WHAT HOLDS US BACK?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 26th 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.
