WHAT IS GOD LIKE?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 5^th Sunday After Easter [A]  is, “What Is God Like?”

What is God like to you?  How would you describe God?

Pause! Breathe! Close your eyes! Open your mind! Feel! Open your ears! Hear the musical heartbeat of God in all of creation. The universe - the stars - the oceans - inner and outer space - is an orchestra violining - oboeing - trumpeting an Ode to Joy to and with God.

ASK AND ANSWER THAT QUESTION

What is God like?  

We ask that question from time to time - especially when things go wrong.

We also ask that question when things go right - like when we're seeing a great sunset - like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon - or the edge of the Atlantic at Ocean City at sunrise - all alone with God -  like realizing how great our mom is and not just on Mother’s Day - or we’re at the graduation of a kid we never figured would  graduate and she graduates with a 3.5 average - and each parent says, “It's my genes.”

The title of my homily is, “What Is God Like?”

OTHERS

When a son or a daughter announces they met someone they really like - someone they are very interested in, parents, brothers - but especially sisters, friends back home, ask, “Well, what is he like?” or “What is she like?”

When we get a new boss, a new neighbor, a new pastor, a new president, a new FBI director, people ask, “Well, what is she like?” - “What are they like?” - “What is he like?”

When I have a funeral and I don’t know anything about the person who died, I go “Uh oh!” 

Then I try to find out something about the person who died.  I look at the pictures in the funeral parlor. I ask those showing up for the wake, “What was so and so like?”

So when I’m at a funeral, I want to know more about the person who died.  I don’t like the impersonal. I want to hear a good eulogy. I want to preach a sermon that brings in the person who died.  I don’t like to preach with a one sermon fits all persons' sermon.

What am I like? That’s what I’m like. That’s what I like to do.

What are you like? What do you want people to think and say about you at your funeral?

So when I’m doing a funeral,  I ask at the funeral parlor or over the phone to a family member: Introvert? Extrovert? Quiet? Orchestra leader or stage hand?  Where did they work? Fun to be with? Favorite pie?  Favorite ice cream flavor? Where were they born? I want obituaries.  Sometimes there is no wake or no obituary. Bummer.

And it’s nice to get a thumbs up - after a funeral - that I captured in words and comments - the person who died.

Since this is Mother’s Day, let me add: I was honored to celebrate my mom’s funeral - and preach the homily. I loved telling the story how we caught her two times cheating in cards - and she was good at cards. I loved telling the story that my sister Peggy suggested to my mother to get a volunteer job - and she said, “Are you crazy? There’s no money in that.” Then I added that she loved making money to give away money - especially to her grand kids.

The title of my homily is, “What Is God Like?”

In the flow of this homily I want to be moving from the “What is another like?”  question to the “What is God like?” question.

TWO  QUICK STORIES

First story. I’m driving home with the funeral director from the cemetery - after a  funeral. 

This happened years before I came to Annapolis - so this was not here. We priests or deacons have to be very careful with that one.  

The funeral director says to me: You know why his wife asked you to do his funeral?  

I said, “No!”  

“Well,” the funeral director said, “his wife knew you didn’t know him and he was a blankety, blank, blank, blank. And she knew you’d say something nice about him.”

In other words - at that funeral - I described someone who wasn’t the someone he really was.

Second story.  I’m in Lima, Ohio, at St. Gerard’s Church - the place I was stationed before I came here. 

My job there was to be on the road most of the weeks of the year preaching - with a guy named Tom. It was a great job. In 8 1/2 years doing that, we got to know Ohio.

Well, this one day, we were home.  A call came in from St. Rose’s Church about 8 blocks away from our church. It was 9:30 AM  and the pastor at St. Rose  got suddenly sick and they needed someone for a 10 AM funeral. Our secretary called and I drove down there fast.

I get into the sacristy. It’s now 10 to 10. I ask a lady in the sacristy. “Who died?  Man or woman?”  

She was a woman.  

"What was her name?” I asked, 

“Did you know her?” 

The sacristan said, “No clue.” 

So I shoot out into the church and ask folks off to the side, “Does anyone here know the lady who died?” 

I didn’t want to go to family waiting in the back with the casket. I would have done that at the funeral parlor.

So someone said, “That lady over there might know something about her.”

So I asked that lady, “What was so and so like?”

She told me that the lady worked in Kresge’s which later became K-Mart.  She worked in the hat department. She was non-descript there. But, when the lady in the candy section retired, this lady got that job. Well, all the kids loved her because she was generous and she really knew kids.”

I ran back to the sacristy, got the Bible story about the man in the marketplace who was super generous to everyone - packing on more and more wheat or flour in every  purchase. [Cf. Luke 6:36-38]

Well, after the funeral mass someone in the family said, “Thank you. Wow! You really knew my mother!”

The luck of the Irish. I kissed the Blarney Stone.

NOW THE QUESTION: WHAT IS GOD LIKE? ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

The title of my homily is, “What is God like?”

The theologians say, “God is perfect. God is all knowing.  God is all powerful. God is the Creator. God is without boundaries - without limits. God is eternal.”

They are  some of the so called, “Attributes of God.”

They don’t grab me. That’s like saying, “My grandmother is perfect.”

I’d add one of life’s most important questions, “For example?”

"For example why do you say your grandmother is perfect?"

QUESTIONS

So when it comes to answering, “What is God or another like like?” I like to ask questions.

For example, “Does the sky ever end?  I like to stand outside at night and look into the sky and ask God, ‘Does this ever end?’ Or, 'How far out does all this go?'”

For example, I like to ask, “God, why did you make mosquitoes and hippos and sharks?”

For example, I asked God at the funeral of a 3 day old baby two Saturday’s ago, “Why did she die when she died - after just 3 days?”  And then I add, “God what’s your take on all these horror stories that are on your evening news from all over the world today?”

I've think of God answering, "Me too, I wonder about all this." Or "I cry!" Or, "I'm powerless over people pulling triggers."

GOSPEL OF JOHN

Today’s gospel is from John 14: 1-12 - and that’s what triggered the why of this homily.

In the gospels - especially John - I love the message, “Want to see the Father, want to know the Father, know me.”

So Jesus is the answer for me what God is like.

When I read the gospels, I listen to the gospel with that in  mind.

So Jesus was an observer. He took the time to see the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. So God takes the time to smell the roses. Does God look at the petals of a red rose and say, “Nice job?” or does he say, “Nice job - Mother Earth.” [Cf. Matthew 6: 26-34.]

I picture Jesus spending his 20’s - not just working in the carpenter shop, but when he was working on fixing up a  house, he was listening to what was going on inside a house. So Jesus knew that in every family there are people who were not talking to people.  And I see that is one reason he told the story of  the Prodigal Son - in which the older brother won't speak to his younger brother.  So God knows about family fights and what have you. [Cf. Luke 15: 11-32.]

Jesus liked to spend time with two sisters, Martha and Mary - and their brother Lazarus. So he knew sisters can sometimes he catty and itchy towards each other. He knew that in every house people complain that they get stuck emptying the dish washer and cooking the meals - while the other loves just sitting there watching the soaps. I assume that’s a why of the Martha Mary Story. [Cf. Luke 10:38-42; John 11: 1-2.]

Jesus knew that sometimes people run out of food and money.  The wine runs short at weddings - so Jesus helps when people are stuck. So too we are inwardly urged as uncles or aunts or older brothers or sisters to slip a $20 to a kid - who is going Six Flags or where have you. [John 2: 1-12; Matthew 14: 13-21.]

Jesus knew losing an only son is horrible, so he reached out to a widow who lost her only son. [Cf. Luke 7:11-17.]

Once more, in today’s gospel, Philip says to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

And Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with for so long a time and you still do not know me?” “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

So too he urges us to do that and when we do that, we’re show people what God is like - because that’s how Jesus is.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, "What Is God Like?"

First answer: See how Jesus is.

Second answer. See how we are when we are like Jesus. Amen.