Isn’t is amazing. You would think that Jesus’ hometown people
would be overjoyed to have one of their own hometown people do good and make
good. And yet, as Jesus says, “A prophet
is without honor except in his own native town, in his own house.” Think about that too. I would imagine many of us in our own
families that we grew up with, that if you among your siblings really did well
in sports or exceeded in theater, or you did well intellectually, then
sometimes maybe your other siblings would say, “Smarty pants. Why do you think you’re so much better than I
am.” You know we have a way, even within
our own families of putting each other down, huh? It’s kind of like what they did to
Jesus. They thought they had Him all
figured out.
And I think many times you
and I do the same thing. We go into a
situation, like right here in the church right now, and looking around at
you. And don’t you ever wonder sometimes
and think maybe or feel this way. All
people over 65 are grumpy. All teenagers
are text messenger freaks. That’s all
they do is text message. And everybody
else in between, well they don’t know.
You know we have ways of putting labels.
Look at the way those people are dressed. Or look at the way those people do their
hair. Or look at the way those people
talk.
A couple of weeks ago I was
sitting in the airport and I was looking around and especially I noticed how
many people are wearing flip-flops today, right? Maybe especially people getting on airplanes,
they don’t want to have to untie their shoes.
It’s much easier going through security, just flip them off, put them in
the basket and away you go. But as I was
looking at all these people I was noticing, you know, the different kinds of
feet people have. Ever notice that? And of course all the women, you know you
paint your toenail. Thank God I didn’t
see any guys with painted toenails—I would have been out of there quickly. But you notice, as I was looking at all these
other people, then I got to thinking, I wonder how many of them are looking at
me and wondering, boy, is that guy weird?
He’s looking at us. Of course
they didn’t know I was looking at them because you can be very discreet about
it right?
But sometimes we get into
these games we play and these labels we put upon other people. What we do is we trap them and we trap
ourselves. Closed mindedness squelches
the spirit because as soon as we put a box around somebody or label or we think
we have you figured out then that’s it. No
room for growth, no room for ingenuity, no room for spontaneity. And then if you do break out of that people
wonder, well for crying out loud, where did you get all this from. And again we try to stifle that spirit.
That seemed to be what
happened to Jesus you know. And yet He
breaks beyond that. As it says, He was
amazed at their lack of faith. Kind of a
sadness that He expressed, that they wouldn’t allow Him to be who He was.
See what we do so many times
is when we trap ourselves and we trap other people we don’t see our full
potential and the goodness that is within us.
And if we could break out of that it would be able to do, when you see
the goodness inside yourself and your uniqueness and your value and your
talents unconsciously you give the other person the power and the permission to
be their best self.
What you want to think about
it is this way, to see yourself as God sees you. And God sees the best in who everybody
is. God just doesn’t see all the
externals because God looks deeply into our hearts. He put us here on this earth at this moment
in time, and He wants us to be the best that we can be. So maybe a way to do that is to break free
from what we think other people are thinking about us, or what we think about
other people.
You know it works this
way. There was a young man and he was
born rich. He loved to party. He had all the women on his arms. He was doing everything. He put down other people. He led a high old life. And then all of a sudden one day somehow the
Spirit broke through and he went back home, took off all his wealth, his fancy
clothes and garments, stopped the put-downs and became whom we know as Francis
of Assisi.
People can change. We can see our potential, our goodness, our
worth. Wouldn’t it be great if you would
see every person today and look at that person and say, “Yes you can,” rather than say, “No you can’t.”
How you want to do
that? I think a simple way to do. Go back home.
Stand in front of the mirror. Stand
in front of that mirror and say, “Thank you God for making me me. I’m no better, I’m no worse than anybody
else. But I am who I am by the grace of
God.”
As Paul said in that second
reading, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
God will give each and every one of us the graces, the gifts that you
and I need to be the best that we can be and are.
So you stand in front of
that mirror and you thank God for who you are today. Not who you were yesterday or who you want to
be tomorrow, but who you are right here and now today. Thank God that he put you on this earth at
this moment in time. And then somehow
today unleash that potential and that power in somebody else. Call them up.
E-mail them. Right a note or a
card. Or if it’s one of your brothers or
sisters, or if it’s your parents, or it’s your children, or it’s a sibling, if
it’s another friend, if it’s a total stranger here in the church, someone you
meet at Target this afternoon. You set
that person free to be who God made them to be.
No labels, no put-downs, no boxes.
Just see the beauty of every person that you meet.
Now you’re not going to try
to change the whole world, just start with yourself. And from there it will grow. Look about you. What do we have here in the church? Probably about 600 or us, 600-700
people. Look at the power, the strength,
the goodness, the beauty that’s in this church right now. Each one of us multiplies that by one other
person today it’s going to create more goodness and beauty in all of our
communities, in our homes, our families.
So start with yourself. See yourself as God sees you. The potential, the beauty, and the
goodness. And in turn give somebody else
permission to be the person that God made them to be.