Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary
Saint Patrick Parish
October 20/21, 2018
You deserve it. You deserve it. If you watch HDTV very often, as Fr. Jeff does. When we lived in the previous rectory there was common tv room, so he'd be watching it and I'd often join him. You don't have to watch too many of these shows to catch how formulaic they are, it really is rather obvious. This is especially apparent in the show Extreme Home Makeover, but many of the shows have a pretty set pattern and that pattern goes something like this: they introduce the family, then there's some interpersonal dynamics and at some point you wonder if they going to stay together after all, there is the indecisiveness regarding what it is that they are looking for, there's the options and all the choices, and then inevitably something happens, some major catastrophe takes place, some problem uncovered, and they are certain this will be the end of the project, and then a miracle happens, the problem is solved and the show continues to its conclusion. At the end of the show, as is right, they are thankful, they've received something they've been given help to find their new home, or their home has been remodeled in such a way that it now really fits their life. Now, I'm not saying that they don't deserve this gift, this blessing, because we all deserve a place where we can live comfortably with our loved ones and be together, to have a place to grow and be together as a family. But in response to their u understandable gratitude there is that cover all line, ‘you deserve it’ and they just leave it at that. It puts a cap on it, what they have received doesn't call them to respond in any way - it simply is ‘you deserve it.’ It doesn't take much, just scratch the surface a little and we'll begin to see that there are plenty of other families who don't receive the kind of help that they are providing, that don’t receive the kind of assistance that they are giving. There are plenty of others who are certainly deserving, and maybe perhaps even more deserving. So, what does this kind of thinking do to our mentality of deserving? What does it do especially once we've come to the understand that we deserve something?
I want you to consider a time in your past when you have asked for a raise. I have - in a previous life. In my current life, if you ask for a raise they give you another parish - that's what happens. In this former life, when I worked at the nursing home I weighed what it was that I was doing, what I was being paid, and what I wanted to do, and I came to an understanding that I deserved more compensation, I wanted to ask for a raise. Once we have worked up the courage to ask for that raise, not necessarily easy to do, once we’ve done that it is difficult at that point for someone else to convince us that we do not deserve it. You have done the work to get there, and so you go, and you ask for your raise. You may or may not get it, but you conclude that you deserve it - right or wrong, you deserve it.
If we take a step back from our Gospel account perhaps we can see James and John in that light. They have rather courageously gone before their boss, Jesus Christ, and asked for a raise. They have looked at the organizational chart, they have weighed their responsibility and talents, and even though they put it in a rather demanding way “we want you to do for us whatever we ask you to do” they are essentially asking for a raise, for a promotion. They want to be recognized for their leadership in Christ’s mission, they want to sit at the left and at the right, of Jesus Christ when he comes into his Kingdom. In this Gospel they themselves are asking, in another Gospel they have their mother asked for them, but here they have worked up the courage to ask for themselves. Really, I don't think we can blame them. If you look around at the crew that they have assembled they were one of the first Apostles, they got out of their father's boat and follow Jesus right away - leaving the boat and the rest behind. James and John the sons of Zebedee, the ‘sons of thunder’ as it were, a couple of very energetic leaders, very powerful in that witness, in leaving everything and following Jesus right away. Second there is the de-facto leader, Peter, and if we are serious, well Peter is kind of an idiot, some of the time, so why shouldn't they at least be recognized along with him. Then there's Matthew, he's a tax collector, so of course they deserve more than he does. Finally, there is that Judas guy, they are not too sure about him, there is a little fishy about him. Having taken this look around James and John have come to the recognition that they deserve to be held in higher esteem, to receive that honor. In all these calculations they have, however, missed part of the reality of what Christ is doing with the overall vision of what it is that we as humankind truly deserve. They also miss what receiving that vision will call them to do. Does Christ take joy in the recognition that his disciples, his friends will suffer in his name? I doubt it. They did not deserve such difficulty and pain, but they had the underserved love of Christ with them the entire time, guiding them onward toward his Divine vision.
We recall how the Jews especially, at the time, saw that if you were doing well, if you had property, land, health, and good things in your life, then most certainly were blessed by God. You were in God's favor. You were clean, and you were carefully walking the path God wants you to walk. If you were not seen to be carefully walking that path, if you are sick, or poor, or had trouble in your family, well then you probably had done something to deserve it. Thus, you are not in God's favor. But Christ comes to show us a different way, a different way of calculating what it is that we deserve. God, by God's nature, loves perfectly. God can do nothing but love perfectly. God is God, and God’s very nature is to be perfect. God loves every one of God's creatures as perfectly as possible. Every one of us, all humanity is loved perfectly. But in a paradoxical way, in an undeserving kind of way, God loves even more perfectly those who need God's love. Those who are suffering, those who are living a life of sin, and I say especially those whose life of sin has led them to a life of suffering - God's love for these is even more perfect. This extravagance does not limit the love that God has ‘for the rest of us.’ God’s love for everyone is perfect, it cannot get any better, but in this paradoxical way, a way only God can accomplish, God goes even further with those who are in greater need of God's love. This is a completely undeserved love. None of us really deserve God’s love, if we are honest, we don't deserve it. This love is not something like we have in our jobs, it is not something we have worked diligently to achieve, we cannot come up with a list of reasons why, our qualifications will never add up to a place of being deserving. Nevertheless, those who are less deserving receive even more love from God.
Just a few days ago, on Thursday, the church celebrated the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist. I love Saint Luke. Saint Matthew, in his gospel, when he gets to the Beatitudes, he rounds the corners off a little. In the Beatitudes of Saint Matthew, he has Christ proclaiming, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ Saint Luke does not give us quite so much comfort room, ‘Blessed are the poor’ he says. In that light, for those who are suffering, for those who go without for those who may be less deserving of God's love are actually more deserving and a paradoxical kind of way. There is a brand of Christianity that is known as the ‘Prosperity Gospel.’ The ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is really pretty simple, it states those who are in God's favor receive God's blessing, mostly in financial ways but also in health, satisfaction, and so on. It's not difficult to find. You just scratched the surface a little bit and you can find prosperity gospel, in many places, in many ways of thinking and encountering the world and God. It is so simple it really is ridiculous. It does not fit this altered view of who is deserving. It makes me want to pull my hair out, which maybe God was saying Adam you're a little too dramatic already. Prosperity Gospel really misses the point, it holds to this idea that somehow, we are deserving of God's love, deserving of God's blessing. In the end I am certain that both Saint Luke, and Saint Matthew would agree that that just is not the case.
Those shows on HGTV, and the way that they are so formulaic that they turn me away, the formula can become boring. It's a routine, it's a set pattern that they follow. One could easily say, ‘well Father, don’t we have a similar situation here at church when we gather together? We pray, we sit, we listen, we stand up, we do the thing, we receive, we go out… pretty much the same thing every time. That familiarity is shifted away from boredom, away from simply formula, by our response. There are plenty of opportunities within the Mass itself to respond, to sing, to pray, to encounter Jesus Christ, but also it is what we do with the gift that we receive. We respond out of that. It matters what we do in response, what we do after the formula has concluded. It is what we do with that which we do not deserve. How is it that we respond? Perhaps that is what is missing from those shows - they receive something, but they are not challenged to give back in any real way, they are simply told that they deserve it. Sisters and brothers, we do not deserve what we received here, from this altar. There is no way that we ever could. We receive perfectly and freely from Jesus, but we are challenged by that free act to respond. To respond with a recognition of who we are as perfectly loved children of God, to go out into the world and share that free gift with others. That gift of God’s love is undeserved by us, undeserved by them, but nonetheless, loved by God perfectly.
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