Escalation

A while back I joined in an Alzheimer’s fundraising walk.

The weather was great and they got more walkers than expected.

Shortly before the start time, there were still hundreds of people 

Stuck in the registration lines.

And the volunteers were under some stress to get everyone signed up.

After managing to get through the chaotic registration lines,

Our group members were finding each other 

And assembling for the walk.

One of the young women in our group was complaining.

She was upset and angry 

Because the lady at the registration desk had been rude to her.

We all felt a share of her anger, because she was one of us.

But after a few minutes, we began the walk 

And the rudeness incident was forgotten.

That evening on the news we heard of two teenagers

Who were shot in a nearby neighborhood.

Witnesses said another teenager had driven by on a bicycle 

And shot the two boys.

All the details weren’t known yet.

But it sounded like a story we hear all too often here in Washington.

A story of young men who can’t deal with minor insult or injury.

Who respond all out of proportion to any perceived disrespect.

All of us encounter an occasional slight or minor offense.

And most of us usually take it in stride.

Our blood pressure may go up for a few minutes.

We may vent to our friends or other sympathetic ears.

But then we move on.

Or if the anger or hurt lingers, we at least contain it.

In our Gospel today,

James and John, act like a couple of those hot-headed teenagers.

They don’t know how to deal with the Samaritans’ lack of respect.

They think the appropriate answer to that inhospitality is—annihilation.

Jesus, of course, rebukes James and John.

We’re not told precisely what he says to them.

But we know he’d taught them better than that.

Many times, by word and example.

Forgive those who trespass against you.

Forgive seventy times seventy times,

Turn the other cheek.

Why were James and John so far out of line?

Maybe there’s an added dimension here.

What had they done to deserve the disrespect of the Samaritans?

Nothing. 

Other than that they were Jews on their way to Jerusalem.

The Samaritans were merely following the party line.

A long tradition of mutual disrespect

Between themselves and their Israelite brothers, the Jews.

Hard feelings that extended back to their religious rift 700 years earlier.

James and John didn’t view the lack of welcome as just a personal insult.

They saw it as something much worse.

It was an insult to the whole Jewish people.

A slap at their core beliefs, at their religion, and at their leader, 

Jesus himself.

Maybe James and John were entitled to some righteous indignation.

But, of course, Jesus knew all that and still he rebuked them.

His teachings on patience and forgiveness still apply.

Even if we’re reacting to disrespect toward our core beliefs 

And cherished groups.

Our philosophy, our politics, our religion.

Certainly we should respond.

But not by escalating all the way to the Nuclear Option—

Human or Divine.

But by taking the opportunity to talk.

To perhaps reconcile or soften differences.

The opportunity to at least show our own good example.

Which includes recognizing when it’s time to simply move along.

Tuesday, 26th Week of Ordinary Time

Lk 9:51-56   Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Enough is Enough

There’s a saying... Enough is enough!

But when it comes to earthly wealth,

It can be hard to know when enough is enough.

None of us are as greedy as those heartless people Amos criticized

In our first reading.

We’d never trample the needy and cheat the poor

Just to get more excess for ourselves.

But we might try to avoid thinking about the poor.

We might try to convince ourselves they’re not our concern.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Wealth and poverty.

It’d be hard to find an issue that’s more timely, or more constant.

Every day we hear news of the ups and downs of the markets.

The global market, the stock market, the job market.

The housing market, the food market.

The squeezed middle class.

The displaced workers, left behind.

Our sense of security bounces along with each blip in those markets.

For many of us, that worry about security tempts us to hoard our wealth.

It’s not that we want to roll around in a pile of money.

But we really don’t know how much it will take 
To provide for our own basic needs.

My brothers and sister and I looked into 
Nursing home care for my mother.

A typical, modest place in Massachusetts is over $400 a day.

Plus extra fees if you need added care.

That would be over $150,000 a year.

So, even if you manage to gather a really big a pile of money,

It can disappear very quickly later in life.

Or actually at any time.

So, how much is enough?

Recently there’s been a lot of attention given to the high salaries of CEOs.

Back in the 1940’s, Peter Drucker, an early management guru, said

A company should never pay its highest-paid employee

More than 25 times its lowest-paid employee.

That large a gap would destroy a company’s sense of teamwork.

The sense that everyone was working toward a common goal.

The sense of unity—that everyone was in it together.

In the 1940’s, there were some companies with that large 25-times gap.

A study this year showed that for the average Fortune 500 company,

The CEO now makes not over 25 times—but over 250 times—

What the lowest paid employee makes.

A gap ten times wider than the unbridgeable gap Peter Drucker feared.

Is that too much?

We can see today that gross inequities like the 250-times gap

Can threaten unity in a country as well as in a company.

If there’s ever an effort to enforce a cap like the 25-times limit,

I’m sure companies will quickly see an easy way to cut that gap.

They can simply fire their very lowest-paid employees,

And replace them with contractors.

A friend of mine, a Jesuit priest, spent years in Latin America.

He often spoke of the abject poverty of families living in dumps.

Literally—living atop the piles of trash and garbage in the big-city dumps.

Still today, as each new truckload arrives,

The children scramble to scavenge through its garbage lode.

Digging for food to eat, or scraps of plastic or metal

That they might sell for a few pennies.

They live amid the disease, parasites, fumes, rats,

And other dangers of the garbage dump.

They have little food, clothing, shelter or schooling.

No medical care, no power and no hope.

The world is full of similar, equally heartbreaking stories.

Like the poor refugees fleeing war in the Middle East and Africa.

So what are we rich people to do?

Yes, we are the rich.

Compared to the world’s poorest, all of us here are rich.

We may not feel rich, but we are.

Rich in treasure, or in talent, or in time, or maybe all three.

Jesus gave us many stories to teach us what to do.

And he told us many times.

Share the gifts that have been given to you.

Share the wealth; give to the poor.

He condemned the rich man, Dives,

For ignoring poor, starving Lazarus lying at his doorway.

He said it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle

Than for the rich to enter heaven.

He warned the man who had a great harvest

And planned to build new barns to store it all.

He told him to share the wealth, and store up treasure in heaven.

He praised the poor widow who gave only a small coin—

Because she gave all she had.

He told the rich young man that to be perfect

He should sell all he had and give to the poor.

Maybe that’s our simple answer—

Sell everything we have and give to the poor.

St Francis, St Dominic, newly canonized Mother Theresa,

St Jean Jugan whose relic is sealed in our altar,

And many others, have done just that.

Once when Jesus was visiting the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary,

Mary broke open a jar of very expensive oil and poured it on his feet.

Oil that was worth a whole year’s wages.

Mary was harshly criticized.

Told she should have sold that oil and given the money to the poor.

But it wasn’t Jesus who criticized her; it was Judas.

Jesus defended her, saying

You will have the poor with you always, but you’ll not always have me.

So, selling everything and giving to the poor

Isn’t always the simple answer after all.

Clearly Jesus had a strong preference for the poor.

Yet, he recognized that there are other needs.

We all have to take care of our own basic, reasonable needs.

And sometimes even extravagant uses of wealth are justified—

It depends on the intentions, the motive, the potential good.

We live in an extremely materialistic society.

A world of greed.

But what can any one of us do about that now?

We can’t fix the gross pay-inequity problem today.

We can’t save all the dump children today.

What we can each do today, is look closely at ourselves.

We already share some of our treasure, time and talent.

But we should ask ourselves:

How deeply have I bought-in to the world’s culture of greed?

How strong a grip does Mammon have on me?

Am I sharing as much as I can?

As much as I should?

As much as I must?

We all have to struggle with that balancing act.

And it’s not easy, it’s hard.

But if we all do that, and do it well,

Then over time, together, we will save the dump children.

We will solve the problems of unjust, gross economic inequities.

And we will overcome the world of greed.

To get there, we’ll have to step back from time-to-time—

At least once a year, because circumstances change—

And ask ourselves,

When is enough, enough?

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Lk 16:1-13   Read this Scripture @usccb.org

I'll Have to Sleep on That

We all have big decisions to make from time to time.

And when we’re pressed to make one of those major decisions,

Like buying a house or changing careers, 

Or something even bigger--or smaller--

We might put it off.

Saying: Let me think about it. 

Or, Let me sleep on it.

If we have a significant other, we might say,

Let us have a little time to talk about it.

And that’s wise.

We shouldn’t rush into major decisions.

We should give them their due consideration.

What did Jesus do before choosing his apostles?

He clearly treated it as a big decision.

He had other things to decide too.

Even bigger things about his mission.

He went up onto the mountain to consider his options.

But he didn’t just think about it.

And he didn’t sleep on it.

He spent the night alone, in prayer to God.

You might say he did talk it over with his Significant Other.

Now and then you might hear somebody say,

Let me pray on that.

Or, I’m going to have to pray on that.

We probably don’t hear that very often in our circles.

I know I don’t.

We probably don’t say that very often.

I know I don’t.

At least not out loud.

Whether we say it aloud or not,

We should never neglect to do it.

None of us is ever alone.

We all have our Most Significant Other.

And when we have a big decision to make,

He’s always there to talk it over with us.

Like Jesus, we should pray on it.

And listen.

Tuesday 23rd Week of Ordinary Time

Lk 6:12-19   Read this Scripture @usccb.org