Picking Up the Apples

The 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Readings: Jer 1: 4-5 and 17-19; Ps 71; 1 Cor 12: 31 – 13: 13; Lk 4: 21-30

A group of sales representatives from Milwaukee were in Chicago for the day to make an important business presentation. As it turned out, their meeting ran late, and the sales reps had to race to Union Station, tickets in hand, to catch their Amtrak train back to Milwaukee.

As the group raced through the main concourse, one guy accidentally knocked over a little table with a basket of apples on it. But the group kept hurrying along without so much as even looking back. With great sighs of relief, they quickly boarded the train.

All but one of them, that is.

One of the men paused, because he felt a twinge of conscience over what his associate had done. So he waved goodbye to his friends and went back into the terminal. He was glad he did. The ten-year-old boy with the apple stand was blind.

The salesman went around and gathered up the apples that had rolled all over the place. He noticed that several of them were bruised. He reached into his wallet and said to the boy, “Here, please take this ten dollars for the damage we did. I’m really sorry, and I hope we didn’t ruin your day.”

As the man started to walk away, the puzzled boy called after him, “Are you Jesus?”

The man stopped in his tracks… and he wondered.

How easy it is to ram your way through life, sometimes leaving damage and victims in your wake: people we may have snubbed or insulted, ignored or irritated. Maybe the exact wrong words might have slipped out of our mouth, and before you know it, it’s too late.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? I sure do. I kick myself like Ralph Kramden for once again opening my BIG MOUTH.

The Lord has some words of encouragement for us today—for those of us who mess up, and for the ones who happen to get stepped on along the way.

First, for the ones who cause the trouble:

We hear that beautiful reading from the letter to the Corinthians that is a favorite at weddings: love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous… But this is not a lesson only for brides and grooms or loving partners. It is aimed at all of us—the entire human race. The Lord is reminding us that the most important thing in the world is people. We are commanded to love them, and that means we have to treat them with kindness, respect, honesty and humility. Just exactly the way that Christ did.

In our little story about the blind boy and the apples, this child saw Jesus in the unexpected kind act of the businessman. “Are you Jesus?” he asked.

This is the standard we must strive for in our own dealings with people. If only we could pause for a split-second before we simply react to some situation! If only we could think: what is the patient, kind, loving thing to do?

Or at the very least, even if we make a mess of things, if we could only realize it right away and hurry back to try to make things right!

Just think how many messes you could have avoided-or at least minimized! It almost boggles the mind!

Now, for those who wind up as the victim:

Our first reading today gives us some words of wisdom from Jeremiah the prophet: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. This is also a message aimed at the entire human race. God, who knows and sees all things—past, present and future—has known us and loved us and given us a mission from all eternity. You might say that God has his loving and protective arms wrapped tightly around us as he propels us into the world.

Remember that, and listen again to what the Lord says about the people and hardships that want to drag us down, on purpose or by accident: Be not crushed on their account… for I am with you to deliver you.

We’ve all had the experience of having something rotten happen to us—and we can’t wait to turn to somebody close or important to us to tell them about it… not that they can necessarily make things better, but just because it makes us feel better to share our burden with someone we trust and someone who loves us.

But the truth be known, your very best confidant in the whole wide world is God! If only we would remember to go to him first and pour out our hearts and prayers to him! Who else promises what he promises us today? I am with you to deliver you. God’s devoted love and friendship can truly make any problem bearable and manageable.

I hope and pray that we all will take to heart Christ’s lesson today—a lesson that is simple but oh-so-very-important: to really learn to cherish one another and put each other first. Nothing in life matters more.

So always remember: take the time to go back and pick up the apples.

Accepting Each Other

The 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Readings: Neh 8: 2-10; Ps 19; 1 Cor 12: 12-30; Lk 1: 1-4 and 4: 14-21

Helen was a high school teacher—a math teacher. She was trying hard to get across to her class a difficult new math concept. Each day, the harder she tried, the more her students were growing frustrated and edgy. Finally, one Friday, the teacher said to the class, “Look, put away your books. Everybody take out a piece of paper and list each of the other students’ names on that paper, and write something nice about each one.”

So that’s what they did for the entire class. She collected the papers, went home, and over the weekend she put the name of each student on a separate piece of paper and then copied all the nice things that their classmates had to say about them. When she went in Monday morning, she handed the papers out. And immediately, the mood in the class changed. She even heard one pupil whisper to another, “Wow! I never knew that anybody thought anything nice about me!”

And in this upbeat new atmosphere, the class was able to make great progress.

The years went by, students came and went, and eventually they had one of those class reunions. When they gathered around Helen, their old teacher, one of the fellows opened up his wallet and pulled out a ragged piece of paper that obviously had been folded and refolded many times. Helen recognized it immediately as the list she had given to them—to this man and the others—many years before.

Another student told her how she kept her list in her bedroom dresser drawer all these years. Another said she had pasted the list in her wedding album. Another young man pulled out his wallet and showed that he, too, carried his all this time.

Helen was quite overwhelmed to think that a minor gesture to settle down her class so many years ago had meant so much to these students. Someone had said something nice about them, and during the years when they were feeling low they would pull out this piece of paper. Then they’d remember that in somebody’s eyes, they were of value… they mattered… something was good in their lives.

Helen never realized that she was planting a small seed. She certainly was not intending a grand gesture. But it was a situation that Jesus would appreciate and say, “The kingdom of God is like that.”

You see, in God’s kingdom, every one of us is loved, appreciated and valued. We come with amazingly different gifts and abilities and characteristics—each one of us cherished by the wonderful God who created us.

But so very often, we human beings are always looking around at other people—and heaven forbid if someone doesn’t fit in “our mold” the way we think they should! How quick we are to judge them and condemn them.

St. Paul writes today to the Corinthians using a wonderful analogy of how our world is like a human body, consisting of countless different parts that all fit in and work together. For those of us who tend to be pushed aside or judged or beaten up or shunned or laughed at because of who or what we are, I think it’s awesome to hear what God thinks: “Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this.” In other words, the more the world pushes you down and counts you as nothing, the more God lifts you up and blesses you in his eyes. That’s why Jesus loves children… and the poor… and the suffering.

Did you ever stop to consider why people judge and condemn others? It certainly isn’t to help them; after all, Jesus Christ never resorted to treating anyone like that!

No, it’s due in large part to fear. I might be a racist because I fear that I would lose my feeling of superiority if people of all races were treated equally. I might be homophobic because I’m not secure enough in who I am that I have to worry about what others might think of me. I might condemn people of other religions or political persuasions because I’m afraid to accept that God could love anyone who believes or thinks other than the way I do.

And so it goes. If you think in the privacy of your own heart and mind about the people or groups of people you hate or condemn, I’ll bet you’ll find some personal fear at the core. And this fear is like a cancer, a poison, inside you.

Today, I’d like to give you a little something to try—kind of a challenge—to kill that cancer inside and replace it with something much better: the love of God.

Give yourself the opportunity to go through just one day concentrating on totally accepting everyone and making no judgments. You see, everything we think or say reacts on us like a boomerang. When we send out judgments in the form of criticism, fury or other attacks, they come back on us. When we send out only love, that is what comes back to us.

So I suggest you try this once a month; I don’t think we can really handle more than that! Pick a day—say, the fourth Tuesday of every month or whatever—and suspend all judgments. Spend one day of total acceptance of other people. Pull back from judging and just look and accept. See the difference in makes in your life and attitudes.

St. Paul says, “If one part of the body is honored, all the parts share its joy.”

When you accept all the parts of the body, Our Lord’s words become literally true: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And what rejoicing there will be in heaven! Amen.

I Will Not Be Silent!

The 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Readings: Isa 62: 1-5; Ps 96; 1 Cor 12: 4-11; Jn 2: 1-11

When I was home for Christmas, one of the presents my brother got was a DVD set of the first season of the TV show, Boston Legal. For several evenings, we sat and watched multiple episodes of this very funny series.

In two of the shows, the Reverend Al Sharpton made a guest appearance and came bursting into the courtroom in the middle of trials. In one episode, he spoke passionately about how a young black girl was being denied her rights and dreams by not getting chosen to play Little Orphan Annie in a stage play.

Then in another episode, he argued just as powerfully on behalf of a transgendered woman who was fired from her job because she made her coworkers uncomfortable.

Of course, taking on the evils of the system and the status quo are things that Al Sharpton is famous for in real life. Some people may think that guys like him just ham it up for the cameras or for political gain—but the truth of the matter is, it takes a lot of guts to speak out publicly when people, especially minorities, are denied their civil rights. It takes much courage to organize marches, practice civil disobedience, stage protests or do other activist things to try to right injustices. We all well know that our world frequently rejects and ridicules the justice seeker. Sometimes, in fact, activism can cost a person their life. We remember that tomorrow on Martin Luther King Day.

Maybe that’s why I have a lot of respect for the people who aren’t afraid to really stand up for their beliefs: the Al Sharptons and Martin Luther Kings and Cindy Sheehans and so many others. It’s funny: I may not always agree with the person’s viewpoint or politics, but I do greatly admire their passion and courage.

Where does a person’s passion come from—their “fire,” if you will?

We hear it spoken by the prophet Isaiah in the opening line of our first reading today: For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet?

And it goes without saying that Jesus himself never hesitated to speak up when somebody was being bullied or discriminated against, no matter what the cost to him.

To take on a fight against injustice, a potential martyr or a would-be agent of change needs spiritual empowerment. When you’ve got those spiritual resources, then you can go forward in confidence, knowing that God is on your side to make things happen. That’s exactly how Isaiah goes on in our reading to promise victory, vindication, glory, rejoicing?

So: how do we go from being average, don’t-make-waves people into spiritual dynamos? How do we hunger for, and then find, spiritual empowerment so we can work for justice and full inclusion in the world of the people who are stepped on, put down or marginalized?

Actually, Mary shows us how in the gospel today.

It’s the famous story of the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus’ mother uses this occasion to jump-start his ministry. Remember, this is the time of Christ’s first public miracle: changing water into wine.

We don’t usually think of Mary saying, “Jesus, honey. Be a love and run to the store and get some more wine”—but this is sort of what happens here.

In Jesus’ day, weddings were very much community events. They laid the foundation for your future. Wine was particularly symbolic, so running out would have been an insult to the community and an extreme embarrassment for the hosts.

This wasn’t just a matter of everyone having a glass of bubbly to hold during a toast. No, this was about life itself. Before drinking, in fact, people would say: “L’ Chaim!”—“To Life!” And who among us hasn’t needed a miracle to get where we are in life? I know I have?

Today, many people in the larger community—the world—need such a miracle. They need acceptance. They need inclusion. They need affirmation and belonging. In other words, they need life itself. Because if you’ve got this, then every other problem takes care of itself.

Mary told the servants in the gospel, “Do whatever he tells you.” She says the same to us: “Do whatever my Son tells you.”

Jesus, in turn, tells the servants: “Fill the jugs with water—and love fully as I lead you.”

For the servants, it probably didn’t make a lot of sense to put water in the wine jars—but they did it out of obedience, on faith.

We, too, don’t know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, or even later today. But somehow, trusting the Lord is going to be the key to our success, our victory, our vindication—our spiritual empowerment.

Very simply, Christ teaches us constantly to love one another, to build each other up, to stand up for our neighbor, to help those in need, to practice the Golden Rule. If we immerse ourselves in his teachings, how can we not speak up? For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet?

If we speak up, and maybe even act up, will the Lord be there at our side? Are you willing to find out?

Yes, go out these doors into the world and be holy troublemakers. Shoot your mouth off for the Lord.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied? Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Following the Magi

Feast of the Epiphany
Today’s Readings: Isa 60: 1-6; Ps 72; Eph 3: 2-6; Mt 2: 1-12

There’s a wonderful legend about the three Wise Men. On their way to Bethlehem, so the story goes, they stopped at a little Russian village. There, they spoke of the wonderful Child, the Baby King they were seeking.

The Magi were tired and hungry, but no one offered them any food or a place to stay — until a poor woman named Babushka put her home at their disposal. After they had eaten and rested, Babushka asked many questions. She, too, wanted to see this wonderful Child. But first, she had to clean and dust her house.

It was only an hour until sunset. The Wise Men explained that when it was dark, the star would appear and then they must be on their way. So they told Babushka to get ready if she wanted to come along. They said they were heading into town for some provisions, and she was to meet them shortly at the city gate.

But Babushka became so wrapped up in cleaning the house that the time of meeting went by, and the Magi left without her. Of course, she was keenly disappointed. In fact, she scolded her house! “House, I hate you! I was your slave. You made me busy, so busy that I have missed going with those good men to see the King.”

So she sold her home and all her possessions, and she bought a camel and many pretty toys for babies. She then set out after the Wise Men. But she never caught up with them.

To this day, according to the legend, she is traveling up and down the East, looking in every cradle in search of the Christ-Child. She gives each child a present. For Russian children, Babushka is their Santa Claus. But she never found the Baby Jesus.

The moral of the story is that too many Christians miss the Christ-Child because they are too busy with other things.

But on this Feast of the Epiphany, in the midst of the Christmas Season in this Third Millennium since the birth of Christ, we can resolve to turn our attention away from the baubles of the world to the King of Kings — to Jesus Christ Himself. Let the Wise Men show us the way.

In the gospel of today’s mass, we hear how the Magi prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

From ancient days, the Church has always taught that there is a wonderful symbolic meaning to each of these gifts.

Gold is evidence that Jesus is Lord. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Frankincense shows that Jesus is divine. He is God’s only begotten Son.

Myrrh was a perfume used to prepare bodies for burial, and this gift hints at Jesus’ suffering and death to come.

And how then, as we celebrate Epiphany 2007, might we bring our own gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus?

The gold is our commitment to live with Jesus as the Lord of our lives. It’s our commitment to seek the things God wants and to serve God in every area of our lives. Of course, it’s easy to nod and say, “Yes, I want to do that!” in the abstract. But it’s a lot harder “where the rubber hits the road” — in our actual daily living. In our relationships with family members, friends, and even people we meet casually at work, in business, at school, when we’re out shopping, driving on the road, sitting in the movie theatre, standing at the gas pump… Our daily effort to do God’s will and serve him in and through all these simple day-to-day events is the gold we bring to the Christ Child.

Frankincense is our effort to recognize Jesus as the Son of God he truly is. When it dawns on us who he is — who he really is — we can’t help but respond with praise and adoration and thanksgiving… in other words, with worship and prayer. Our frankincense might be a new commitment to make prayer a vital part of our daily routine. There are lots of ways to do this: saying familiar and comfortable prayers, reading the Bible slowly and prayerfully, praying the rosary, simply talking quietly with God in your own words. There are many ways to pray.

And of course, don’t forget mass! Maybe the frankincense we need to bring is a promise to be more attentive at mass… or to come to daily mass sometimes… or if your Sunday attendance is haphazard, offer the frankincense of a new commitment to come every single Sunday. Yes, our prayer and worship is the frankincense we can bring this Epiphany.

And what about the myrrh we can bring? Perhaps it is being more patient and complaining less when it comes to the inevitable sufferings in our lives. We can ask for God’s grace and the help of the Holy Spirit so we can bear our sufferings in union with Jesus. In fact, we can offer the sufferings we endure to the Lord so he can use them to redeem the world… to give more life to the world. Yes, maybe this is the myrrh we can bring today.

My friends in the Lord, the story of the Wise Men bearing gifts is more than ancient history. It is an invitation, here and now… today… to follow that mysterious star to Jesus Christ and to bring him the gift he really wants most: you!

May the blessings and grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you today and always. Amen!