A young man, eager to make it to the top, went to a “success in
business” seminar taught by a wealthy tycoon. “What’s the reason for
your phenomenal success?” he asked.
Back came the answer, in a gravelly voice: “Hard work!”
“Uh, well, what’s the second reason?”
It’s natural to find the easy way to do things. Book stores sell
thousands of “easy” books. Spanish Made Easy, Five Easy Steps to a
Better Vocabulary, Easy Does It, Eat What You Want and Lose Weight.
Looking for the easy way may be natural, but today Our Lord warns us
that about really important things, the easy way isn’t the best way. The
easy way isn’t always the right way.
Perhaps the harshest words that ever came out of the mouth of Jesus
were aimed at his friend for counseling him to take the easy way. The
scripture says Jesus turned on Peter, turning on someone…what a
phrase, and said, in new Testamentese: “Simon, get the blank out of
here. Your advice of taking the easy way, avoiding the cross,
eliminating pain at any cost, is a dangerous temptation that might make
me fall. I don’t need people around me that only judge by the world’s
standards. The easy way is not always the right way.”
Many of you here with some years experience know that what Jesus
says is true! Success in life requires a willingness to resist the lure of the
easy way. A sound body requires that you exercise, eat the right foods,
and conquer bad habits. A sound mind requires that you read, that you
observe, that you continually learn, instead of resting on a handful of pet
convictions handed down from grandma and grandpa and never
expanded or enlarged. A sound marriage requires that each partner goes
into it with the understanding that marriage is not a 50/50 proposition,
but a 70/30 one, in which both partners give 70. A sound family means
that we will take the time to be sensitive to the needs of our children,
that we provide not only for their physical needs, but their emotional and
spiritual needs as well. Such goals require sacrifice, they require
perseverance…Every one of us knows that the path to personal success
is the path of self denial. And why should we do this unnatural thing,
take the hard way, pick the cross, say no to our inclination to ease.
Because our Lord has loved us the hard way, the godly way, the right
way; no one who looks on that cross would ever complain when God
asks us to sometimes take the hard way. After all, Jesus did not come to
make life easy. Jesus came to make human beings great People of Faith!
Archive for the ‘22nd Sunday’ Category
Easy Does It? 9-3-2023
Friday, September 1st, 2023God You Are the Source 8-28-2022
Sunday, August 28th, 2022I think Jesus was a first-class people watcher. One day he was
invited to be a guest in the home of a Pharisee. When it came time for
dinner, he began watching closely the other guests’ behavior. He
watched all the jockeying for position to be number 1. When all were
seated, Jesus gave them a piece of his mind. What he had to say was
much more than a lesson about table manners. In essence Jesus said,
“It’s a foolish thing to waste your time and energy trying to look
important.”
In thinking about this statement, I believe there are a couple of
important considerations to keep in mind:
A. Jesus never discouraged the desire for greatness . . . He
encouraged it. It was never human littleness that Jesus stressed,
but human grandeur. “You are the light of the world; you are
the salt of the earth.”
B. His philosophy was: try hard to achieve. Do something
significant with your gifts; be the best person that you can
possibly become.
Where then do we get out of focus in this area? Let me suggest this:
1. Most of us don’t make a big fuss about the seating arrangements at
banquets, but we are still masters in the gentle art of self promotion. We
have these neat tricks that we use to elbow our way up to the head table
of life.
(a.) One of them is criticism of others; fault finding in others is
almost always an attempt to cover up some weaknesses in ourselves. If
we can’t climb to the top, we can accomplish something of the same
result by pulling others down. We need to remember that we can never
promote ourselves by putting down other people. Invariably the
opposite happens. Life just moves us down to a lower seat and we gain
the reputation of a small minded, critical, jealous person.
2. Another common means of self-promotion is boastfulness. What a
waste of time. No person is as boring and unconvincing as the one who
continually talks about his or her achievements. There is something
about arrogance that just doesn’t make sense, and we all know it.
Whatever we are and whatever we’ve accomplished, it has required the
love and help of God and a lot of people. Our best posture should be
gratitude. (Sports personality, thank you God)
Let me close with this statement: If you really want to be
important, stop worrying about where you are seated at the Banquet of
Life and just get up and start waiting on tables. God, you are the source
of all we have . . . thank you!
Now, that’s where true humility starts!
Act on God’s Word 8-29-2021
Sunday, August 29th, 2021An elderly priest made a retreat. In the course of it he was struck
deeply by three things that he’d always been aware of but never had
really taken to heart.
First, there are millions of people in the world who are hungry and
homeless. Second, he had spent his entire priestly life preaching
comfortable sermons to comfortable people. Third, he had bent over
backwards to avoid disturbing or alienating people.
In other words, the priest found himself to be much like the priest
played by Jack Lemmon in the film Mass Appeal. He preached only
about those things that didn’t disturb his parishioners and made them
feel good.
And now, like the priest in Mass Appeal, the old priest suddenly
realized that he had been more worried about pleasing his people than
about preaching the Gospel. He had been more worried about rocking
the boat than about challenging his parishioners to look into their hearts
to see if they were satisfied with what they saw there.
1The week following his eye-opening retreat, the old priest looked
up the Scripture readings to prepare his Sunday homily.
As he read the Gospel, these words of Jesus leaped right off the
page: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far
from me.”
The priest resolved, then and there, that he was going to share his
soul-searching with his parishioners. So he began his homily by saying:
“My homily this morning will be exactly 30 seconds long. That’s
the shortest homily that I’ve ever preached in my life, but it’s also the
most important homily I’ve ever preached.”
With that attention-grabbing introduction, the priest gave his 30-
second homily. He said:
“I want to make just three points. First, millions of people in the
world are hungry and homeless. Second, most people in the world don’t
give a damn about that. Third, many of you are more disturbed by the
fact that I just said damn in the pulpit than by the fact that I said there
are millions of hungry and homeless people in the world.”
With that the elderly priest made the sign of the cross and sat
down.
That homily did three things that many homilies don’t do.
First, it caught the attention of the people.
Second, it caught the spirit of Jesus’ words in the gospel.
Third, hopefully it made the people look into their hearts.
The story of this priest and the gospel reading make the same
point.
Religion is not something we do on Sunday. It’s not primarily,
observing certain laws, saying certain prayers, or performing certain
rituals.
That’s what many people in Jesus’ time had turned religion into.
To observe these rituals was to please God. Not to observe them was to
sin. In short, observing rituals became identified with being religious.
To illustrate the hypocrisy of such legalism, William Barclay tells
this story – about a Muslim pursing an enemy to kill him.
In the midst of the chase, the Azan, or public call to prayer
sounded. Instantly the Muslim got off his horse, unrolled his prayer mat,
knelt down, and prayed the required prayers as fast as he could. Then he
leaped back on his horse to pursue his enemy in order to kill him.
It was precisely this kind of legalism that Jesus opposed so
vigorously in his time.
Jesus made it clear that religion isn’t something you do at certain
times on certain days. It’s not saying certain prayers or performing
certain rituals. It’s a thing of the heart. It’s a thing of the heart called
love – love of God and love of neighbor. Love in action.
Today’s Scripture reading invites us to look into our hearts and to
ask ourselves to what extent the words of Jesus in today’s gospel reading
apply to us: “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are
far from me.”
The Scriptures also invite us to look into our own hearts and ask
ourselves to what extent the words of James in today’s second reading
apply to us:
Act on (God’s) word.
If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves.”
I hope this homily today did 3 things:
First – it caught your attention.
Second – it caught the spirit of Jesus’ words in the Gospel.
Third – it makes all of us look into our hearts!
