February 27, 2014
The following is a homily for Sunday, March 2.
One of my long-time habits is reading the comics. I think I’m the only one in our house of priests and seminarians who does this, one out of 25. Yet I find their predictable humor consoling – the way the sagas of the characters continues on. I try to never miss “Blondie.” There’s Mr. Dithers, Dagwood’s boss, yelling at him for his laziness and incompetence, never giving him a raise. There’s Dagwood, still figuring out how to escape the extra assignment at work, hanging out by the water cooler, sneaking his naps. Mr. Dithers is Type A – production ordered, driven, tough. Dagwood Bumstead is type B, laid back, corner-cutting, taking things as they come.
If we use the Dagwood categories, Jesus is certainly telling his disciples to not be Type A – the kind of worrying, driven, severe people who eventually shorten their lives – and everyone else’s. Yet we have to be careful because we might think Jesus is saying not to be concerned at all about the things we wear and the things we eat. Hardly. He fed the poor in the desert and told the rich to give money to the poor. He praised hard-working servants in his parables. Jesus was the son of a handyman who undoubtedly worked hard.
It’s precisely the worry that Jesus wants to eliminate, because behind the worry is a lot of unbelief. Our obsession about possessions, wealth, status, and power often obscures what lies beneath that – that we want to be totally in control of our lives, take charge of everything, and that we do not trust life to take care of us. Jesus, who keeps pointing to God as a loving Father who freely bestows gifts upon humankind, as the compassionate and merciful One who loves each of us despite our status, wants us to see, and live in, God.
And our worrying keeps us from doing that. Our first reading, short as it is, presents the exact image of God that Jesus shows us, and Jesus relies on. A mother cannot forget her child. God the Father is also God the Mother who can never forget us. Existence is that tender. Paul, in the second reading, says that he relies on God for the meaning and judgment of his life, that having become a servant of God, he is freed from the gossip and carping of those around him. Finding God as a God of generous love frees us from a lot of neuralgia and grief.
We live in a Type A world, a world that makes worry, anxiety and extra work a way of life. In a world like this, faith can become almost obscure. The words of Jesus come across as naïve instead of the penetrating analysis of our wasted energy and useless fretting, of our premature graying hair. With Lent coming this week, maybe we can turn our attention not to the giving up of chocolate, but to the inner work of discovering the God of Jesus, the God of surpassing love, the God of unlimited care. If we can make Jesus’ God our God, then we can rejoice more fully in the lives we have, rather than regret the lives we don’t. And be all the more generous, to boot.
Stop and smell the roses, says Dagwood. Mr. Dithers jumps up and down saying more work has to be done. Jesus says keep your hair color and discover the God who really is. What is it you say?