USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #27

 

BALANCING WORK AND CONTEMPLATION

A Case of Both-And

As they continued their journey, he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me. ”The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Luke 10:38-42

Because I didn’t really understand it, I never used to like this Martha and Mary story very much. In fact, I believed that Martha got a bum deal here. Here she is slaving away in a hot kitchen, trying to get a meal on the table, while her sister Mary has parked herself in the living room with the guests, listening in on the living room conversation. Even when poor Martha comes into the living room, mopping her brow with her apron, to ask for a little help, she not only doesn’t get it, but she also gets a quick reprimand for being such a workaholic! I have always felt sorry for her for that let down! She probably ran back into the kitchen sobbing!

These days, I understand the story a little better. Jesus is not condemning good deeds or hard work in order to praise contemplation. In the sequence of the gospel, Jesus has just finished telling the story of the Good Samaritan, in which doing good deeds was praised. In fact, Jesus ends that story by telling his disciples, and us, to go and do the same as the Good Samaritan. What he is doing here is simply reminding Martha of the primacy of listening to the Lord and also reminding her why, and for whom, she is doing all her work to begin with. He is reminding her that she is loved whether she gets dinner on the table on time or not! So, this story is meant to balance the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s not a matter of either/or but of both/and. It’s a matter of action and contemplation, a matter of work and rest!

Now I suppose this story can be read on many levels. In fact, in the fifty-five years that I have preached on this text, it has spoken to me on a variety of levels, depending on where I was in my own experience. At some point, when I had picked it up and read it over many, many times, all of a sudden it took on a new meaning that day. As I read it over and over, I kept saying to myself: “This story is about self-worth. This is truly about self-worth!”

I know these two women. They moved into my head years ago and they have been arm-wrestling ever since about who is going to be in charge of my thinking. For most of my life I’ve sided with the busy and anxious Martha. But recently, as I’ve gotten older, Martha is really getting on my nerves. Mary, after all, is the smart one. Both of these characters want to serve the Lord, but they do it for different reasons. Martha is that part of me that believes that I am not really worth much unless I do a lot of work to prove my worth. Martha is that part of me that is always anxious, always lecturing myself and always saying to myself that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not being perfect. Martha is that part of me that believes that if I accomplish a lot, if I can keep proving myself then maybe I can make up for my obvious deficiencies. Martha is that side of me that believes that my worth is directly tied into what I can get done. If you have a Martha in your head, I am sure, like me, you too are totally exhausted most of the time by your own busyness about many things.

I’ve just recently discovered Mary’s point of view. Mary has a message for those of you who feel you “aren’t worth much” because you “can’t do much anymore.” Mary knows that she is already loved, she has already done enough and so she doesn’t have to do a thing about it except enjoy the fact that she is loved. Mary is that side of me that wants to believe that God already loves me, no matter what, just as I am right now, whether I do anything this week or not. Mary is that part of me that wants to believe that God loves me and I am worth something just because I am, not because I am a priest, not because I’ve earned a few degrees or because I can pastor three or more parishes at once. Martha always leaves me anxious, but Mary leaves me encouraged and gives me mental rest and peace of mind. Martha is always trying to do something to get God to love her while Mary understands that she is already loved by God.

The monks at Gethsemani Abbey are the "Marys" of the church. Like Mary who sat in the living room listening to Jesus, they are contemplatives. They are known especially for the amount of time they pray and mediate. The "Marthas" of the church are the ones who are always obsessing about doing things. They are the ones driven to ask the monks what they do besides pray and meditate. They are always relieved to hear that they "produce fruitcakes and fudge." Underneath their prejudice is a belief that anything beyond work is a waste of time!

I read a story several years ago about how many widows there are in Florida! It seems their many of their husbands died of heart attacks trying to "get ahead" so they could kick back and live it up someday! Sadly, they worked themselves into an early grave!

Many of us go through life with that same work-work-work prejudice. Many of us grew up believing that God’s love is conditional - it's based on how much we do for God! We grew up believing that God loves us when we are good, quits loving us when we are bad and starts loving us again when we shape up. Like Martha, we grew up believing we needed to prove our worth to God by doing good deeds! That is actually very poor theology. Mary teaches us today that God’s love for humankind does not have to be earned. True, as we learned in the Good Samaritan story, God calls us all to serious action and thoughtful behaviors as signs of our gratitude for all God has done for us, but God never withholds love from us, no matter what we do or fail to do. That, my sisters and brothers, is why the Scriptures are called “good news.”

Let me end this homily with a humorous story about a time I was talking about this reading. I was having Mass at the old Sacred Heart Home on Payne Street. The Carmelite Sisters had closed their convent on Newburg Road and moved into Sacred Heart Home. All through the homily that day, I could hear one of the nuns snickering on my right side. After Mass, she came up to me and said, “Finally, someone understands me! My name is Sister Martha and I spent most of my life as a cook for the Carmelite Sisters! I so appreciated your sympathy for Martha in today’s gospel!” I laughed all the way home!

Sitting At the Feet of Jesus

Sitting at the feet of Jesus,

Oh, what words I hear Him say!

Happy place! so near, so precious!

May it find me there each day;

Sitting at the feet of Jesus,

I would look upon the past;

For His love has been so gracious,

It has won my heart at last.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus,

Where can mortal be more blest?

There I lay my sins and sorrows,

And, when weary, find sweet rest;

Sitting at the feet of Jesus,

There I love to weep and pray;

While I from His fullness gather

Grace and comfort every day.

Bless me, O my Savior, bless me,

As I’m waiting at Thy feet,

Oh, look down in love upon me,

Let me see Thy face so sweet;

Give me, Lord, the mind of Jesus,

Keep me holy as He is;

May I prove I’ve been with Jesus,

Who is all my righteousness.

A GOOD FRIEND'S FUNERAL HOMILY

 

     My good friend, Richard Douglas “Dubby” or “Dick” Thurman, born on April 8th, 1937, passed away peacefully at 87 on July 4,  2024, surrounded by his loving family.

While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

Luke 15:20

Over the Christmas holidays, a couple of years ago, I got Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. It is about the opportunity to watch the 2007 movie, The Bucket List, starring two terminally ill men on a road trip with a “wish list” of things to do before they “kicked the bucket.” Since I had just officially retired, it struck a chord with me.

In one of my very favorite scenes, they are both sitting on one of the pyramids in Egypt. Morgan Freeman’s character says to Jack Nicholson’s character, “You know the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven…the gods asked them two questions. Their answer determined whether they were admitted or not. “Have you found joy in your life?” “Has your life brought joy to others?”

When Faye Thurman asked me to preside and preach at Dick’s funeral Mass today, I thought these two questions would be two great questions I imagine Dick being asked when he arrived at the gates of heaven.  “Did you find joy in your life?” “Did your life bring joy to others?” Jesus, of course, put it this way! Has God’s love for you brought you happiness? Has God’s love for you inspired you to share that happiness with others? I am confident that he is able to answer both questions with a resounding “yes.” I know from talking to him in depth that his life, especially after he “discovered his new religion,” has certainly brought joy to his life and, from what I heard around the bed right after he died, his life has certainly brought joy to the lives of his family and friends!  I heard Faye says more than once, “I am going to miss him so much!” I am sure his children feel the same way! I heard his grandchildren say, and all verbally agreed, “He was the best grandfather any grandchild ever had!” How good is that? I got an e-mail from a friend of Faye’s to whom Faye said about me, “Dick loved Father Ron!” After so many breakfasts, health crises, prayers shared, support for my projects and laughs together, talking about our humble beginnings and our Honorary Doctorates from Bellarmine, I can truly say he brought joy into my life as well. It was great to hear that my life had enriched his!  

What we are talking about here, with those two questions, is the living out of the Great Commandment. The "great commandment" of Jesus says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," not "Love your neighbor rather than yourself!" In other words, if you have no love for yourself, you will have no love to share with your neighbor!  You cannot give anybody else anything, if you don't have anything to give! As I learned in High School Latin class, "Nemo dat quod not habet." "If you ain't got it, you can't give it!" Only those who have joy in their own lives are able to bring joy into the lives of others. Only those who love themselves can love others. Only those who know how God’s loves, are inspired to love another, as they are loved!

Only those who know how God’s loves can love another as they are loved! How does God love? From 54 years of preaching, I have learned sadly that many so-called “religious” people don’t know squat about how God loves! That’s why I picked the story I read from the gospel today. Religious people who don’t know how God loves, usually mis-name this story. They call it the story of the Prodigal Son! The better name for it is the story of the Loving Father! The wayward son is not the hero of this story simply because he shaped up and came crawling back home. Neither is the uptight and pouting “perfect” son the hero simply because he stayed home, kept the rules and did what he was obligated to do! The real hero of this story is that love-crazy father who loved both of his sons – the one who got down with the pigs and the one who stayed home and did what was expected of him! You and I are one or the other of those two sons – either the wayward son who wasted his money on prostitutes and had to get a job feeding pigs or the self-righteous, uptight, religious conformist who stayed home but probably wanted, in his heart of hearts, to do some of the wild things his little brother did while he was gone!

The father in this parable stands for God! In other words, Jesus tells the people who heard this parable that God is just like the father in this story. That is why the rejects and marginalized of society flocked to Jesus! He preached the “good news” of God’s unconditional love! That is why the religious conformists hated Jesus and had him killed for this kind of talk! They preached the “bad news” of God’s conditional love, which caused people to run away from them!

So, who does God love and how does God love? God loves everybody and he loves everybody, no ands, if or buts about it! No, God does not love the evil we do, but like a good parent, he doesn’t quit loving us and abandons us when we do bad things! If the whole Bible was lost except this one story, we would still have the essence of all that Jesus came to this earth to tell us! The good and the bad alike are loved by God and we too are called to love each other, our friends as well as our enemies, as God loves us! Remember that, because there will be a test at the end of the homily to see if you heard what this story is teaching us! I believe Dick knew this truth and he would want you to know it as well!  

Dick came into my life toward the end of his life. He admitted that was not a “religious” man early on, he might have even compared himself to the prodigal son, but he “discovered” religion when he was faced with kidney disease. He told me he was inspired by his sister’s faith. He and Faye started coming to the Cathedral with Jim and Dot Patterson. I remember praying with him for a “miracle” kidney donor and looking for printed prayers to give him to encourage him. Friends, our prayers were answered and a ‘miracle” was granted! I received him into the church and I have been privileged to give him 4 of our 7 sacraments: confirmation, holy eucharist, penance and anointing of the sick! He was already baptized and married or he would have received all of them except ordination! We met regularly, talked about spiritual things, shared prayers and throughout, he took his new catholic faith very seriously! It brought him joy! Yes, it brought him joy! He brought me joy, as well, watching his spiritual life take root and grow!

Finally, friends, the parable today, applied to Dick, is this! Just like the father in that gospel story who loved both his sons, the good one and the bad one, God love the old Dick and the new Dick. Dick may have discovered religion at the end of his life, but God had been there all along - loving him all the time – both while he was away and when he came home! Today, I can imagine Jesus saying to him these familiar words, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master!” ‘Enter into my joy because you welcomed that joy into your own life and you passed that joy on into the life of your family, your friends, your neighbors and your fellow men and women!’

Congratulations, Dick! You made it across the finish line! Like Faye kept saying at the hospital, we are really going to miss you, but someday we hope to see you again! In the meantime, pray for us and we will pray for you! We say that because he used to say the Creed with us every Sunday when we all professed together that “we believe in the communion of saints,” which is to say that we believe in a holy and unbroken connection between the living and the dead! 

Finally, let me say this – something I try to say at every funeral. Friends, if there are any slights, hard feelings or neglect between you and Dick Thurman or between Dick Thurman and you, let it go! God has forgiven him! God has forgiven you! He did his best and so did you! He is at peace and so can you be at peace! Let it go!

Now for the test! So that you won’t flunk, I am going to give you a hint! It’s one word and it begins with an “e!” Here goes!

FATHER KNOTT: Who does God love?

CONGREGATION: Everybody!

FATHER KNOTT: Correct! You get an A+! Now, go love each other as God loves Dick Thurman and you!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOVING, PROTECTING AND UNIFYING

I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that

they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing.

Jeremiah 23:1-6

One of my earliest childhood memories was seeing Father Johnson, our pastor at St. Theresa in Rhodelia for many, many years, dressed in his overalls and rubber boots, with feed-buckets in each hand, surrounded by hungry sheep, walking through the cemetery as we drove by. The parish did not have a lot of money, especially back then, so he raised sheep both to keep the cemetery mowed and to provide mutton for the parish picnic each summer.

He was a good man – a holy man no doubt. He was especially good at building. He personally laid the bricks and blocks on the convent, rectory, school and parish hall. He was, however, not very good with people – especially with women in general and nuns in particular, and not very good at preaching.  You might say he was better at pasturing sheep than pasturing people, but we loved him anyway. Even though he told me, when I first told him I wanted to go to the seminary, that I would never make it, he did send me a message from his deathbed, after I finished my second year, that he had changed his mind and thought I might make it after all. I, too, loved him anyway – loved him enough to still remember the date of his death – January 3, 1960.   He was such a big part of my childhood that I cannot read about Jesus, the Good Shepherd, without thinking about him and his sheep. It broke his heart to give up his sheep when he got too old to fend off the roaming dogs that slaughtered and destroyed them.

One day, I was watching a program from Australia about sheep and shepherds. I was shocked by what I saw. It did not remind me either of Father Johnson or the Good Shepherd we read about in the New Testament with the sheep eagerly following the gentle calls of their trusted shepherd leading them to food and water and making sure they were protected. In Australia, they have another way to heard sheep and it is done with barking and snapping dogs who force the sheep from behind to go where they would rather not go. Rather than inviting from the front to follow, they threaten them from behind if they dare try to run away!  

As I sat there watching this version of shepherding, I was reminded that we have had two kinds of "pastors" in our church in my life-time: those who the sheep trust, gladly following his convincing voice, and those who bark and snap at the flock, leaving them in fear and trembling and trying to escape from such shepherds! 

It is interesting to me that of the two words for “good” in the original Greek text are agathos and kalos. The first means “good” as in “a good person,” while the second means “good” as in “good at something.”  The word for “good” in the gospel "Good Shepherd" scripture is the word for “good at.” Of course Jesus is a “good person,” but what it wants to say there is that Jesus is “good at” shepherding. 

The Latin words for the “good shepherd” are “bonus pastor,” from which we get the word “pastor.” This passage is most often applied to priests and ministers who are called to be like the Good Shepherd, “pastoring” in his name.  We priests and ministers are also called, like Jesus to be “good” and “good a what we do.”  When we fail, we are often compared to the “hireling” shepherds who are only interested in “threatening, using and abusing” the sheep for their own benefit! 

But, today, I want to apply this story to you, the spouses and parents and future spouses and parents, sitting here in front of me. You, too, are called, or will be called, to be “good shepherds” of your families. You, too, will need to be “good” and “good at” what you do. You will need to be a “good person” and “good at” being a spouse and parent.

The late Pope John Paul II’s new Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Two sacraments are directed toward the salvation of others and, if they contribute to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so.” In other words, those of you called to marriage and those of us called to ordained ministry, become “good” through “being good at” what we do, you as spouses and parents, and me as an ordained minister.

We live in a world of slick temptation and bad examples. It is easy to get off track and be seduced into adopting atrociously bad behaviors simply  “because everybody else is doing it.”  If we are going to be “good” and good at” what we do, we must draw strength from something else than the culture around us. I have also liked the image of the “tree planted near running waters, whose leaves never fade” from Psalm 1 and the prophet Jeremiah.

“A tree planted near running water” never has to worry about hot weather and drought: its leaves stay green. No matter what is happening above ground, because its roots go down deep and taps into the water. Another psalm says “He who practices virtue and speaks honestly, he who brushes his hands free of bribes, stopping his ears and closing his eyes to evil, shall dwell on the heights and have a steady supply of food and drink.”

Jesus is that life-giving water which we should be tapped into. If our roots go down deep and tap into Him, we can stand tall and healthy. Tapping into his life-giving water is what will make us “good” and “good at what we do.”  A connection to Jesus only on Sunday is like trying to fight off drought by carrying water. If you are planted near that stream and your roots tap into him, you never have to worry, you will always have a “steady supply of food and drink,” it will be possible to be a “good person,” a “good spouse,” a “good parent,” or a “good priest/minister” no matter who else crashed and burns in today’s culture.