Homily for Sunday- August 22, 2010

Homily for Twenty-first Sunday of the Year (C)

I read an interesting little story. A little girl walked into a restaurant and sat down at the counter. “What’ll you have?” asked the cranky waiter. “How much is a hot fudge sundae?” asked the girl timidly. “One dollar,” he growled. The little girl pulled out her purse and studied her few coins. “How much is a plain dish of ice cream?” she asked in a tiny voice. “Seventy-five cents,” came the response. “So whatta do you want?”
Again, she counted her coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream, please.” The waiter took her money, brought the ice cream, and walked away. When he came back, the little girl was gone. But there placed neatly by the side of the empty plate, were two dimes and five pennies – enough for a real sundae – his tip!
I wonder if the cranky waiter learned anything from that. Today’s second reading says, “Whomever the Lord loves, the Lord disciplines.” Terrific! Now for a nice little homily on punishment? No! Discipline is not about punishment. As its Latin root (discere) tells us, it’s about teaching. To DISCIpline is to teach. And a DISCIple is someone who is trying to learn – trying to learn how to put his/her life together.
Now usually, when we think of putting a life together, we think of young people who are asking questions like “what am I going to be when I grow up?” But, in fact, it’s not just kids that have to work at putting their life together. All of us should consider this every day, because life is a constant process of inner building of our personal and spiritual lives. Nature builds on grace. When one phase is done, another has to begin even in our later years. It never ends.
So the question: how does God teach and guide us as our inner building proceeds? It is usually very quiet but always persistent because most of us are slow learners! God teaches without using words.
What do I mean? Sometimes God speaks through our sadness and the Lord may say, “You are drinking too much, you won’t stop smoking, you won't see a doctor, you’re buying many things you don’t need.” Or, “are you really happy living for yourself?”
Or, God, sometimes speaks through our uneasiness. “This isn’t working, is it!” “Why don’t you try another way?” “You’re hitting a wall! Let go and see what happens!” And finally, sometimes God speaks through our joy: “You’ve got it right! This is good for you!”
I believe, in the depths of our hearts, we know that the Lord is always there, quietly teaching, showing the way. But are we learning? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Partly because we’re not paying attention and partly because we often mistake our own voice for God’s voice.
If we really want the happy life that God wants for us, it is important to learn to listen to what God is trying to teach us. And that often means being quiet on the inside, turning off our inner chatterbox. It means putting aside our fears and all those “certitudes” that can distort what God is trying to say to us or even prevent us from hearing anything at all. And let’s pay close attention, because sometimes the Lord teaches even through little girls with 25 cent tips.
Our gospel reading today builds on the second reading so beautifully, It speaks of the necessity for discipline (open to learning) in our lives, and without it there can be no effective living. Jesus told His disciples to come through the narrow door.” And this is what discipline really means – learning.
In light of this, we often hear that freedom is one of the most cherished channels for happiness. And how does that fit in with discipline! And for some, anything that threatens freedom puts them in immediately on the defensive. From childhood on, some have little stomach for restrictions of any kind. This poses a serious problem. As affluence increases, and as technology and human resources provide us with more and more conveniences, we tend to become spoiled. For many of us, there is one more freedom in big demand – “freedom from effort”.
I believe that “effort” and its companion ‘discipline’ (learning) maybe falling out of use in today’s culture. Our preoccupation with freedom leads us to believe that everything we have a taste for should be ours by right, and that everything we want should come to us easily. We don’t like to hear about hardship and are impatient with talk about patience. For example, children subject to relentless doses of contemporary advertising have a difficult time postponing gratification for anything. It’s very hard to get them to concentrate on studies. Some young couples do not want to have to struggle starting out in marriage (we have to slow down the process and build slowly); some people seem to want immediately what it took their parents years to achieve. We want what we want, and want it now! But while we want a better life for ourselves, sometimes we are increasingly reluctant to pay for it.
I heard someone once say: Life can be “a bowl of cherries,” but, for the most part, only for those willing to pick them. To be physically fit, for instance, we have to work at it. To live comfortably in a good home will require generous hours of personal and physical maintenance. To have a satisfying marriage or friendship will demand commitment, tact, flexibility and endurance. Freedom, therefore, is important, but it goes hand in hand with discipline (learning).

This past April, an explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. The accident raises again questions about the safety of mining technology and the adequacy of
government regulation to protect those who work in this very dangerous profession.
But, in an interview with the CBS News, a veteran miner said it’s useless to point the finger at anyone for these accidents.
“There’s no safe mines. I don’t care where you go. You’re not gonna find a safe mine. They could do whatever they want – make all the laws. When a man goes (into a mine), he knows that could be it…You stick your head between two rocks to make a living, you know you’re taking a chance. These (29) guys…they died for a cause. Every time you turn your lights on at home…you should think about them guys.” (The Early Show, CBS News, April 7, 2010.)
There are no safe mines, there are no easy paths. Life – life that is worth living – is filled with risks and
difficult passages, “narrow gates” through which we have to pass – and there is no easy way to negotiate our way through them. The “narrow gate” of the Gospel is the honest confrontation of who we are, the retaliation of our littleness before God, the understanding that we are nothing more or less than brothers and sisters to every other human being. The “narrow gate” that Jesus speaks of is the demanding way of limitless love, unconditional forgiveness, selfless sacrifice; it can only be entered by letting go of our fears, our control, our pride, our self- absorption. But Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the “narrow gate” will be welcomed into the eternal dwelling place of His Father.