Hi everyone, here’s my homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 24, 2010. The readings for today’s Mass can be found at: https://www.usccb.org/nab/102410.shtml . Thanks as always for reading and your feedback. God Bless – Fr. Jim
HOMILY:
So I had a revelation the other day. I think that I owe the kids of Jersey Shore an apology. I don’t know if I address it to- Snooki, Paulie D, Situation (comma The), et al. (Sorry, I don’t know the other cast members names, those are the only ones I’ve ever heard of) or what, but I’m serious. I know this probably sounds strange. I’ve never met these individuals. In fact, I’m pretty certain they would have no idea who I was at all. I have maybe seen 10 minutes total of their show on monitors at the gym or clips shown on other programs.
Yet, I hate their show. Now I don’t use that word “hate” loosely. But seriously, I get insane even seeing the title credits and hearing audio clips I love guidos. I realize that having just confessed that I’ve never really seen the show some of you might be thinking that’s “pretty closed-minded there father.” But you see, that 10 minutes was enough for me. I’ve been born and raised in New Jersey. Aside from my 4 years in college, I’ve lived my entire life in the Garden State. I love the Beaches of New Jersey, have talked about it being a piece of paradise to me. And I’m also about 90% Italian. All of that coupled with my despising MTV more and more for the havoc they wreaked on my generation and even worse, what they are doing to the kids the Lord has sent me to serve as their priest now… all adds up to me hating the show “Jersey Shore.” Because they play up every terrible stereotype one could ever conceive of New Jersey, people from New Jersey, Italians from New Jersey.
So let me be clear, I’m not apologizing for hating their show, or even hating the terrible behaviors and examples that are on that show. But I do feel that I owe the cast members an apology. Because I realize that anytime I saw one of their faces – whether it was a picture in the paper, or a clip on the news I had some pretty judgmental things in my heart and mind about them. Or, when I read that this one or that one was arrested, I kind of arrogantly thought (and probably said) something about not being shocked or surprised that such and such happened…
I allowed myself to be convinced by the lies of the evil one. The same one who has tempted those young people to treat sex as just a recreational activity that “EVERYONE DOES”; the same one who tells those cast members that the pain and emptiness they feel after they’ve done those things can be numbed by doing it some more or with drugs or alcohol; the same one who convinced these kids to do all this on television so that the whole world could revel in this destructive behavior… well, that same evil one helped turn me into having some feelings of moral superiority, arrogance and just really a lack of charity in my heart for these young people – who are only in their 20’s don’t even realize how they will be forever branded by the antics on display right now. Like all sin – it doesn’t do any good for anyone. It doesn’t help me at all. It doesn’t help those cast members. God is not glorified at all.
It’s funny because I saw a picture of the cast on a billboard before going into a Holy Hour where I was reflecting on today’s readings, and it just hit me pretty hard. Think about what we just heard – In the first reading, the writer from the Book of Sirach states pretty upfront – “The Lord is a God of justice who knows no favorites.” God has no favorites. Each and every one of us is his creature. I heard the guy from “LifeTeen” Bible Geek Mark Hart say something along the lines “that God loves the Pope as much just as much as He loves the prostitute.” When we hear that, there’s a tendency to say, yeah I know we’re supposed to say that and all… but, come on????really????
Yet if we don’t believe that, what hope does any one of us ever have? Think about it. If we want to get into this moral superiority game or competition there’s two options – we’re either going to lose or just give up. There’s always going to be someone who’s just a little holier or got a better handle on one thing, or resists that temptation better. So if we live in competition with one another, we’re simply waiting to be one-upped by someone else (which results in us looking for ways to keep knocking everyone else down to size, looking for their flaws to feel better about ourselves) Or the other option, we’re just going to give up. If we fall for the lie that we’re all messed up, we’re all sinners and there’s nothing we can do about it, we remain stuck in this hopeless life and we completely forget who Jesus is and why He came to us.
Thankfully St. Paul is here to remind us… Hetells us in the reason for our Hope in the second reading. That the Lord wants to “rescue [us] from every evil threat and will bring [us] safe to his heavenly kingdom.” That’s the whole point for all of us trying to resist sin, trying to be holy. Because eventually we want to be with God forever. As we get distracted by the radiation glowing from our HD-televisions, we forget that it’s not about this world… It’s about wanting to be with God for all eternity.
Yet God doesn’t want us to simply wait for that to happen. He wants us to begin experience that now and help each other to get there. He wants us to experience that amazing love that imagined us into existence. Just think of that. You and I mean that much, matter that much to God that he imagined us into being. That God has dreams for you and I. And each of us and each of the dreams he has for us are so beautiful, so important to Him that not even our worst sins could ever wipe that away. We might make things unnecessarily harder for ourselves and it might take longer for those dreams to become realities, but he offers up His own Son to fill that gap between the life of sin we’re in and that new life in His Kingdom we want to enter into.
Which is why Jesus wants us to focus on that rather than on how we rank in relation to one another. The Pharisee gets so caught up with himself, that he ends up not praying to God. Oh he’s talking to God, but only to make sure God takes some time to worship him! He uses the word “I” 4 times and in those few short lines and it’s all about what he’s doing – “God I do this and I do that and I’m not anything like that guy over there.” God becomes an afterthought. He wants to make sure God was keeping acurate records to see how good he was and how messed up the other guy is.
On the flip side, the Tax collector never uses the word “I.” He knows that he’s a sinner. He knows his life is a mess. He doesn’t need help from other pointing that out. He needs help getting out of that. He needs Mercy. He needs Forgiveness. He needs God and he knows that only way things are going to change in his life is by God showing him Mercy – By God working in his life. By the tax collector letting God be God and letting him into his heart and soul things can change for him.
We live in some pretty wacky times. We see sin celebrated, glamorized. And the thing is we have to remember that at it’s most basic level the goal of all sin is to turn people away from God. God desires that each and everyone of us will join us at his table. He loves Snookie, as much as he loves me and you. And my sins sadden Him as much as those that “The Situation”’s or anyone else’s does. Jesus is asking us to consider the possibilities if we stopped tearing one another down and instead began trying to help one another to truly live for Him now and desire only Him for all eternity. So my brothers and sisters from the Jersey Shore, I may not watch you on TV, but I’m praying… Praying that God will have Mercy on you, and me, and all of us, as sinners… knowing he does and truly desires to share that mercy with all those who call.
