R.I.P. MYSPACE

Hi everyone here is my homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – November 14, 2010. The readings for today can be found at https://www.usccb.org/nab/111410.shtml. As always, thanks so much for reading and all your feedback. It’s humbling to see how many people read each week and your responses challenge me to go deeper each week.
HOMILY:

When was the last time you checked your Myspace page? When did you last go shop at Barnes and Noble to buy a book or CD? Or for that matter buy a CD at all? It’s amazing because 5 years ago you might have had very different answers to those questions then you have now.

5 years ago MySpace was the leader in the “Social-networking” world. People were registering and using it in droves. It was so popular, it seemed such a good bet, a good investment that 5 years ago, NewsCorp (the company that owns FOX) bought it for over $500 million dollars. Now they reportedly lost over $130 million in a few months this year and may be looking to sell it at this point because the site continues to decline. Myspace just can’t keep up with the record numbers of people who’ve flocked to Facebook (where the ratio is 3:1 Facebook to MySpace), In terms of internet traffic, Facebook is the 2nd most popular site, where MySpace sometimes doesn’t even fall in the top 25.

Barnes and Noble, the largest book store chain in the United States, sees a similar murky future. For a long time they were becoming the Walmart of book stores with their mega-stores were opening up all over the place. They put competitors like Walden Books, B.Dalton out of business. Now they’ve closed 4 of their super-stores in New York and Los Angeles. They recently added toy sections to try to reinvent themselves too and increase customer traffic. Speculation is that in the new year, more stores will close as people find it easier or more convenient to go on line to Amazon.com to order books… that’s for those of us who still even BUY books! So many have electronic devices such as Nook or Kindle that you can just download them… B&N is finding their survival, which at one point seemed certain, is now in question as fewer people come into their stores to buy books, DVD’s, or CD’s… Yeah, CD’s – why bother getting in your car, taking up more space in your home when you can download an album on iTunes instantly?

It’s amazing because 5 years ago, as much as Facebook had already launched as a website, Amazon had been making deliveries, itunes was popular… few would have imagined the reversal of fortunes… that some of these other things that were on the heights of popularity in American culture would see such decline so quickly. Certainly their founders, CEO’s never thought so. People might not have thought these things would last forever, but it’s hard to have imagined they’d fade so fast. Right now, does anyone think Facebook could being in the same position as Myspace is today 5 years from now?

And those are just a couple random, culturally significant, but not really earth shatteringly important things. Look at something bigger that affects everyone, like our economy. Just looking at how many banks have failed, words like bailouts, stimulus’ being thrown around – so many people are anxious because so many things seemed to have failed. Wall Street failed, so people are anxious about retirements, companies futures, employment. Banks failed, so people are worried about mortgages, college loans… Social Security is in trouble (at least if we listen to politicians who are honest enough to admit that). Again, things seem to be moving so fast and in some instances collapse so rapidly that people are scared and worried about the future – their future, their families future, the country at large’s future.

For the Jewish people in Jesus’ time, they too found themselves dealing with tremendous loss and worry about the future. They had already lost control of their homeland. They were occupied by the Romans, who they hated for this oppression. They were divided and fractured as a people – you had various factions that believed different things – so while they might have all been Jews, they weren’t united.

The one thing they had… the one thing that remained… the one thing they could focus on in terms of their worldly identity, presence was their temple. Yes the temple had suffered attacks in the past, but it had been rebuilt, and it was a sight to see. For the Jews it was a connection to generations that preceded them. It was a sign of hope for their future. And it was beautiful. It was magnificent. It was something they always assumed would be there. In fact they looked at that as a sign of hope for the day when the Messiah would come, bring the tribes of Israel back together again and establish God’s kingdom here on earth.

So now look at today’s Gospel. The people are looking at and marveling at the temple. Noting the beauty of what was an important symbol of their faith. Jesus, who many had come to believe was the Messiah (which he was) says “All that you see here –this temple – it’s going to be gone…” They’re shocked – When??? When will that happen? What will the signs be? (Maybe we can stop it from happening if we know the attack is coming) What does all that mean? They were used to their existence as it was, thinking: Yes – we’re occupied people, we’re mistreated, we’re not living the freedom that God’s chosen people should be experiencing, but look at the temple… They were looking at a building, a place as a source for their security.

But the temple, as beautiful, as historic, as important as it was becomes something more than it should be. Because they were fixated on something tangible of this earth that they had built, the people became closed minded, closed hearted to hearing and seeing how God was active in the present moment. How God was moving them into being truly His people. That His Kingdom would not be held bound to things, places of this world. That God’s Kingdom would be far greater than any single place on this world could contain.

But for that to happen, they would have to see past these places, not put faith in earthly things. Jesus is pretty much saying – don’t look for stability in the things of this earth… they will all pass away. And yeah, it’s unsettling, it’s downright scary at times. It’s going to be pretty earthshattering to see the temple go away. But even more, its going to be jarring to suffer persecutions just because you follow Jesus .. It’s going to be devastating to see Jesus himself crucified… Jesus realizes how hard it is for us to trust in supernatural things when our trust is violated in the everyday. When we see institutions, things of the world we live in collapse, how can we believe in eternal things, a God who loves us through all eternity?

Which is why it’s so awesome that we’re all here every week. Because even though we’ve been scandalized by the failures we’ve seen, in the world, or experienced in our own lives… As much as there’s still fear, there’s still things that scare us, big time – from the wars waged overseas to the wars in our families…the persecutions we see one person do to another, that we do ourselves… Something still calls us together. Something still in spite of all that, in spite of how temporary everything around us seems to be… Something, someone still has a hold on our heart. Still has a hold on our souls… We realize we’re connected to something, and someone greater than anything we can find in this ever changing, upside down world of ours still remains. That someone is Jesus and that something is His Catholic Church which 2,000 years later echoes those beautiful hope-filled words promising you and I that because of that connection “not a hair on your head will be destroyed… By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” He’s inviting us into his eternal kingdom to have an eternal life that will not pass away.

Our being here is one example of that reality. Jesus has brought us together as brother’s and sisters… and that we’re united in a family that spans thousands of years. We are just one more generation that has wondered as our ancestors in the past has “is this going to be it?”“Is this the end of the world as we know it?” And in one sense – yes… it is. This world will not be the same tomorrow, or a month from now, or a year from now. Yes there will come a day when Facebook will be the Myspace of today… Barnes and Noble will be a footnote in the Histories of corporate America… even this great nation of the United States that we love so much, at the ripe age of 234 years old may pass away as did the great empires that Jesus’ contemporaries lived in.

Yet despite whatever those ever-changing realities should be, Jesus’ promise continues to be validated. We look at how our Catholic Church has continued its unbroken history for over 2,000 years and realize how we are a part of something bigger led by someone greater than anything else on this earth. As fear & doubts creep in, that someone reminds us to stay connected to Him, knowing he’s here for us. So much so that Not a hair on your head will be destroyed…By your perseverance, you will secure your lives…