CATHEDRAL HOMILY
"An Alternate
Route"
October 30, 2016
Zacchaeus could not see because of the
crowd for he was short in stature.
So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore
tree in order to see Jesus who
was about to pass that way.
Luke 19:1-10
It's
been a very long time, over forty-six years in fact, since I graduated from
the seminary. There is so much I can't remember, but there is one thing that
remains vivid in my mind. It was toward the very end. I forgot who it was, but one of our teachers
asked us to present some "pastoral situations" for class discussion -
maybe a wedding, funeral or counseling situation. He asked us to write up the
"ideal" way we might handle the situation once we were ordained.
After
we had all written up our "ideal" approaches to the situations we
described, he collected the papers and stood there in the front of class and
ripped them up into small pieces and threw them in the garbage. After that we said to us, "You will
hardly ever get to do the "ideal," so let's talk about some
alternative approaches." Man, has
that insight ever come in handy over the last 44 years!
Right
after ordination I was sent to southern Kentucky as the first Catholic priest
to live in Wayne County. I found myself as the pastor of a church with only 7
parishioners (three adults and four children) with $70.00 in the bank. I was
not trained to be a missionary. I knew nothing about the "bible belt"
as they called that area of the country. I didn't know how to start a church or
how to raise money. It would have been
nice if the bishop would have paid my salary and gave me some money for more
education, but he said there was no money available. I could have just sat down
and waited out my time down there, but I didn't! I remembered my seminary
teacher's advice, "If you cannot do the ideal, find an alternative
approach."
I
asked three Louisville parishes and a Catholic car dealer if they would
together pay my salary till I got settled. I then applied to McCormick
Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago for a scholarship to study "parish
revitalization." Guess what? The
three Louisville parishes and the car dealer agreed to pay my salary for three
years and I got a full scholarship from the Presbyterian Church for a Doctor of
Ministry degree in "parish revitalization" on two grounds - minority
religion and poverty income!
When
I came to Louisville in 1983, I had been
named pastor of this Cathedral. The church was almost
empty - just 110 registered parishioners and a few visitors. Very few people knew it, but it was on a list of churches up for possible closure. Some wanted to close it and make one of the nicer suburban churches our cathedral. It was also in very bad physical condition underneath the cosmetic renovation of the 1970s. I was told by the former pastor
not to get my hopes up and that nothing could be done because "there
weren't any Catholics living downtown" and "the last renovation had
drained the archdiocesan coffers."
I
could have just sat down and waited out my time here, but I didn't! I
remembered my seminary teacher's advice, "If you cannot do the ideal, find
an alternative approach." I
realized that there were very few Catholics living downtown and that raising a
lot of money from within the diocese would be out of the question so I went for
an alternative approach. For
parishioners, I went after the hundreds and hundreds of "fallen away"
Catholics, especially those who worked downtown. For money, I asked people of
all religions to help us fix up the cathedral so that all religions could use
it. Guess what? In fourteen years we grew from 110 members to 2100 members and
we raised over $22,000,000 and 67% of that $22,000,000 came from
non-Catholics!
This
is why I love that little sawed-off guy in today's gospel, named Zacchaeus! He
wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus coming down the road, but he was too short to
see above the crowd! He could have said, "Oh, well, maybe next time,"
but he didn't. He found an alternative. We are told that he "ran ahead"
and "climbed a sycamore tree"
along side the road where Jesus would be passing by. Because of his ingenuity and determination,
Zacchaeus not only got to see Jesus, but
because Jesus was able to see Zacchaeus in the tree and because Jesus admired
his determination, Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus' house for dinner!
Zacchaeus
reminds me of those guys who wanted to get Jesus' attention in another gospel
story. Their buddy needed healing. He was crippled. When the door of the house
where Jesus was staying was blocked by huge crowds of people, they could have
given up and carried him back home. Instead they carried him up on the roof,
tore a hole big enough to lower their buddy down, right in front of Jesus!
Jesus commended those guys for their determination and healed the crippled man
right then and there.
My friends!
We can learn a lot from this little man today! So many of us sabotage great
possibilities in our lives by giving up too soon, especially when the door
seems blocked to us! Zacchaeus teaches us that when the door is blocked, we
should try another door, maybe an open
window, and if that does not work, go through the roof or even dig under the
foundation! Find an alternative route,
but never give up without a search!
My friends!
Declaring a situation as "impossible" is very convenient. It let's us
off the hook and relieves us of the hard work of looking for
"alternatives." Nobody expects
us to do the "impossible," do
they? Nobody will blame us for doing
nothing if we can convince them that "nothing can be done," would
they? Instead, learn from Zacchaeus! Use
you imagination, look for alternatives and be resourceful, but do not let go of
your dreams too easily! If you give up
too easily or too early, you just might be the one to kill your own dreams and
block your own blessings!
Here
is another story that I like to tell. It's about watching TV one day and seeing
a young man who had been in a motorcycle wreck and had one of his legs
amputated, being interviewed. He had been a great athlete and was eaten up with
bitterness about the loss of his leg. It was depressing so I turned the
channel. On the other channel was a young man, about the same age, coming dawn
the mountains on skis. It wasn't till he got to the end of his run that I
noticed that he was a one-legged skier in the Handicapped Olympics!
One
young man gave up and the other one got up! The second young man, with one leg,
got up and looked for alternatives. Like Zacchaeus, who really wanted to see
Jesus, and found a way to overcome his shortness, the second young man found an
"alternative" rather than simply "giving up."
As my hero, Philo T. Farnsworth inventor of television, put it, "Impossible things just take a little longer!" Here is another one of my favorite quotes. This one is from children's author, Chris Bradford. "Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength."
Never give up! Don't quit! Just look for an alternate route!
As my hero, Philo T. Farnsworth inventor of television, put it, "Impossible things just take a little longer!" Here is another one of my favorite quotes. This one is from children's author, Chris Bradford. "Anyone can give up; it is the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone would expect you to fall apart, now that is true strength."
Never give up! Don't quit! Just look for an alternate route!
