GRIPE, GRACE, GOD
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Ground, Groan, Gripe, Grace, God.”
Those are 5 words beginning with the letter “g”.
“Ground, Groan, Gripe, Grace, God.”
When I read today’s second reading, the word “groaning” jumped off the page. So that’s where the word “groan” came from. The other 4 words beginning with “g” hit me as I thought about “groaning.”
I’m a tiny bit nervous, because when I begin saying something about each of these 5 words - some might groan inwardly, “Oh my God, 3 more to go!”
Today’s second reading from Romans intrigues me. The reading is very short. Smart move by whoever put these readings together. It’s from the 8th Chapter of Romans which needs to be digested very slowly. It needs to be cut with a sharp knife - like cutting prime rib or a good steak - and then taken in small bites and chewed and digested very deliciously, deliberately and slowly. Chew! Chew! Digest! Digest!
We also heard this word “groaning” in last week’s 2nd reading from Romans - also from the 8th Chapter - and this chapter continues onwards again next Sunday and the Sunday after that.
So 5 words beginning with “g”. That’s how I’m chopping up my homily - sort of like 5 steps in the growth process - in human evolution - in human spiritual growth - in human rising from the ground from which we came.
GROUND
The first theme I want to begin with is ground.
We are of the earth - ground - growing in our mother’s womb - and then presented to the world on our birthday: “It’s a girl!” “It’s a boy.”
It’s important that we be well grounded - well situated. It’s important to be born and brought into a family. It’s important to know security - home - a mom and a dad - who are present. We’re extra lucky - extra blessed if we also have grand moms and grand dads to nurture us.
Today’s first reading from the Book of Wisdom uses the word "ground" when it gives these wonderful words, “and you gave your children good ground for hope….”
Hopefully all children are grounded in hope. Isn’t that one of the reasons for the question, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” And we hope the kid shoots for the moon. And hopefully nobody limits us - nobody says to us, “Dream smaller.” “Be realistic!” “Are you crazy? A woman will never be president of the United States.”
Hopefully, we all had good ground to stand on in our growing up years. Stability. Security. We’ve all heard stories about the horror a kid can feel in an alcoholic family - when kids don’t know what’s next or how daddy or mommy will behave when they walk in the door or they come home and walk in the door. Hopefully in growing up we had a great kitchen table - that as little kids we saw something happening there that was not happening over in our high chair - and we longed for the day of our graduation from the high chair to a chair at the family table. Hopefully we all experienced our family sitting and eating and talking and laughing - celebrating what it is to be a family. It's important for every family to find itself just sitting around telling the family stories - remembering them - and making the stories better.
The liturgy of our family needs the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of Meals.
These are the words of our family. Thanks be to God. These are our family menus - the meals members prepare and put together with their body and blood - and paid for by the work of our hands and brains. Thanks be to God.
I’ve heard several times someone say about a troubled person, “The bigger the problem, the earlier the problem.”
Children - need to be held. Children need to know there is someone there for them when they come home - if possible.
Children of the world need a healthy world to live in - to breathe in - to drink the water of etc. etc. etc.
So that’s my first reflection. We are of the ground - of the earth. The Book of Genesis is telling us with the second creation account in Genesis, that God realizing it’s not good to be alone - so God bent over and created us from the clay, the ground, the dust of the earth - and breathed the gift of life into us - God’s Spirit into us. Amen.
GROANING
The second reflection has to do with groaning.
The little baby cries and groans and screams for food - for attention - for love - to be lifted up.
My legs don’t walk yet - so walk me around the room, around the house, around the playground for me.
My sounds aren’t words yet - so talk up for me - bring me to meet all those people whom you’re talking with and who are saying, “Isn’t that a beautiful baby?”
And so the baby is a great groan - a new sound on the planet - a cry in the night - a scream in a church.
And hopefully we reach out to each child and make them feel at home - and help them crawl on the ground - and groan - and point - and we teach them to climb, to walk, to talk, to use their fingers to tell us how old they are - to use their sounds - to form words and tell us what they want.
Those are our first groans - in our first childhood - but then for many there are our end groans - as we sink back down towards the ground in our second childhood - and finally are buried back in the earth from which we came.
I’ve been to many nursing homes and many times I’ve run into people who are groaning - and sometimes there are people there to hear them, to soothe them - to give them company, and sometimes they are so, so alone - grounded - sometimes tied down in their beds.
In the Grand Canyon between childhood and old age - there are less groans - but sometimes we let out deep groans - deep screams - sometimes silent screams - sometimes grunts - some of which we don’t grasp. At times we just feel alone - all alone - or that all has gone wrong - and we just want to sink back into the ground - and out a cover over everything.
Life is laughter and tears - good times and bad - but let the good times roll.
St. Paul in today’s second reading speaks for many of us. Sometimes we don’t know how to pray - or maybe some of our best prayers - our real prayers - have not been our Our Father’s - but tumultuous groanings from deep in our belly.
I’m only scratching the surface of what Paul is saying here, but haven’t we all found ourselves at times fed up with the nonsense, the vanity, the loneliness, the hurt, the stuff we can’t understand, the “Why’s” and “Why not’s” and we just want to scream - to let out a deep - “uuuuuuuugghhhh!”
GRIPES
The third “G” that hit me is gripes.
I wanted to come up with 5 steps - 5 “g’s” - we have 5 fingers - so maybe this one is forced - but maybe not.
Gripes are different from groans - in that we can name our gripes easier than what’s at the bottom of our groans.
Gripes are about noise and stupidity - and not getting our way - and the way some drivers are almost backseat drivers - but they are in the car behind us - and sometimes they are sitting right next to us and we don’t need someone in our car to make choice comments - on how we should be doing the driving or doing life.
Gripes are more conscious - certainly not as deep - as our deepest groans.
Gripes. Come to grip with your grips. Make your list.
Then learn and pray the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
I have to do more homework with gripes - but let’s leave this at that. It’s the stuff that rubs us the wrong way between the crib and the nursing home bed - between diapers and Depends.
GRACE
Grace is what is what we get when we get to the other side of gripes and groaning - and make peace with what's causing our itches and twitches - gripes and groans.
Grace is gift.
Grace is surprise.
Grace is laughter.
Grace is wisdom.
Grace is letting go and letting God.
Grace is when we have made peace with life.
Grace is maturity - interdependence - working with each other - knowing our gifts - and that others have gifts. Thank God.
Grace is being gracious - affirming - enjoying a card game with our parents and with little kids. Grace is enjoying bridge, rummy or Go Fish!
Grace is Thanksgiving Dinner - when we say Grace better than any other meal of the year.
Grace is Sunday Dinner with the family - even though it gets tougher and tougher as the kids get older and into more and more stuff - to have these meals. A key is to experience Sunday dinner like Sunday Mass and neither of them are a have to - or an obligation - but both are a want to - both being Eucharist.
Grace is to be realistic as well. We need to learn how to do the “have to’s” of life. There are some - like taking the dog out - cleaning up the dog do do - instead of cursing - whose dog did this? - giving the remote to the other person - letting the other ahead of us on the line - and lots of those sweet little random acts of kindness and comment - that make life sweeter for each other.
Okay, as we heard in today’s gospel, there are also weeds - along with the wheat.
So grace is making peace with the weeds and letting them grow to maturity and in the meanwhile we enjoy the wheat that has also grown - that we enjoy for example a whole wheat sandwich - with ham and cheese - or what have you.
Having grace is having the serenity that is talked about in the serenity prayer.
Being graceful is not a smile on the face while underneath there is the snarl - and the passive aggression that sometimes follows.
Nope grace is down deep peace and security - because we’re grounded in God - and a smile is the after effect of that peace and feeling of being at home in our own body and our own life and in the chapters of our story.
We too hear what Mary heard from God through an angel: “Hail ____ put your name there - full of grace, the Lord is with you.”
Hopefully as we age in grace we experience God’s knowledge of us and love for us - and calls to us - rooting deeper and deeper into our soul as we become more and more a person of the Kingdom.
If this happens we get it - got it, good.
We’re growing because we hear what Jesus keeps telling us every Sunday. The Kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven - starting in me. I’m enjoying the birds of the air and I know leaven - the yeast of God - is being kneaded into the mass of the earth each day by God - God like a woman as we heard in today’s Gospel making loaves of bread with wheat flour - until the whole back is leavened.
GOD
God is my fifth “G”.
God the smallest of seed was planted in my being - first as a word - but hopefully becoming born in us - in the Bethlehem of our soul - and slowly we discover the Wise Woman or Wise Man - the Shepherd - as well as the cow and the ox also within us.
And if we’re Christians we discover Christ is leading us - sometimes he’s like Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration - sometimes he's like Jesus on the cross of Mount Calvary - because he challenged us too much so we crucified him by running away - but Christ also rises - coming through our the thick walls of our upper room - our skull - and says “Peace” to us.
And it all makes sense - slowly. God takes time.
“Uuuuuuhhh” we groan. We know down deep this stuff - we know what Paul discovered slowly.
I don't know how to close this, so let me close by reading once again today’s second reading. Relax. It’s short - unlike this long homily. “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.”
