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.