I wonder if too many Americans have been inoculated with Christianity, and the vaccination has prevented us from ever coming down with the real thing? Perhaps this has something to do with how much of God people really want.
Wilbur Rees illustrates this point by writing: "I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please - not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man or a foreigner or pick beans with a migrant worker or work with an immigrant at a chicken farm. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of a womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I'd only like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”
In today’s gospel, it is hard to imagine jealousy, ambition, and envy among the disciples of Jesus - and yet here we have it! Jesus has just returned from an exhausting journey through the Gentile territories, healing the sick, preaching the good news, and spending time with all the wrong people – according to the religious and political authorities.
Jesus goes away from the crowds to be alone with his disciples, those closest to him. He then reveals the deepest concerns of his heart. He was going to go to Jerusalem and be rejected and be crucified. But the disciples did not understand him, and were afraid to ask questions. Perhaps they were thinking, “Crosses are reserved for those who receive the death penalty. Crosses are not in our future, Lord. Only chairs of glory!”
And rather than asking for clarification, the disciples began to argue among themselves about who was the greatest disciple of them all. If it weren’t all true it would be downright comical. How many of us want to be God, rather than letting God be God?
Now, we as disciples of Christ today, rather than being so ambitious for power, trying to manipulate people and situations, and worrying about who is the greatest of us all, if we take up our Cross and follow Christ in the climb of humility, we will truly rise to the heights of holiness.
Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to be first, he or she shall be the last of all and be the servant of all.” So Jesus transforms ambition into something good that can serve the kingdom. What are the ambitions of our faith? What can we be ambitious for? What can we become ambitious about?
You know, our culture doesn’t deal well with the sick or needy or the broken. Pregnancies with children with deformities are now routinely terminated. What does that say to the handicapped or disabled who are alive?
Some of the people we visit in hospitals or institutions have families who have given up on them.
What about those in jail and prison? There are prisoners there whose families have disowned them; in a way they are dead, they no longer exist. Who will take the time to continue to see them as human beings created in the image of God, no matter what wrong they have committed – even if they have no remorse for killing another human being?
Many will argue that they dug the hole themselves and fell in it, so just leave them there where they belong, out of sight, out of mind. Some even pray for their violent end and rejoice when murderers are executed. But is any of this the gospel message?
And what about patients in nursing homes or lonely widows and widowers? We Americans tend to only prefer the strong, sleek, slender and sexy. Anyone who does not match that description is either ignored or rendered irrelevant!
Who will care for these least ones among us? Many of them are like children, helpless and reduced to dependency? Do we not have a responsibility to them? Did not Jesus say: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people….that you do to me”?
How can we claim to recognize Christ in the humble elements of the Eucharist, but fail to recognize him in the most brittle of human lives?!!
When Jesus said “The poor you will always have with you, he did not mean that it is something we just have to accept and not worry about…no, he meant the Poor you will always have with you! Meaning that we will always walk with the poor, stand with the poor, be on the side of the poor!
Jesus’ response to his disciples’ misguided notions of greatness was to tells us all that we must receive others as children receive others. A child, you see, has no influence. A child must have things done for him, a child receives. If we become like little children then we will welcome the poor and those who have no influence, no wealth, no political power, those who are dependent, and in doing so we are welcoming and receiving Christ. We must seek out those who need our assistance, and not simply lament their condition or pity them as we watch our TV.
It is easy to want to be friends of those who are wealthy, influential or politically powerful, or seek to ingratiate ourselves with those who can do things for us or be useful to us.
It is also easy to avoid the poor, those who need our help, and to neglect the simple and needy.
But Jesus is saying to us that we ought not to seek out those who can do things for us, but to seek out those for whom we can do things for…
This is particularly important in our own time when many people have lost their jobs, lost their savings, no longer have health insurance – or never had it in the first place - and simply have no way to care for themselves adequately.
Yet how many of our Christian friends have fallen for the rugged individualistic lie that says we can go it alone, that it’s every man for himself, and that we really do not have any responsibility for the have nots?
It’s really very sad how selfish some of our fellow Christians, fellow Americans have become.
Think about it: Everything is a gift. We are all children. Our very existence is a gift. None of us worked our way into being. We received all from God. Yet I still hear it said, “The poor just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Well, that would be nice – but many of them don’t even have boots, let alone straps!
It seems that some people have wrapped Jesus in an American flag, made him a border patrol agent and armed him with a machine gun.
As Catholics “We teach that health care is a basic human right, an essential safeguard of human life and human dignity. Health care reform especially needs to protect those at the beginning of life and at its end - the most vulnerable and the voiceless.” (Archbishop Wuerl)
We must be Catholic Christians first, all the rest is noise!
So how are we going to reach out to the least of these? How ambitious are we prepared to be for Christ? How much of God do we really want?
In the movie MOONSTRUCK, there is a line from Nicholas Cage’s character Ronny Cammareri. Ronny is in love with Loretta Castorini, played by Cher. Loretta wants to play it safe in life, and fall in love with a financially secure, predictable man. She fears that if she lets go of this idea, and loves someone different, she’ll lose herself.
After a night at the opera with Loretta, Ronny passionately announces on a New York street:
“Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die.”
Isn’t it often in the dying to self that we find the greatest joy by serving others? It isn’t even our love to begin with; it is God’s love that we are called to share. For God loved us first and now we have the opportunity to love others in return.
St. Tereasa of Avila wrote: “The only treasure we will have in heaven is that which we gave away while we were here on earth.”
But the Resurrected life is not limited only to our heavenly afterlife, but the newly resurrected life begins now! Our faith affects our life here and NOW! If we could only let go of our fears and concerns and allow ourselves to experience the joy that comes from living in union with Christ!
So, rather than only wanting $3 worth of God, let us pray for true transformation and desire for a new birth of our faith in Christ. The difference is eternal life!
So how much of God do we really want? How ambitious are we prepared to be for Christ?
May we echo the words of Saint Paul who wrote, we must be fools for Christ, accounting all else as rubbish in the light of Christ. Pray that we ruin ourselves for Christ, break our hearts for Christ, and love the wrong people through Christ and die in Christ! Then – and only then can we truly rise to new life.
