There was a priest and a
minister and a rabbi who were debating among themselves one time as to who did
the better job of proclaiming God’s word.
So they decided to set up a challenge among themselves. And they said we’ll go into the woods and see
if we can convert a bear. Well the
priest went into the woods and he found a bear there rummaging around. And he said, “I opened up my catechism and I
began to explain to him all the teachings of the church and before long that
bear was just eating everything up. He
was just so enthralled by it. And you know next week he’s going to be making
his First Holy Communion.”
Well the minister said,
“Well you know, I found a bear down by a stream. And I opened up my Bible and I began to pour
out God’s holy word to him. And this
bear was so mesmerized by it that he allowed me to baptize him right there in
the stream.”
The priest and the minister
are standing there and they are looking and here’s the rabbi, he’s on a gurney,
he’s all bandaged up. He’s got broken
bones and everything. And they looked at
him and through all the bandages he said, “You know, looking back in it I
probably should not have started with circumcision.”
I’ve been waiting for the
right day to tell that joke. And as I
kept saying why do I want to say it with this beautiful gospel taking about
love? But love hurts.
It’s easy to love people who
are loving back to us. People who are
for us. People who are understanding and
compassionate. People who stroke
us. People who care about us. You know, it’s easy to love those kinds of
people isn’t it? You know. People who are loving, warm,
affectionate. You know it might be your
children, your spouse, grandparents, uncle, aunt, but those people who you love
and they just give it right back to you.
That’s easy in many ways. We
enjoy it and it’s life affirming and it’s life giving and it’s nourishing.
Thank God that He does love
you and me through other people who love us back. If we didn’t get those warm fuzzies it would
be pretty hard to do it wouldn’t it.
And yet, the gospel, Jesus
says, “Love one another and I have loved you.”
And you and I know from all the scriptures and from our teachings how
God has loved us through Jesus, was through the cross. Jesus died, Jesus suffered to give you and me
the gift of eternal life. There was pain
involved. There was hurt. There was shame. There was betrayal. And Jesus went through all of that to say, “I
love you.” So when Jesus says, “Love one
another. This is My command” He’s asking you and me not only to love those
who are warm and affectionate and give it back to us but the sacrifice, the
costs, are you and I willing to love our enemies.
What about those people who
resent us? What about the people who
hate us and would rather see you and me dead rather than love us? And there are people out there that way. What about the people who we avoid? Ever found yourself going down a street and
you see the bum or the beggar coming towards you, and all of a sudden you
decide you have to go back this way? Or
you cross to the other side of the street?
We can avoid people who we don’t want to love or care about. I’ve done it.
I bet you have done it as well.
How many times when you’re
driving your car and somebody’s tailgating you and almost riding in your back
seat. Do you have loving, affectionate
thoughts about them? I know at times I’m
almost tempted to say, “I’ll slam on the brakes” but then I know there’s going
to be an accident involved and then I say, “I don’t want to get involved in
road rage.” So you move over and let
them go by. Do you wave at them as they
go by? Do you say, “God bless you on
your speedy journey”? Or do you say,
“Get out of here. Stay away from
me”?
What about those kind of
peoples and events? The people, the
jerks in our lives, and we all have them.
And probably at times if we are honest you had I have probably been a
jerk to somebody else as well.
I think of it on a national
level. I was reading something just the
other day. And we all know in parts of
our world, the different wars and violence going on. And yet this article was pointing out you
know the conflict between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. And they are all fighting for the same turf
and piece of property. And yet they know
very clearly that Hamas is out for the extinction of Israel. They don’t even want to admit that they exist
or have a right to exist. So how are you
going to build peace or love with someone who even denies your existence. If that’s happening on a national level, how
is it going to be turned around? The
only way that I think and know about it, you know it’s about putting more love
into the world rather than just avoiding evil.
So maybe that’s the challenge
of the gospel. Are you and I willing to
put more love, care, compassion, understanding, mercy, joy, forgiveness into
the world rather than just avoiding hatred?
Because if all we do is just avoid it, and say, “Well, I’m not putting
any evil into the world,” but am I putting any good? Am I putting in more love, understanding and
compassion? And that’s hard to do,
especially with those who are against us.
Now I’m pretty sure I can
stand here this morning and say I’m not aware of any enemies that I have
personally. If someone out there hates
Pat Grile I’m not personally aware of it.
There are some people who probably don’t care for what I do, or how I do
or say things, that’s a given. But do I
hate them in return? No, because I don’t
even know who they are. So how am I
going to love them? I can do it through
the Mass this morning. I can ask God to
bless these people. I can ask God,
because God already does love them and bless them, so why should not also pray
for them and ask God to continue to bless them?
That’s a simple little
thing, but it’s a powerful thing, because what I believe it’s doing, it’s
opening up my heart that I can allow God’s love to flow through me to touch
somebody else. Because if we don’t open
up our hearts we block the flow. Does
that make sense?
So maybe part of our great
gift to give to the world today is that you and I through this Eucharist this
morning will in turn pour more love into our world community and to our parish
community wherever our journeys may take us.
Love is messy at times,
right? It demands a sacrifice. It comes when it’s inconvenient. I’m sure you who are married and have your
spouses, and have had children, you know that far better than I do because
you’ve have the personal experience of it.
Getting up at 2:00 in the morning to take care of the sick child. Especially then as we get older, to take care
of a spouse perhaps who can’t do all the things for themselves. Especially if you have someone in your family
who has Alzheimer’s, and they don’t even know who you are, and you go there day
after day. I’ve seen people take care of
their elderly and it’s amazing.
I don’t know if you know
anything about this story. Princess
Alice was her name. She was the second
daughter of Queen Victoria. And she had
a four-year-old son. And of course she
loved her son very much. But her little
four-year-old boy had contracted what they called the black diphtheria. And this was going to be fatal. And they knew that if you had any contact
with another person who had this black diphtheria, that it would also affect
you. And so the doctors had told
Princess Alice, “Don’t even touch you child.
Don’t hug him. Don’t kiss him,
because you will also get the disease.”
And for a fairly long time she did that.
One day she was in the corner of her son’s room and it was very
quiet. And she heard her son whisper to
the nurse, “Why doesn’t my mother kiss me any more?” And Alice couldn’t take it. She immediately went running up to her son,
hugged him, kissed him and held him in her arms for all he was worth. And of course it happened. Within a matter of two week both mother and
son died. And you might say, “Gosh how
foolish. How stupid of that mom. How illogical.” Isn’t that what love is though?
Love isn’t logical. Yes, sometimes it’s stupid. And it hurts.
And sometimes we give our life for love of someone else. To love demands sacrifice. Love demands a cross. When we are willing to embrace that kind of
love it enters into something so far, far beyond what we even can begin to
imagine, right? It enters us into the
love of God. And all our reading today,
the second reading said, “We love not because we love, but because God first
loved us.” You notice so many times,
every time when I start the Eucharist is say, “God has loved us into live
today.”
Thank God today for the
loves of you life. Your family, friends,
spouses, children, fellow parishioners.
Thank God for the love of Jesus in the Eucharist. And then maybe let’s pray that you and I will
have that kind of self-sacrificing redeeming compassionate love that will go on
and embrace and touch even those who don’t like us, those who disagree with us,
those we have a hard time with. They
need God’s love. That love is going to
get to them through you and me. Thank
God He has loved us into life today.