PERSONALITY   TESTS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for  this feast of Christ the King is “Personality Tests.”

It’s been my experience that people are fascinated by personality tests.

Somehow a personality test gets a person to look at stuff they are not be seeing in or about themselves.

So this homily is a bit about personality tests.

DOCTOR’S OR DENTIST’S OFFICES

We might have had the experience of being in a dentist or doctor’s waiting room and we see someone reading People  or Reader’s Digest or some magazine and we notice they rip something right out of the magazine and put it in their pocket or pocketbook.

Being nosey and inquisitive, when I see someone rip something out of a magazine, I wonder what was so great, that it would get someone to rip something out of someone else’s magazine. So after they get up and go into see the dentist or doctor, I go over and pick up magazine to see if I can check out what they ripped out – what they were so fascinated by. Next I see the pages that are missing and I go to the table of contents. 

Surprise. I’ve noticed a few times that the other person ripped out a personality test.

Or we are in a doctor or dentist’s waiting room or on an airplane and again we are reading a magazine and surprise there is a personality test and it’s no surprise to notice that some earlier reader of the magazine used a pen or pencil to take a personality test in that magazine.

I guess that’s what these magazines know and that’s why they keep on coming up with different personality tests. I’ve noticed they now have them on websites.

I’ve also noticed that people love personality tests –  any kind of a personality test – at workshops on marriage or marriage preparation or community building, etc. Workshops on communication skills often feature some kind of a personality test. They are a component in many job skills or communication skills programs.

TYPES

People seem to be helped or feel okay to find out, “I’m an extrovert.” or “I’m an introvert” and this is me and it’s okay to be me.

People begin to understand that they are more head than heart and that’s just the way they are.

People seem to enjoy discovering they are more a bear than a bull, that they are more cautions than risky.

Some people are more thinker than feeler.

There are the 4 H’s: Head, heart, hunch, handy – and people have one ability more than another.

There are the 3 centers: head, heart, gut and people seem to be more one than the other two.

Some people are more practical or more impractical.

I think this like of personality tests shows up in the fact that most newspapers have one’s daily horoscope. We make fun of them, but we still read them. And we laugh when they are on the money.

People like Chinese restaurants, not just for Go Moo Gai Pan; they also like them because they often have placemats which gives a Chinese sort of horoscope. Your personality comes from the year of your birth. Was it the year of the snake or the year of the monkey?

TWO BENEFITS OF PERSONALITY TESTS

First it can get us out of self-centeredness. I like the quote, "The greatest sin is our inability to accept the otherness of the other person."

Secondly it gets us to work with each other - and cooperate with each other.

JESUS ON PERSONALITY TESTS

Well, way before modern personality tests, we see Jesus using them all the time.

Right in the beginning of his preaching he tells folks there are four kinds of people. When it comes to hearing the word of God: some people are as thick as cement – and others are as fertile as rich soil. Some people are shallow and some people have depth, but they have too many irons in the fire.

He mentions all this in the parable of the sower: there are those who hear nothing. They are like seed that falls on the path. Then there are those who are like seed that falls on shallow ground. They look great on first reaction, but after that, forget it. They are shallow. Then there are those who look great on paper, but they have too many things going on in their life. Then there are those who are also good soil and they get serious with the word and produce 30, 60 and 100 fold.

What kind of a person am I?

Or Jesus tells the story about a king giving money or coins to different folks – some go out and make more and some are scared of the king and the consequences of failure, so they bury the coins in the ground. Then the king comes back and asks for an accounting of what they’ve done..

Some people build their house, their lives on rock and some build their homes, their lives on shifting sand.

Which is more me?

Am I a good tree or a bad tree? Am I producing good fruit or bad fruit?

What road am I on? There is the road that looks great but it’s going nowhere and there is the narrow way that seems stupid, but it’s the road that leads to life.

What kind of a person am I?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel is a great personality test. That’s where all this is leading to.

Am I a sheep or a goat?

Take the test we have here in the Gospel of Matthew. Am I a sheep or a goat?

I don’t like this test, but it’s a test we better take.

It’s a great test, because it gets at sins of omission more than sins of commission.

Am I a sheep or a goat?

Not only is this a great test, but it also seems to be a good metaphor.

Up until 1940, goats were not liked in Palestine. They tried to keep them out of the northern part of Palestine, which is much more fertile than southern Palestine. Goats eat roots; sheep don’t. When your ruin roots you kill the soil and then there is erosion and the earth slides down to valley and blocks the water and this is a no no.

The sheep produce – and just eat the green, green, grass of the pastures.

So am I a sheep or a goat?

Am I keeping this world going or am I wearing it out.

Am I a sheep or a goat?

That’s the challenge.

Jesus spells out the test. He gives the specifics. I pass or fail, I am a sheep or a goat, depending on whether I feed the hungry or give drink to the thirsty, whether I clothe the naked or not, whether I visit the sick and those in prison or not.

This is some test.

Ugh, ugh.

If I have it right, we’re not fascinated by the poor and the hungry, but we are fascinated by stars, popes, presidents, and athletes. We are not fascinated by nursing homes or soup kitchens, but we are fascinated by places like Lourdes or Fatima, the Grand Canyon or Grand Cayman.

I remember flying from Columbus, Ohio to Dallas, Texas.  Deon Sanders was on our plane. Wow. Nice suit. Nice smile. He was flying first class.

I remember flying to Florida and there was Howard Cosell in our plane. Wow.

I remember being in the Chicago airport and there was Tiny Tim holding his ukulele.

I remember being in the Miami airport and there was F. L. Bailey, the famous lawyer, in an open shirt, hairy chest, with lots of gold chains.

I fail the personality test Jesus gives – because I don’t see the poor and the sick and the imprisoned.

I fail the personality test that Jesus gives, because I’m not feeding the hungry and getting a drink for the thirsty.

This gospel challenges us to see all people in all places.

Don’t we also not only like to have bragging rights for seeing famous people, but also to say we’ve been to famous places and the center of town.

We don’t brag about being in soup kitchens or back streets or nursing homes. Well Mathew preserved the words of Jesus so that we’d go to where the poor and infamous are. Matthew is telling us that Jesus, the Lord of History, is in and with the poor and the hungry and the sick and the imprisoned.  What a great vision – to have that insight.

At the bottom of happiness and life’s meaning, it’s compassion. It’s the Golden Rule. We see this in all religions – and hopefully all religions keep on preaching this message. It took the Buddha a lot of searching, but he finally had the enlightenment that compassion is the name of the game.

It took the Old Testament many pages till we get to the prophets who tell us take care of the widow and the orphan – and not turn your back on the poor.

The meaning of life is found in the words of the Centurion on Calvary. He saw that this rejected, bloody, beaten, crucified man – “truly was the Son of God.”

We see stars, we also need to see the sores of the people in the slums.

The meaning of life is found in raising children, going to the wake in the evening after a long day, visiting a neighbor in the nursing home, volunteering to teach English as a second language, helping others in the St. Vincent de Paul society, helping an aging parent, teaching our kids to read, to love and to catch a Frisbee or a football.

So care, children, husband comfort wife, children,

CONCLUSION

Conclusion. Today’s homily was called, “Personality Tests.”

It will be a good sign and a good move, if during this mass, when nobody is noticing things, like coming back from communion or going up, you take the missalette and rip out today’s gospel, this personality test from Jesus, and pocket it.

This is the last Sunday we use this Missalette - with a new one appearing next Sunday - the First Sunday in Advent.

Amen.