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20th Sunday, Cycle C. 2007 |
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Our Gospel reading today follows the gospels of the past few weeks when Jesus condemns greed by collecting too much stuff, and our fear that we do not have enough faith. Listening to Jesus today is not very appealing. Who would want to follow someone like him - unless we could imagine ourselves like a tree that needs pruning? A few evenings ago I was walking in an old pasture which had been used for pasturing cows. Many years ago someone planted apple trees in the pasture. Two of the trees had apples which are turning red and almost ready to pick. But I also noticed that the apples were very small. The trees had not been pruned for years. There were many dead branches but there were also far too many branches for the size of the apple trees. The tree's energy was going to waste trying to keep alive branches that should have been cut off. Pruning involves removing diseased or insect-infested wood, and removing crossing and rubbing branches. Pruning is also used to encourage trees to reduce the likelihood of damage during severe weather. Big wind storms such as we had this past week is natures way of pruning. Jesus and the writers of the holy books are telling us today that we too as human beings do at times refuse to give up our dead branches or to let go of our excess baggage. Or as Jeremiah says, try to get out of the cistern. We must not allow ourselves to sink deeper and deeper into the mud. All of us are weighted down by selfish habits which prevent us from being the person that God wants us to be, or even the person we may want to be. In 1935 two young men, a New York stockbroker and an Ohio surgeon, admitted that they were weighed down by alcohol. They invited others who were controlled in the same way to meet with them. They founded what is now referred to as AA or Alcoholics Anonymous in an effort to help others who suffered from the disease of alcoholism to stay sober. The AA twelve step program which they started is basically the same program which Jesus gives us today as our means of spiritual renewal. To prune our life of harmful and sinful habits and be in control we must first of all admit that we have them, talk to God about them, and trust some friends. Doing this sets us free to do all that God has asked us to be. To let habits control us makes us a loser. Like the apple tree we need pruning in our life. We must take time to take an inward look at ourselves. We call this type of pruning discipline. Jesus mentions that discipline can be painful, but that if we are to honestly call ourselves His followers, then suffering is a necessary part. We must come to admit that by ourselves we are powerless over a bad habit, but we also believe that we can someday obtain power over it if we trust someone enough to talk about it, and that God can save. In so doing we allow the dead branches or the bad ways to become known, at least to us, and to another, and then be confident that we can change it. Why is this needed? Jesus answers: so that we can set the whole world on fire with the ways and teachings of God. At our Baptism, when we first became a Catholic, our parents and godparents promised for us that we would reject Satan, we would reject sin and the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin. We were asked to chose between slavery to sin and the freedom of being a child of God. Making decisions is the natural process for us humans; we make thousands of them each day. Our senses take in all kinds of information some of which we accept, some we throw away and much we are not aware of. Our minds move us to a yes or no. Our imagination also presents data to our minds for a choice as well. A faith-decision to follow Jesus needs some information, but some information has to be provided by our memory and imaginations. We are invited to live less dominated by greed and possessiveness and more by faith. Faith is not easy. Deciding for the unknown future is not easy. But saying we have no faith in God, which is what we call an atheist, is not easy either because it also requires a person to have some faith in order to say do not believe in God. The words of Jesus which I read today can make it seem as if Jesus enjoys abusing us or taking away our pleasures. But the opposite is true. Jesus knows what we know -- that unless we do live up to high expectations, we can never be happy. As human beings Jesus knows that we might not be perfect, but that we can never be truly happy unless we struggle to be perfect. Jesus also knew very well that his preaching would mean death to him. He had had a choice: stick to the truth and endure the cost, or abandon the truth and live. The last choice was the easiest, but to chose the easy path would make him untruthful. Those are facts, and we all know it. Jesus asks of us nothing that he himself did not do. Just as a tree is changed by pruning, and two men turned their life around by choosing to become sober, so too we can change our bad habits by making a choice and with the help of Jesus. Jeremiah was rescued from the cistern because a man by the name of Ebed-melech saw him there and pulled him out. Each of us can be thankful for the Ebed-melechs of our lives who came and turned our life around. The true Ebed-melech in your life should be Jesus. The voice of Jesus is not one from the past. We are invited today to welcome his voice as the voice of truth. That truth may require a little pruning. When we do our life will be less angry, more peaceful and full of life and love. |
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