HOMILY SUNDAY 08 – C

The Importance of Humble Self-Awareness

(Sir 27:4-7; Ps 92; 1 Cor 15:54-58; Lk 6:39-45)

**************************************************

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, an’ foolish notion.”  “The stronger the sun, the sharper we see our shadow.”

This last quote, along with the poem by Robert Burns (not Shakespeare as I thought), capture the heart of the message of the readings today, inviting us bear fruit in the kingdom of God through greater self-awareness and living out what I call Teepee Spirituality.

The wisdom sayings of Sirach in the first reading, surely distilled over the ages, pack a punch as they teach us very poetically and succinctly, in very few lines, important lessons about life and about ourselves: like a shaken sieve, our speech reveals our faults; suffering tests our mettle like a kiln fires pottery, and our speech reveals our intelligence, as fruit attests to the health of a tree. We would do well to take this wisdom to heart and strive to know ourselves better.

In his own unique way, St. Paul picks up this line of thought and teaching with a bit of poetry of his own about death, including an almost shocking revelatory claim: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law! But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In these few lines, Paul describes the human condition – subject to death because of original sin, and powerless not to sin because of our inability to truly keep the law and commandments of God given through Moses on the mountain. But faith in Jesus Christ, he quickly assures us, has given us, without our earning it in any way, freedom from that hopeless condition, and victory over sin and even death.

In the gospel, Jesus, the master teacher and wisdom figure, continues to drive home that lesson about self-awareness, about seeing ourselves as we are and not judging others. Can a blind person lead the blind, he asks? Can we see our faults before we try to correct the faults of others? What kind of fruit are we bearing, before we criticize the actions of others? From what abundance of heart do our words emerge, to do good or to do evil?

I like to frame the Great Commandment Jesus gave us (Love God with our whole being, Love others and Love ourselves) into what I call Teepee Spirituality. Three poles are needed for a structure to stand, and three poles are needed to live a full Christian life – faith, fellowship and self-awareness.

Faith and prayer alone are not enough, as over-emphasizing these in one’s daily life can lead to religious addiction and overly pious behavior. If we pray loud enough, long enough and hard enough, we will feel different, but we may be medicating some inner pain crying out for attention. A retreat master during our bishops’ retreat shared how as a novice master in the Ukraine, he noticed one novice displaying very excessive piety. When he questioned him, he discovered this novice was being sexually assaulted by an older novice. Very wisely, instead of calling the police which would have led to more injustice, he got the older novice’s story, and discovered he had belonged to the Red Army, where older officers routinely sexually assaulted younger recruits. He was simply acting out the pain that was afflicted on him. With great compassion and understanding, the retreat master dismissed him from the novitiate, but also offered him treatment rather than incarceration.

As two poles cannot stand on their own, fellowship along with faith and prayer is also not enough to lead a balanced life in Christ, because just having lots of acquaintances and social inter-action can lead to codependency, using others for one’s own selfish purposes, and controlling or being controlled by others, as well as the danger of being a superficial social butterfly. An example would be someone who loves to attend banquets and social functions, eat hurriedly and then get up to gather the plates of others and rush them to the kitchen, not so much to serve, but to garner attention and ingratiate himself to the other members of a particular organization. This person’s resistance to legitimate authority betrays his hidden motive. Many social events of even Christian people can quickly descend into barely concealed sniping and gossiping about others with those doing so in denial about their own behavior. These would be the ones in the gospel Jesus accuses of hypocrisy and seeing the speck in others’ eyes rather than in their own.

The solution to this scenario, flowing out of all three readings, is the third pole of humble self-awareness, the ability to know ourselves, to see ourselves as we truly are, or as Burns puts it, “as others see us.” That inner journey is perhaps our greatest challenge in life, and also an essential one, as it is a way of “loving ourselves.” Just as it is difficult to love someone we don’t know, it is hard to love the self we don’t really know.

The wisdom contained in the 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous shines here, especially in Step 4 (Searching and fearless moral inventory), Step 5 (Admitted to God, another person and ourselves, the exact nature of our wrongs) and Step 6 (Became ready to have God remove all our defects of character). These are all about self-awareness, about being honest about ourselves.

One way of understanding this is what I call a Spirituality of Weeding. When one hoes a garden, the weeds are cut off at ground level and disappear. However, the roots remain, and the weeds will just grow back. For the garden to be truly weed-free, one has to root weed – dig down and take out the weeds by the roots, tendrils and all, so that they will not grow back.

It is the same with us spiritually. If we are just forgiven our sins or wrong-doing, but do not also receive healing and deliverance from our sinfulness (that which makes us sin – our painful emotions like anger, resentment and bitterness, and our negative attitudes like false pride, stubborn self-will, lust, jealousy, etc.), we will just act out of those painful emotions and negative attitudes over and over again, with no change or transformation. In the program, that is called being a “dry drunk” – not actively practicing an addiction, but still behaving in hurtful ways.

There is hope for those who are almost despairing of healing a defect of character through counseling and therapy that is not working for them. Ron Rolheiser’s latest article is entitled Taking Our Wounds to the Eucharist. I agree with him, that issues that are not changing by other methods, can be healed by taking them to the Lord in the Eucharist, because the power of the Spirit can penetrate into the deepest recesses of our complex personalities, and bring about healing.

There is a saying in some circles, “Name it, claim it, don’t blame it, tame it, and then you can aim it.” Aiming it means we can now help others to change and heal, having experienced it ourselves. Someone who to my mind has lived both this saying, the poetry above and the message of the readings today has to be the aging Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche movement for the mentally challenged. A teacher of philosophy, his compassion moved him to invite two mentally challenged men to live with him in his home in Troisly, France to provide them with a more human living environment than they were experiencing in an institution. His humility in so doing led him to learn more about being human than he ever could from books. To this day, his wisdom inspires and encourages others to do as he has done.

Every Eucharist begins with an invitation to greater self-awareness, as during the penitential rite we are invited to get in touch with the ways we have failed to truly love God, others, ourselves and even all of God’s creation. At the offertory, the gifts of humble bread and wine represent both our failures and our success, our sorrows and our joy. All of this is transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, who then sends us out, humbled, forgiven and healed, to share with the world the Good News of victory St. Paul proclaims Jesus has won for us.

May our celebration today sharpen our self-awareness, help us live out that Teepee Spirituality, and experience the healing we might need in our inmost being. Amen.