This is a site where Father Nicholas shares his homilies and other talks that he gives.
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ØIn
today’s Gospel Jesus assures us that in the life of a disciple there are sure
to be conflicts, challenges, feelings of inadequacy, and stumbling blocks of
all sorts
ØThese
turbulent times will, as he says, “Lead
to your giving testimony”
ØThat’s
quite a promise!
ØHe
quickly adds that we should not prepare for this testimony, for this response
ØWhy?
Because he himself will give us what we are to say…and what we say will leave
those involved in the conflict powerless
ØSo
it’s clear: conflicts à
unprepared testimony à
disarmed adversaries
PREPARING
FOR BATTLE +++++++++++++++++++++++++
ØWhat
might be the best way to implement Jesus’ words?
ØStep
1: Acknowledge
the turmoil, upset, sadness. Don’t deny it
ØStep
2: Prayerfully Listen. Relax, be still, put all thinking out of your head
and in the silence allow the Lord to speak. After all silence is God’s language
ØStep
3: Wait
in the silence for the words, the response, to take form in your heart. Notice
I said your heart, not in your head.
ØStep
4: As the words come from up from your heart, speak them. TESTIFY
ØACKNOWLEDGE / LISTEN / WAIT
/ TESTIFY
CONCLUSION
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ØNow
the last line of the Gospel makes sense: “By
your perseverance you will secure your lives”
ØNot
by your perseverance in the conflict
ØNot
by your lofty assaults
ØNot
by being stronger than your adversaries
ØBut
by your perseverance to ACKNOWLEDGING /
LISTENING / WAITING / TESTIFYING
ØThe
locus of power has moved from us to God working in and through us
ØImagine Jesus, after strenuous debates with
members of the Sanhedrin and the Sadducees, is tired and takes a seat on a
bench in the temple’s Court of the Women, head in his hands
ØHe looks up and sees a number of folks dropping
large amounts of coins in the 13 inverted-trumpet-like receptacles
ØThe coins echo: “tsch, tsch, tsch” and then a
small bent over elderly widow drops two tiny coins – pling, pling – into the
receptacle and humbly walks away
ØHe then rises and announces to all that, “What
this poor widow has done out values all your offerings!”
2 THINGS DETERMINE
VALUE +++++++++++++++++++++
Ø 2 things
determine the value of a gift
Ø1st the spirit in which it is given
ØWhen we give from our mind, the gift can be
given with a grudge, for the sake of prestige, or self-display
ØIt’s said that in such cases, it loses half its
value
Ø2nd a gift’s value is judged by the
sacrifice which it involves
ØThe gifts of the well-to-do in the temple didn’t
cost them much personally, but for the widow, it is all she had to live on
ØThey reckoned with the heads, she gave from her
heart with seeming reckless abandon
CONCLUSION
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ØHow are we with giving out of our need: giving
time or monetary gifts, giving of our talents or insights?
ØJesus confronts us with two models today and
asks us to judge ourselves and what we need to change
There is famous short story written over a
hundred years ago by an author named Ambrose Bierce.
The story is titled Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge and it is about a man who is about to be hanged. Enemy soldiers march this man out to the
bridge over Owl Creek.
His wrists and ankles are tied and a noose is
put around his neck. When everything is
ready, the commanding officer barks the order and the condemned man plunges
downward.
As he falls however, the rope breaks and the man
plunges into the river below. He sinks
down into the rushing water and miraculously is able to free his hands and his
feet.
He realizes that he now has a second chance at
life and he begins to swim with all that is in him down the river. Far out of reach from his executioners, he
alternates swim and floating.
He is struck by the beauty of the leaves on the
trees and he notices the blueness of the sky.
Never has the world looked so beautiful to him and he senses how great
it is to be alive.
Finally, he swims ashore and begins to
walk. Soon he comes to a house and to
his amazement he is back home. His wife comes running out to greet him.
And then, just as they are embracing, the story
flips back to the bridge over Owl Creek.
Shockingly, the body of the very condemned man
is hanging there. The man had only
imagined in the split second that he fell to his death that he had gotten a
second chance at life.
And in that split second, he had seen life for
what it is – a precious gift to be appreciated.
He had realized how differently he would have lived if only he had been
… given a second chance.
The Author and Jesus
That is the story of Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge.
It seems to me that the author has the same
lesson in mind that the Scriptures are conveying today. Ambrose Bierce is saying that the condemned
man did not get a second chance at life, but we, the readers are given a second
chance because we have witnessed this man’s experience.
In the same way, the Prophet Daniel in the first
reading and Jesus in the Gospel focus our attention on the end of the world or
the end of our life on earth. Jesus wants
us to live with an awareness of this.
And out of this awareness, he wants us to
appreciate life right now for the precious gift that it is. In effect, he gives us a second chance.
Priorities:
Service and Love
Doctors, priests and family learn from being at the
side of dying loved ones as they looked back on their lives that, in the final
analysis only two things really matter: the love you show and the service you
render.
All the other things that at one time seemed so
important pale in comparison.
That insight is at the heart of Jesus’ message and
it raises important questions for us.
First, are we in our own unique way expressing the
love that we feel in our hearts? Do we
show affection and warmth to those who really matter to us – our spouse,
children, parents, or a dear friend?
And what of our love for God? Do we express that through heartfelt prayer,
especially with prayers and thoughts of gratitude for our blessings?
And second, are we giving of ourselves in some way for
the wellbeing of others? Are we willing
to go out of our way in doing something for them and at times placing those
actions above our own preferences?
Are we willing to give the time of our presence or
our listening ear to whomever it might be?
Willing to give of ourselves personally though we will receive nothing
in return save the satisfaction of what we have done?
Conclusion
The Scriptures today invite us to ask: How satisfied
will we be as we lay dying with the expression of our love and the quality of
our giving of ourselves?
Unlike the man on the bridge at Owl Creek, beginning
right now we have a second chance to prepare for that time which will come for
each of us.
We remember well that this past September some
Islamic militants stormed our American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Four Americans, including our United States
Ambassador, were killed. Since that
attack, our journalists have given us some insight into the challenging and
sometimes dangerous work of diplomacy.
Newspaper articles have focused on our
Ambassador in Benghazi, J. Christopher Stevens.
They portray him as personifying the best of our diplomatic corps.
Traits of Ambassador
Stevens
Ambassador Stevens is remembered as a person who
really gave of himself to his work, wherever he was.
He is described as a street-smart, low-key
negotiator. He knew how to get things
done by building personal relationships.
Those who served with him in other diplomatic
posts say that wherever he was living, he would let go of everything else and
live that culture completely. He gave of
himself to the people and the tasks that were present.
Ambassador Stevens had a passion for Arab
culture and politics. This began when he
was a Peace Corps volunteer and taught English in Morocco.
He spoke Arabic and would go out of his way to
use it. He would do this whether he was
with government officials or with ordinary shopkeepers in Libya, as a way to
show respect for their language and culture.
One quality that both his American and Libyan
colleagues recall was his ability to listen.
He never felt the need to monopolize a meeting or a conversation.
Ambassador Stevens sought out local merchants,
farmers and students, as well as diplomats, activists, and journalists. He had a deep desire to listen and understand
their perspective.
Our Secretary of State said that with his
ability to listen and his personal humility, he won many friends for our
country and he did that because,“he made these peoples’ hopes his own.”
Traits of the
Kingdom
It is not my goal to make a saint of Ambassador
Stevens. I imagine he was as human as you and I are. But I do think that his personal and
professional traits help to highlight what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel.
Jesus lifts up the humility and generosity of
the poor widow in the temple. He also
puts down the self-absorption and self-importance of the Scribes.
He is teaching that we are like him when we
embrace the spirit of a servant. He
moves us to respect everyone as a son and daughter of God.
Jesus calls us to find our fulfillment in the
empathy and assistance we can extend to others.
He calls us to place the human needs of others who are less fortunate
than ourselves above our own wants and narrow interests.
He wants us to give of ourselves with the inner,
heartfelt, sincere generosity of the widow in the gospel. And, like that widow, he wants us to humbly
be with God in personal prayer and in worship here in church.
A Needed
Message
Jesus’ message in this little story is important for
us to hear.
Yes, it is a bit counter-cultural and perhaps
counter-intuitive, but it is so important.
If we try to embrace these qualities and live in
this way, our human self-centeredness will be kept in check. The prejudice or hostility we may have will
be softened.
We will find a satisfaction and completeness that we
can find in no other way. And most of
all, in the process we will become most God-like, most Jesus-like, and that is
our long-term mission in life.
Bud and Nancy have been married six years and
they have three children, ages 10, 6 and 4.
One night a little after 1:00am Bud is awakened
by the crying of their four-year-old son David.
Bud thinks to himself, “I should
get up and tend to David and let Nancy sleep.”
However, as he lies there very still, other
thoughts begin to fill his mind, thoughts about Nancy lying right next to him. “She must hear him too,” he says to
himself. He continues to lie perfectly still.
What then begins is a little dialogue in his
head: “Why doesn’t she get up and take
care of the baby? he wonders. “Why should I have to do this?”
Leadership
and Self-Deception
That is just the beginning of a true story, a
story you may find very familiar from your own child-rearing days.
I read it in this book – Leadership and Self-Deception.
And, while this work never refers to the Bible, it has many of the same
important points to make about transforming our lives.
The book makes no reference to the two great
commandments of love in today’s Gospel.
In fact, it never uses the word “love.”
But, when I read the book this past summer, I
realized that it gives some excellent insights into human behavior and into our
becoming loving persons.
Let’s go back to the book and I think you’ll see
what I have in mind.
Two
Significant Mistakes
Bud
himself tells this story about caring for his crying baby.
He
says that first he was seeing things only from his own perspective. He was thinking that Nancy was awake even
though he didn’t know whether she was or not.
Bud
says that he was treating Nancy as an object and not as a person. In effect, he was thinking of her and
treating her as a foe or as an object to be used for his own purposes.
Second,
Bud admitted that he betrayed himself.
He betrayed and did not respond to his inner sense of what he should do
– namely, get up and take care of David.
Bud
assumes – and I might add correctly so – that we have this inner sense of what
we ought to do. We Christians call this
inner sense our conscience.
The Results
In the book, Bud then talks about the unfortunate
results of (1) Treating Nancy as an object and (2) Of betraying his sense of
what he ought to do.
He says that this objectifying of her and betraying
of himself led him to self-deception. In
other words, it led him into a distorted idea both of Nancy and of himself.
He started seeing his wife as lazy, irresponsible
and selfish. He started blaming her for
everything that wasn’t just right.
And, on the other hand, Bud started justifying
himself and his decision not to get up and care for David. He saw himself as hardworking, responsible
and doing everything to make the marriage and family work.
He saw himself as deserving of a full night’s sleep
without any interruptions.
So, (1) Treating Nancy as an object and (2)
Betraying his inner sense of what he should do, led Bud into a lot of
self-deception.
And, of course, one thought, one idea gives rise to
another. The self-deception begins to
snowball and starts to make serious inroads on the relationship.
Two Remedies
The conclusions that Bud and the book make are
probably obvious.
First, we need to see each other as persons and not
as objects. We need to treat others as
persons like ourselves – with needs for rest and sleep, for affirmation and
love, for accomplishment and fulfillment.
Think about how this might affect the way you see
your spouse, a friend, an employee or your employer. Think about how this might affect the way we
see Jews or Muslims, Hispanic immigrants or African Americans.
And second, we need to respond out of our inner
sense of what’s the right thing to do.
In other words, we need to be true to our conscience.
Conclusion
Here’s a great application of what I’ve shared. The
next time you get into an elevator at a hospital, your place of work, or
doctor’s office and you hear someone walking down the hallway.
Do you hit the “open door” button or the “close
door” button?
Or think of what I’ve shared with you means when you
feel the call to bury the hatchet, but still try to justify your refusal to
talk to someone.
These insights have a lot to say about our
relationships – one on one.
