September 20, 2021
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on September 19, 2021, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Wisdom 2:21, 17-20; Psalm 54; James 3:16-4:3; and Mark 9:30-37.
Today, our first reading from the Book of Wisdom complements Mark’s account of Jesus telling the disciples for a second time about his passion, death, and resurrection.
The second readings in Ordinary Time aren’t chosen to relate to the other readings – they work through a three-year cycle of a “highlights reel” of the New Testament letters. However, our passage from James lines up perfectly with our gospel. James speaks of the evils of jealousy and selfishness. In the gospel, the disciples are squabbling over who is the greatest among themselves.
We would no longer be obsessed with comparing ourselves to one another if we truly realized how much God loves each of us just as we are. Let us take a moment to drink in God’s love.
Lord Jesus, you told us that the angels rejoice over one repentant sinner. Lord, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, welcome the lost and the lonely to your table. Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, you will continue to love us with an everlasting love. Lord, have mercy.
When I became a priest, I joined a gym for the first time. It was very strange being new to this whole “gym” culture. At the time of the day that I went there, it seemed as if most of the other people were either body builders or survivors of life-threatening medical conditions. There was one regular there who looked to be roughly my age, but he could easily lift dumbbells twice as heavy as the ones I struggled to carry to the bench. I had consoled myself by imagining that he was obsessed with bulking up. I had never seen him do any cardio. I assured myself that I, on the other hand, was truly dedicated to my health: I always did a combination of weights AND cardio.
Well, that narrative of my superiority was shot down one Thursday morning, when I found myself on the treadmill next to this guy. As I climbed up on my machine, I quickly glanced over at the controls on his. Ha! He was running at 7.2 miles per hour. I was planning to run at 7.7 miles an hour. But as I labored through my 3 miles on the treadmill, eventually slowing down, this guy just kept running with the same intensity, well on his way to a 6-mile run.
Today, the Letter of James speaks of how jealousy, ambition, coveting, and envy prevent us from experiencing the pureness, the peace, the gentleness, and the mercy of God’s wisdom. And the disciples in the gospel are definitely missing out on Jesus’ invitation to peace and mercy – they’re too busy comparing themselves to one another. Most of us are no better than those disciples. We spend so much energy comparing ourselves to others, often without consciously realizing it. Sometimes, our jealousy tempts us to hope that other people are more inadequate than we are. In conversations, we sometimes deliberately steal the attention away from others. We think that everyone else prays better than we do. We gossip in order to make other people look bad. When we hear of someone’s success, we fixate on an unrelated flaw in that person. Do we jealously guard our particular ministry at church, fearful that someone else will do it better than us?
Small children have an innocence and a humility in which they are perfectly happy with their lot in life. They have no need to be the best at anything in order to have a sense of self worth. They realize that they are special and loved just as they are. But then, at some point in our teenaged years, we seem to lose this sense of worth.
As adults, a big part of our spiritual journey to holiness is also a journey to wholeness. As we grow in discipleship, we hopefully learn to embrace the “shadow sides” of who we are. It is healthier and holier to integrate these shadows into our conscious understanding of who we are, rather than pretending that the shadows don’t exist.
So much of my personal prayer is asking the Holy Spirit to help me to grow in the awareness of my sense of inadequacy and doubt. The sooner I recognize my feelings, the better choices I can make. If I find myself starting to compare myself with someone else, I ask the Holy Spirit for the wisdom to determine what’s behind my desire to compare. And every so often, the Spirit reminds me that the One Who Is The Greatest was humiliated on a cross, offering his body and blood, knowing and trusting that beyond humiliation lies everlasting life for all of us.
Every time I think I’ve matured beyond my obsession with comparing myself with everyone else, I find another shadow. Like that situation in the gym on that Thursday nine years ago. The fitness regimen of the guy on the treadmill next to me made me feel inadequate, but that wasn’t his fault. Thanks to the intercession of the Holy Spirit, I realized what was going on in my mind before I finished my time on the treadmill. So I did something I had rarely done at the gym. When I finished, I took the earbuds out of my ears. I turned to this guy, and said in genuine admiration, “I don’t know how you do it. You’re inspiring.” Never breaking his stride, he simply smiled and said, “I gotta do something to burn off the pizza!” This simple interaction helped me realize that my pride and my unrecognized feelings of inadequacy were making my time at the gym more of a burden than it needed to be. I’m a people person. There’s no need for me to keep to myself and not interact with the other people there!
A few days later, that same guy struck up a conversation with me, and we got to be casual friends. Bill was actually more than 15 years older than me, had previously owned a gym, and had retired a young age. He was in the process of adopting a child, and I enjoyed getting updates from him on that process. And every once in a while, if he saw me using a machine incorrectly, he’d give me some gentle advice on the right way to use it. And honestly, that somebody so much more physically fit than me would take the time to treat me as a colleague did a lot to boost my self esteem.
Sometimes, the child we struggle most to receive is… ourselves. So many of us struggle to accept that we are children of God. God loves each of us as we are. God loves me just as I am. When we stop comparing ourselves to others, we open ourselves to receiving God’s incomparable love.
Last month, I joined a new gym. I’m still self-conscious about my physcial fitness, I still don’t make a lot of small talk at the gym, and I’m keeping my distance from strangers in the pandemic. But hopefully, by sharing this story, it will remind all of us to let go of our insecurities and to know that God loves us, just as we are!