magazines. You’ll never read them. I still haven’t given my so and so a call. It’s at least two months now - and the anniversary of her husband’s death has come and gone.”

TALK ABOUT GETTING DONE

When I listen to Job in The Book of Job,  I pick up that he realizes God does an awful lot.

That’s different from what I hear many people saying. Too many people are daily complainers about what God does not do? Job sees God keeping this vast universe going.

Let me do back to today’s first reading from the Book of Job.   We hear Job realizing God’s in charge of the sun and the stars. Job writes,

He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads upon the crests of the sea.
He made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south;
He does great things past finding out,
marvelous things beyond reckoning.

And yet we still scream down deep  to this busy God of ours - especially when things are going wrong in our life. “God, what are you doing? Where are you when I need you?”

We all have our list  of what God should be doing.

Does God have a list for us - on what we’re supposed to be doing?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel has Jesus calling people but they have excuses: “I gotta bury my father.”   “I have to go back home and do some things there first.”

Jesus says, put your hand to the plow and stop looking back.

Put your hands to the plow and stop looking sideways.

CONCLUSION: THE BIGGEST COMPLAINT

Let me close with what I think is the biggest thing that holds us back.

It’s comparing ourselves to others.

It’s when we spend too much inner time - inner complaining we do about others not doing their part.

I don’t but I want to say to complainers. Let me walk around inside you for 20 minutes and I’ll tell you to stop your complaining about others - and do what you are being called to do.