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September 20, 2009
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading 1
Wis 2:12, 17-20
The wicked say: Let us beset the just one, because he is
obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges
us with violations of our training. Let us see whether
his words be true; let us find out what will happen to
him. For if the just one be the son of God, God will
defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.
With revilement and torture let us put the just one to
the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and
try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful
death; for according to his own words, God will take
care of him.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 54:3-4, 5, 6 and 8
R. (6b)The Lord upholds my life.
O God, by your name save me,
and by your might defend my cause.
O God, hear my prayer;
hearken to the words of my mouth.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
For the haughty men have risen up against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they set not God before their eyes.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord sustains my life.
Freely will I offer you sacrifice;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for its goodness.
R. The Lord upholds my life.
Reading II
Jas 3:16-4:3
Beloved: Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice. But the
wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable,
gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity. And the fruit of
righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate
peace.
Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you
come from?
Is it not from your passions that make war within your
members?
You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you
cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you
do not ask.
You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to
spend it on your passions.
Gospel
Mk 9:30-37
Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a
journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to
know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling
them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and
they will kill him, and three days after his death the
Son of Man will rise.” But they did not understand the
saying, and they were afraid to question him.
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he
began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the
way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing
among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then
he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If
anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all
and the servant of all.” Taking a child, he placed it in
the their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said
to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my
name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not
me but the One who sent me.”
HOMILY:
I had been to a house to visit. Normally we visited
houses in the evening and that is the perfect time for
all to invite a priest, chat, then bless the house and
return back to rectory. At times, we would take a little
more time when there were problems in some families and
we would struggle to finish the number of houses
allotted to us. Well, it happened once, when I was very
late and there was only one house yet to visit. I was
late and I felt a little hesitant to enter a house. When
I knocked the door softly, the woman opened the door,
and she said, Father Welcome, my little son has just
gone to bed and he is praying. I was curious how he was
praying, so I asked the mother to let me see the boy
praying. I listened to him praying in a wonderful way
that was impressive. He began praying, Father, take care
of my Dad, Mom, my teacher, my friends, and also take
care of Jane, who is ill. Dear Heavenly Father please
take care of yourself, because if something happens you
we are all gone. Amen.
That was really great a prayer. Even after almost 5
years I remember the prayers of this little lad. God
bless him.
In today's gospel, Jesus places a child in the midst of
his disciples as an example. In the gospel, the
disciples have been arguing. They have been arguing
about which of them the greatest is. This is a popular
argument among adults. It continues on, down to our own
day. We adults invest ourselves heavily in this
argument. Usually it is not so overt as it is with
these disciples. The argument is generally conducted
indirectly, communicated through symbols such as who has
the biggest income, the fanciest car, the largest
house. Like these disciples of Jesus, today's adults
are concerned with who is the greatest.
These disciples are straightforward enough to discuss it
directly as they walk together down the road. Still
they are ashamed when Jesus asks what they were arguing
about. They fall silent, uncharacteristically silent,
and they do not tell him. He knows what's going on,
however.
Jesus equates greatness with servant-hood, a startling
notion both then and now. He also presents them with a
child, just in from the playground, as a symbol, an
example. He asserts that welcoming such a child amounts
to welcoming him and the Father in heaven who sent him.
The world in which Jesus lives does not value children
highly. To compare the heavenly Father with a kid just
in from the playground upsets the ordinary prejudices of
people in that world.
We live in a world where all too often children are not
valued highly. They may be valued in your family and
mine, but stark statistics are available about children
abused, malnourished, uneducated, imprisoned, so that we
cannot claim that our world today is uniformly safe for
children.
In the face of this world, the church acts in obedience
to Jesus in welcoming children, and this child in
particular, and announcing her as God's child, as a
royal person, an heir to the kingdom of heaven, a
co-heir with Christ himself.
The church acts in obedience to Jesus in welcoming
children, not only on the day of their Baptism, but
whenever these children come forward to the Lord's
Supper as equal participants with others who are
baptized.
The church welcomes children, not only when sacraments
are celebrated, but by recognizing their worth in
numerous ways in the life of congregations by nurturing
them, helping them fulfill their ministries, and
welcoming the gifts they bring which enrich us all.
The church welcomes children who come to us in special
need, who lack food, or counsel, or shelter, children
who in a world they find cruel long for an advocate and
protector, and receive what they need through ministries
offered by Christian groups and through other efforts
promoted by Christian people.
To welcome one such child in the name of Jesus is to
welcome Jesus himself, and it is to welcome the Father
who sent him. Thus a blessing is attached to the
welcoming of children that is done in Christ's name.
This blessing enriches Christian communities and
individuals, and it rests especially upon parents and
other family members who welcome and keep welcoming the
children in their midst for many reasons perhaps, but
certainly in the name of Jesus.
The blessing falls upon us when we keep welcoming the
children not only because it may be natural or expected
or decent to do so, but finally because there is
something sacred about our doing this. Blessed are
those who in the midst of the challenges of caring for
children of any sort can recognize the sacredness of
doing so and always keep that sacredness in view.
So children and their play can be a reminder to the rest
of us that eternity beckons us here in the midst of
time. For this reason, Jesus places in the midst of his
disciples a child fresh from the playground to remind
them to seek the eternal in the world of time, to play
and to contemplate which are much the same
thing--because play and contemplation are worthy in
themselves; they are their own reward. The play of
children is not merely preparation for life's
practicalities; it is a reminder and symbol of our
overarching purpose in this age and the age to come,
which is the contemplation of God.
After we were born our parents found days and months of
sheer delight as they cuddled us, held us, played with
us and watched us become little persons. Each boasted of
the characteristics they saw in us that they were sure
came from their own genes. In generous moments they gave
attribution to the other parent or the other parent’s
family.
It was not long, however, that our parents had to begin
dealing with something within us that I can only
describe as “The Imperial Self.” We all had one, you
know – and still do! And what is amazing is how soon
that Imperial Self asserts itself after we’ve been given
life. The darling, lovable baby soon strives to become a
self-willed tyrant. In that emergence the words
“I”, “me”, and “mine” become no longer descriptive, they
become imperious. Our parents soon became more willing
to break the wills of newly born wild horses than they
were in trying to put bit and bridle on our willful
little egos.
Then came middle and later childhood. Once again our
parents were given days and years of delight, happiness,
and exchanged love. Ah, those were the days! But then
came the teen years. I wish I could ignore even
mentioning the teenage years. But, of course, I can’t.
In those years in which our Imperial Self acquired
muscle, muscle along with learned techniques to exert
power and control. Emotional blackmail was employed;
appeals to what “everybody else” is thinking, saying or
doing were brought to bear. Threats of leaving were
issued. Each one of us developed our own arsenal of
weapons to be deployed by the EGO within us.
And the result? Well, mixed of course.
Some of us still carry scars from those days. Some of
our parents never recovered from the wounds. Others,
however, suffered little. Still other families were
relatively undamaged. In our teen years many if not most
of us learned good lessons and have long since gone on
to having wonderful, loving relationships with our
parents and siblings. We’ve learned how to manage and
contain our Imperial Selves as well as forever junking
those emotional weapons of mass destruction that we
employed back then. Still, there are those of us who are
thirty, forty, and fifty-year-old teenagers. There are
those of us who are remain, decades later, tyrannical
infants who must win at all costs.
Winning and being a winner are deeply imbedded in our
culture; they are a national pastime. All one need do is
observe our obsession with media superstars and sports
heroes. Getting all “A’s” while we are in school becomes
another obsession for us. Our parents are often our
worst enemies in this regard. We strive to win at all
costs.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that we
should not pursue excellence, that we should not develop
our talents, and not use our talents and abilities to
strive to be highest and best that we can be. That sort
of end goal is laudable and good. It is the means
to that end that can devastate those around us and ruin
our own souls.
Self-concern has its moments and aspects of legitimacy.
But self-assertion that seeks to dominate and control
others, to employ techniques to coercion and emotional
blackmail quickly takes us into demeaning and degrading
others.
Whoever said that one ascends a ladder by pushing others
down to the lower rungs? Does one better one’s self by
putting down others? The politics of personal
destruction only lead to our own self-destruction. The
will to dominate and control others, even God, is the
subject of today’s Gospel account. As a priest I’ve
encountered more than a few souls who are angry at God
because He didn’t do as they expected, because He didn’t
dance to their tune.
One of the saddest observations I have when looking out
at our surrounding culture is to see how many people are
degrading and demeaning the goodness and holiness found
in others. The first reading in today’s Mass, taken from
the book of Wisdom, speaks in part to that. But we
should pay attention to the entire passage. The complete
reading is as follows. Note how aptly it describes the
attitudes of so many in today’s world.
“Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are
real, and use the freshness of creation avidly. Let us
have our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no
springtime blossom pass us by; let us crown ourselves
with rosebuds ere they wither.
Let no meadow be free from our wantonness; everywhere
let us leave tokens of our rejoicing, for this our
portion is, and this our lot. Let us oppress the needy
just man; let us neither spare the widow nor revere the
old man for his hair grown white with time. But let our
strength be our norm of justice; for weakness proves
itself useless. Let us beset the just one, because he is
obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges
us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God and styles himself
a child of the LORD.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see
him is a hardship for us, because his life is not like
other men's, and different are his ways. He judges us
debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things
impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and
boasts that God is his Father. Let us see whether his
words be true; let us find out what will happen to him.
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend
him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With
revilement and torture let us put him to the test that
we may have proof of his gentleness and try his
patience.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to
his own words, God will take care of him." These were
their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness
blinded them, and they knew not the hidden counsels of
God; neither did they count on a recompense of holiness
nor discern the innocent souls' reward.
For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his
own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil,
death entered the world, and they who are in his
possession experience it.
Wisdom 2:6-24
A second point I would like to consider with you. It has
to do with being child-like. I suspect many people are
thrown off by a misinterpretation of what Jesus means
when He asks us to be as little children. He is not
asking us to be childish. Nor is He asking us to be
passive-dependent persons, or mindless, unthinking
robots who have no initiative and are not
self-actuating.
What He is asking us to be is “teachable”, to stop
thinking we know everything there is to know about
religion, God, the Church, the bible and all of the
other things of God. Just because we completed our
religious education programs when we were young, and
just because we have received the Sacrament of
Confirmation, doesn’t mean we’ve nothing more to learn
about what God wants of us. People have gone on to earn
doctorate degrees in theology still lose their souls!
People who graduated from our nation’s finest Business
Schools have gone on to pillage the coffers of our major
corporations and empty out the retirement accounts of
countless retirees who gave their lives in working for
those corporations. Knowledge may give us some power,
but knowledge by itself cannot save us.
It is sometimes said that you cannot be a good
businessman or businesswoman and be an observant
Christian. I think that in order to succeed in business
you should put Christian principles into
practice. Stop and think about it. Are not those
businesses that best serve their customers the most
successful businesses? Two family members who belonged
to Reliance family have benefited from that principle to
the extent that each one of them today is a billionaire!
Well it is said that they studied in Christian Schools?
Jesus’ admonition: “If anyone wants to be first he must
be the servant of all” seems to make practical sense to
me. Having served the interests of Larson and Turbo
Corporation as well as many business enterprises are
spectacular successes starting from scratches,
collecting scraps to sell and begin their business, and
today they are multinational giants. And those
businesses that have not delivered quality service have
either failed or are about to fail. Self-aggrandizement
at the expense of exploiting, demeaning and degrading
others is not the road to success in this life or the
next. It is said that Bill Gates the richest man on this
planet gets inspiration from his dear wife who is a
devout Catholic. But those who are closed to learning
what Wisdom, Truth and the Word of God reveal to them
are likewise on the road to failure.
Are you willing to take the road less traveled?
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