IN SIMPLE PLACES AND ORDINARY TIMES

 

GIVEN AT THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR'S HOME FOR THE AGED

July 24, 2023

Some of the Scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

Matthew 12:38-42

Today’s gospel reminds me of something St. Paul said in his first Letter to the Corinthians 1:22. He said, “The Jews demand signs and the Greeks look for wisdom.” Paul is saying there that it was characteristic of the Jews of his day to ask for signs and wonders from those who claimed to be messengers of God. It was as if they said, “If you are so special, so God-sent, prove your claims by doing something extraordinary.”

Jesus refused to give them the “sign” they wanted because they were guilty of one fundamental mistake. They desired to see God in the abnormal; they forgot that we are never nearer God, and God never shows himself to us so much and so continually as he does in the ordinary things of every day.

I am reminded of the great poem of Elizabeth Barret Browning where she says, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”

My friends, the bottom line of this gospel is that God comes to us especially in the very ordinary, rather than the spectacular and dramatic, events of life. The Scribes and Pharisees were always looking for “signs” – dramatic and spectacular happenings and personalities to “prove” that God was active in the world. Truly, God is to be found in the ordinary events, in the ordinary moments and in the ordinary people of this world. That is why so many people missed Jesus when he was here on this earth. He was so ordinary, while they were looking for something spectacular. While they were looking “out there” and “up there,” while they were looking among the famous and the powerful and the well-connected, God’s “sign” was standing right in front of them. They missed him because he was just too ordinary.  Jesus tells them that the only sign they will be given   is his preaching and wisdom – better than the preaching of Jonah to the people of Nineveh and the wisdom of Solomon that the queen of the south sought out in her day.

 

Our traditional Christmas story is told by the evangelist, Luke. Luke wrote for the underdog, the little people, the left-out, the losers of the world. When he tells the story, he emphasizes the dismalness of Christ’ birth: a poor young mother delivering her baby in a barn amid the smell of dung and donkey breath; greasy, crusty, bumbling sheep herders; doves dropping their stuff from the rafters; the restlessness of cows and no one to care. Luke wants his readers to know that God comes, not just for the rich and famous and powerful, the young and healthy, but especially for the lowest of the low, in the most desperate of circumstances. God comes for, and loves, every human being who has ever lived on this planet no matter how insignificant they may be in the eyes of others.

 

Where should we look for God working in our world today? Fatima? Medjugorje? Lourdes?  I am sure God has worked there, but we don’t have to go to those places to see God working. He is working right here, right under our noses, right now in this very place! We just have the eyes to see it! We just need to look at this place, and the people in it, through the lens of faith! Miracles are happening every day, right here and right now! As Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke (10:23-24)

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."