Hi everyone, here’s my homily for SUNDAY AUGUST 30, 2009 – the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. The readings can be found here https://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/083009.shtml.
Tonight is the start of the new semester here at Montclair State University (where I’m the Catholic chaplain and director of the Newman Catholic Center) – so the homilies throughout the Fall will be posted Sunday Night after I celebrate our evening Mass.
Please keep all of us in your prayers that we continue to hear and respond to the voice of Christ and share that Word with all we meet! God Bless – Fr Jim
HOMILY:
For the most part I really can’t stand reality TV shows. Despite the name of the genre, they seem so, I don’t know, fake to me. Whenever I get a chance to sit down and watch something, it’s usually for a diversion from my own “reality” – so why would I want to be sucked into the “real world” drama of someone else?
So, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I got hooked into one of these “reality shows” over the summer. I still argue that it’s not quite a reality show as much as it’s a game show – but I concede that I’m just trying to justify my own breaking of a self-imposed rule not to give into these shows. The show is called “Hell’s Kitchen.”
It happened easily enough. I was running on a treadmill at a gym one Tuesday night. The Yankees were in a rain delay. The other channels on the limited selection that the little tv screen on my hamster-like treadmill really didn’t offer much that interested me (“America’s got talent?” Not from what I could see…) So I tuned into ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ and totally got into the show.
For those of you who have not seen this show, there are two teams – a Red Team and a Blue Team. And they work under the very critical eye of this guy, Gordon Ramsay, who, from the looks and sounds of it, is an expert chef. In any event, the two teams compete to prepare dishes in a restaurant for the hungry customers. Before any of the meals go out, they need to be scrutinized by Chef Ramsay. For some reason, as someone who can’t really cook at all, I find the whole thing hysterical.
He’s running this competition like a Boot Camp, complete with him barking orders at the competing chefs and expecting responses that begin and end with “Chef” (like those in the military are required to use, using the word “Sir”) “CHEF, YES, CHEF.”
He’s a bit demanding, and a bit temperamental. If it’s not cooked to his standards, or doesn’t look the way he thinks it should look he starts screaming like a lunatic. Half of the words are bleeped. To one woman he said “I’d rather eat ‘poodle’ BLEEP than to eat that crap.” Maybe one reason the show is appealing is that for any of us who’s had a meal at a restaurant that was badly prepared (and been afraid to send it back out of fear of retribution) it’s refreshing to see some criticism of the meals. “THAT’S RAW” he yelled about a pork dish that was about to be sent out – “LOOK AT THIS, WOULD YOU PAY FOR THIS” he screamed about some fish dish.
In the heat of the competition, obviously, people get angry. But for a lot of these competing chefs they still enjoy the experience because they know Chef Ramsey knows what he’s talking about and that he’s simply “telling it like it is.” As one former contestant put it: Gordon Ramsey is constantly searching for that green apple that fell from the tree and is looking to become ripe. That’s what he wants…he prefers to mold raw talent. [And] If he’s going to have someone working for him, he’s going to need someone he can continually build…The will to never give up is the key…If you have a solid cooking foundation and a will to not give up, you find yourself to be more successful than others on the show. He wants a soldier…he doesn’t want anyone who succumbs to his [barks like] ‘you stupid donkey’. The most challenging thing is…understanding how important it is to let go of ego. Letting go of ego is key…
This particular chef reflected: Ego became the hump for me. I learned how important it is to be able to let it go and, perhaps, accept the fact that the flaws in your game make who you are a bit more penetrable.
Listening to someone who tells it like it is and letting go of one’s ego isn’t simply the way to win ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ but a great recipe for life (bad pun, I know) and essential in our spiritual lives as well.
In today’s Gospel, we have these Pharisees. And they remind me of chefs who thought they knew everything about cooking. They consider themselves the experts in living a good Jewish life; the experts in holiness. And like little kids who see another little kid messing up and are excited to tell the teacher, we hear them today saying “Uh, Jesus… JESUS – do you see that? Your disciples are eating their meals wrong, they’re ‘unclean’ – they didn’t wash their hands right.” True, it’s gross that they didn’t wash their hands correctly (I guess even back then before they had soap or hand sanitizers, they had figured that out). But the Pharisees were going beyond a hygiene issue. They were upset that the disciple’s weren’t following the exact letter of the “law” of their ancestors. They were pointing out that they weren’t being attentive to some of the minor traditions that had been past down. They took these minor infractions and made this leap, this judgment, and condemned the disciples, saying “Jesus your disciples aren’t good Jews. Jesus these ones who follow you, who are your closest friends aren’t holy people. Jesus these people are in fact ‘unclean.'”
Now the Pharisees have pretty big egos, and probably weren’t expecting Jesus’ to tell it like it is. He doesn’t really deal with the disciples’ cleanliness but, rather, turns it around on these infraction-finding Pharisees and asks, “Is that really what’s most important?”
Because the Pharisee’s were hung up on how they looked, how they appeared, that they be applauded for following the letter of the law. Meanwhile, in their hearts, they had no real love for God – because if they had, they would have been like the disciples, who had left everything, including their egos, and were following God’s son – were growing in love of Jesus day by day as they listened to him constantly “tell it like it is” so that they could grow into the true sons and daughters God the Father had created them and was calling them to be – rather than just being worried about a minor infraction.
Jesus is telling it like it is, and it makes the Pharisee’s uncomfortable and should make us uncomfortable as well, because 2,000 years later, it’s possible for us to make that same mistake. We can go to Mass on Sunday, say some prayers, wear a crucifix and have hearts that are far from God. Making sure that our appearances are perfectly Catholic, while not dealing with the sinful thoughts, actions and desires holding us back – sabotaging our desire to be God’s beloved sons and daughters, blocking us from experiencing true joy, true happiness, true peace.
No matter what our age, life experience, we never seem to escape that temptation to “look” right, to “fit in right”. With that, even those exterior appearances – just coming to Mass or wearing that crucifix – can be incredibly challenging.
Yet, somehow we made it here. Somehow we were able to hear that gentle voice that tells us not to give into the loud shouts of loud egos questioning or mocking this choice. And Jesus meets us here and calls us to go deeper. To see that, yes, the surroundings, and the environment around us can make it difficult to live the life He calls us to. But in reality those choices, those decisions are made in our hearts. If we are able to let go of our egos, let go of ourselves and our preoccupations – we might then be able to hear Jesus as he continues to tell it like it is.
