USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #31

JESUS PAID TAXES, BUT DID HE RELY ON A MIRACLE? PROBABLY NOT!

 

The collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said, "Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?" "Yes," Peter said. Jesus said to Peter, “Go to the sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and for you."

Matthew 17:22-27

To say the least, this is an insightful little story. It shows that Jesus, while he was here on earth, was not only questioned by the state, but also by the church, about whether he would pay his taxes!

Matthew’s gospel has two stories about Jesus and paying taxes. Both times, we see the questioner trying to ensnare Jesus as a man at odds with the government and organized religion. Jesus knew we had dual citizenship, so he says later on in chapter 22, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s!

Today the question, rather than paying taxes to the State, was about whether Jesus would pay the religious “temple tax.”  It would be like a reporter from The Record asking me if I was going to make my annual contribution to the Archbishop’s Catholic Service Appeal to which all our priests are asked to contribute!

Again, the tax authorities asked their question with malicious intent. They were actually hoping that Jesus would refuse to pay such a tax because if he refused, they would have something to accuse him of!

Peter’s immediate answer to the questioners was that Jesus would indeed pay his taxes. After answering their question. Peter went to Jesus and told him of the situation. Jesus basically tells Peter to pay it so that they would not set a bad example for others. If the laity are expected to support the Catholic Services Appeal, why not their priests? After all, both Jesus and Peter knew that the Temple was God’s House and it cost quite a bit of money to operate, just as we priests know that it costs the archbishop a lot to run the archdiocese!

The last part of this story is quite interesting. If you take it literally, you would assume that Jesus told Peter to go fishing and that he would catch a fish with a coin magically in its mouth worth what the both of them owed in Temple taxes! That’s certainly not what Jesus meant here!

We are told that people of those days often said things in the most dramatic and vivid language possible and often with the flash of a smile. This was what Jesus was doing in his answer to Peter. Jesus did not perform miracles to spare people from doing things they could do for themselves. Jesus did not work miracles to simply spare his disciples from hard work and personal responsibility.

No, what he is saying to Peter was something like this, “Peter, go back to your fishing job and earn what we need to pay our Temple taxes! It would be like telling a typist that she could find a new coat in the keys of her typewriter or a mechanic that he could find food for his family in the cylinders of a car. No, here it’s simply a matter of doing the work, reaping the reward and paying your bills!!

What I have learned from this gospel is simple. I need to quit asking God to miraculously take care of things that I am quite capable of doing for myself! As I like to remind myself sometimes, “Ron, there is no rescue party out looking for you, so just do it!”

 

 

 

STEP OUT OF THE CHAOS AND BE A PERSON OF INTEGRITY

A PREVIOUS, BUT STILL USEFUL, POST 

The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. 

Luke 16:1-10

Trash TV is forever giving some of the weakest people in our culture a spotlight for showing off their crudeness, addictions and ignorance. I must confess that I get sucked into watching it sometimes – usually with a jaw dropped in amazement. Just when you think you’ve heard and seen it all, the ante is “upped” in one form or another. “Tom, Dick, Harry, John, Kevin, Bob, George, Devin! All eight of you are not the father!” “I am here today to tell my teenaged daughter that I have been secretly having a relationship with her boy friend for the last three years!” “I want to come clean today with my girl friend and tell her today that I am the one who has been secretly cashing her grandparents social security checks for the last three years in order to cover my gambling debts.”

One of the themes that gets regular coverage is the inability to say “no.” Pathetic examples of humanity tell the audience in a million different ways that if the temptation is there, one is forced to give into it because one is surely powerless to do otherwise. Likewise, if the opportunity arises to commit adultery, defraud the government or take something from work, we are told that a person would be foolish to pass it up.

Today’s gospel calls us to be people of integrity, no matter what call we have answered. A person of integrity knows right from wrong and has the strength of character to choose what is right, even when no one is looking, even when it is possible to choose wrong and get away with it. The opposite of a person with integrity is a small self-centered person, always “on the make,” no matter how devastating the effect is on himself or others.

The ability to say “no” to opportunistic situations is one of the most basic abilities of a person of integrity. A person of integrity declares his independence from the terminal egoism of popular culture. A person of integrity responds to life from well-defined principles, not from his or her basest addictions.

A person of integrity says “no” to the assumption that says “the end justifies the means.” When we buy into this perspective, we are willing to use deception, manipulation and even death to accomplish our “good” goals.

A person of integrity says “no” to radical materialism – that driving passion to “own,” “possess” and “have” at all cost, even at the expense of individuals and the community as a whole.

A person of integrity says “no” to radical individualism. Radical individualists promote themselves only, always taking and never giving back. We are social beings by nature. We live in communities and are therefore never free to do whatever we wish in an absolute sense.

A person of integrity says “no” to the “group-think,” the “herd mentality,” “what everybody else is doing.” Unable to love themselves, people without integrity are unable to love others. Addicts to the “latest best offer,” their marriages often end in tragedy. Refusing to grow up, they do not have what it takes to sustain family life and  leave children without the parenting that is rightfully theirs!

Friends! If all this sounds terribly counter-cultural, it is! One of the marks of mature adulthood is the ability to do hard things for one’s own good, to stand up to the coward in oneself and to say “no” to lazy, destructive choices. Build your life on solid principles, no matter how few follow you.

I teach a class every spring semester to the guys who will be ordained to the priesthood this spring. In fact, they are also going through their own graduations at Saint Meinrad today. They have been though four, six or more years of supervision and evaluations to make sure they are doing what they should be doing. I spend a lot of time  preparing them to be their own spiritual directors and life coaches, if need be, because their success, like yours, will depend a great deal on their ability to say “no” to lazy, destructive choices that may feel good to them in the short run and say “yes” to the hard choices that are really good for them in the long run.

Friends, the sign that you have really reached adulthood will be your ability to manage your own appetites, your ability to do hard things for your own good, your ability to stand up to that perpetual adolescence that is so popular and embarrassing in so many middle-aged men and women today. Choose the things that will give you life. Reject the things that will bring death into your life. Choose to be directed by solid spiritual principles, rather than always going with the latest best offer, always taking the road most traveled, always choosing the easy way. Be a man or woman of integrity instead of a slave to your own cowardice and addictions. A man or woman of integrity, with a good education, has the ability to be a successful professional, a successful marriage partner, a successful parent, indeed whatever God calls him or her to be.

Let me end this homily with a quote from one of my heroes, Victor Frankl, a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms, the ability to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, the ability to choose one’s own way.” 

Friends, reject “group think.” Choose to be directed by spiritual solid principles. Choose to be men and women of integrity.         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THERE IS NO RESCUE PARTY OUT LOOKING FOR YOU!

   

Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons

but as wise persons. Therefore, do not continue in

ignorance. But try to understand what is the will

of the Lord.

Ephesians 5:15-20

 

I am very aware that I am bombarded every day with messages about how I ought to live, how I ought to think, what I ought to buy and what I ought to do. Depending on the source, I try my best not to listen to most of those messages. So that I can freely and deliberately "take the road less traveled," I collect insightful quotations, wise sayings and other tidbits of wisdom and paste them everywhere in my house to remind myself that I am in charge of my own thinking, that I need not be a victim of what “everybody else is doing" or "what everybody else is thinking." I want to consciously control my own thinking and make my own decisions so that I do not end up unconsciously being a gullible "copycat" of what other people are doing and thinking. I realized a long time ago, that if I am going to be a priest, I must walk the talk. I realized that I must at least try to set an example for others. To do that, I realized that I have to try to remove the wooden beam in my own eye first, if I am going to be able to see clearly to remove the splinter in somebody else's eye." Otherwise, I will end up being a blind guide for other blind people and both of us will end up in a ditch!   

 

On one wall of my house, where I can see it often, is this George Bernard Shaw quote. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” This might not mean much to some of you, but for me it symbolizes the greatest breakthrough in thinking that I have ever had in my life. Until I was a junior in college, I used to believe that “life was something that happens to you and all you can do is make the most of it.” As a result, I ended up always being a “victim” - ultimately being what the same George Bernard Shaw called, “a selfish, feverish little clod of grievances and ailment complaining that the world would not get together to make me happy.” One day, in a flash of grace, it occurred to me quite clearly that "there was no rescue party out looking for me!" That day I made a clear, conscious decision to quit whining from the back seat of my own life and to get behind the wheel! I have told my story hundreds of times, but I also know that every time I tell it, it always inspires someone to make a similar shift in their thinking. I am hoping that it will help someone here today who needs to make a shift in his or her thinking away from victimhood toward self-empowerment - to get a grip on themselves and quite waiting for a rescue party to come and magically “save” them!  

 

My fellow Catholics! The second reading today is about the importance of building your life on a solid foundation, but before you can even consider what foundation you want to build on, you must understand and accept the fact that you are the builder of your own life! You are responsible for how your life turns out! If you build your life on the rock-solid foundation of sound thinking that leads to good choices, if you “get it” that life is about you creating yourself, you will most probably thrive! If, however, you build your life on the sand of weak thinking and lazy choices, you will surely doom yourself to the “swamps of regret” and the world of “might have beens!” 

 

Most of you are familiar with the monk, Thomas Merton. We have his library at Bellarmine University where I use to work as its longest serving campus minister. People come from far and wide to use that library and absorb his wisdom. Many of you may not be as familiar with the founder of his religious community, the Cistercians. He was a Benedictine monk named Bernard of Clairvaux. St. Bernard was a great reformer in the Church of the 12^th century. He might have died over 860 years ago, but his wisdom lives on and it is valuable even today – even for those of us in here today! He offers us four foundation pillars on which to build a good life based on the words of Jesus who said,“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit." If your life is to produce good fruit, St. Bernard says you must (a) consider yourself (b) consider those below you (c) consider those around you and (d) consider Him who are above you.  

 

(a) In considering yourself, St Bernard said, “Behold what you are! It is a monstrous thing to see such dignity trivialized and squandered!”  The first foundation stone on which to build a successful life is a passionate commitment to your own personal excellence – becoming the best version of yourself that you can become! I learned a little maxim in Latin many years ago which I have found to be so true.  “Nemo dat quad non habet” “One cannot give what one does not have.” Jesus said, “A bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” St. Francis de Sales said, “Be who you are and be that well!” In practical terms, if you are going to marry, be good at it, be a fabulous partner or don’t get married! If you are going to have kids, be good at it, be an effective parent or don’t have them! If you are going to go into public service, be good at it, be transparent, be honest and be self-giving or don’t get into it at all! If you are going to a priest, get serious about it or don’t get ordained! Be who you say you are! Be a person of integrity. Do the right thing even when no one is looking!  

 

(b) In considering those below you, you must never forget that the gifts you have been given have been given to you, not just for your own good and personal benefit, but for the good of the community! The second foundation stone on which to build a successful life is a passionate commitment to vocational excellence, to be the very best you can be at what you do!  This means a lifelong commitment to honing your skills, to deepening your respect and reverence for those under your charge and to always trying to lift the vision of others to higher sights, their performance to a higher standard and their personalities beyond their normal limitations.   Yes, become an example of who people want to follow! 

 

(c) In considering those around you, take stock of those with whom you surround yourself! The third foundation stone on which to build a successful life is to choose your friends and associates wisely. Many people do not realize the impact the type of people they surround themselves with has on their well-being. Our friends in AA know that part of becoming sober is not hanging out with drinkers at bars! The people you surround yourself with will either lift you up or bring you down, support you or criticize you, motivate you or drain you. By developing relationships with those committed to constant improvement and the pursuit of the best that life has to offer, you will have plenty of company on your path to the top of whatever mountain you seek to climb. Remember, people who tell you what you want to hear are not necessarily your friends, just as those who tell you what you don’t want to hear are not necessarily your enemies. Surround yourself with people of integrity and quality. Do not hang out with lazy thinkers and undisciplined people! Instead of building you up, they will bring you down!    

 

(d) Last of all, in considering Him who is above you, never forget where you came from and where you are going. You have not always been here and you will not always be here! In the whole scheme of things, your lifespan is relatively short. The fourth and final foundation stone on which to build a successful life, therefore, is to develop an interior spiritual life to match your external material life, so that you can walk on two legs, not one! Statistically, marriages with God in them, for example, last longer and are happier. The same can probably be said of other vocations and professions. Awareness of God reminds us every day that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that an amazing amount of invisible support is just a prayer away and that our lives have a point and a purpose beyond financial success! Don’t let organized religion’s many failures cause you to miss out on religion’s many positive contributions! Stay connected to your religion and be serious about that connection!   

 

My fellow Catholics! These four foundation stones, if built upon with care, focus and determination, make up the cornerstones of a good life, in whatever direction you go! Those who came before you have given you an excellent foundation on which to build! Now heed the words of Saint Paul, “Each one of you must be careful how he builds!” Remember the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Life is about creating yourself!” Regardless of your age, you still have the freedom and tools to make something of yourself! Rise to the challenge! What you do with the freedom and tools given to you is up to you! I pray that each of you will develop a passionate commitment both to “who you are” and “what you do!” I pray that you will seek to be good and good at it! For God's sake, decide today not to be guided by "what everyone else is doing and what everyone else is thinking!" Be better, reach higher, control yourself and remember this: “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit."