Homily - Sunday
Deacon David Lewis
Saint Charles Catholic Church, Imperial Beach / San Diego, CA
There seemed to be a never-ending
battle for the front seat among my brothers, sister and I. With the front seat
there came honor, privilege, and more importantly a much better view from that
front seat, not to mention comfort, especially if all six of us were in the non-air-conditioned
van. If you had the front seat you would not have to put up with the sibling
next to you or even worse get stuck in the back seat AND IN THE MIDDLE. UGHGHH
and it always seemed like it took an hour to unload everyone from our van. So
the privilege of sitting in front always went to mom or dad first and foremost,
but if one of them wasn’t going with us in the car, the front seat was open for
one of us kids, and the front seat could be won, one of three ways… you could
be first, you could you use fists, or you could throw a fit…
So, the primary and most usual way
to be the one to sit in the front seat, was to be the first to run to the car
and grab the handle to the door and you better hold on tight.
Because if a bigger, older sibling
“insisted” that they have the front sit, you might find your grip on that
handle being pulled away as they tugged you away from the front door at which
time there hand would take its place, which occasionally would lead blows, or
fists.
This form of cheating would often
lead to whining or crying or pitching a fit by the younger sibling after having
the privilege of the front seat taken away from them, and upon hearing this fit
of crying you might see Mom or Dad to exert their authority and name the front
passenger of their choice, usually the one that was through the fit, the one that
didn’t win the battle of fists.
But this battle for position didn’t
just exist in the family, it seemed to go on as we got older, there were
cliques in school striving to be the best, there were those within these groups
that tried to be the leader of the group, or be the most successful, often
seemingly willing to do whatever it took, even if it was outside of acceptable
morality… people cheated on tests, cheated at sports, lied to teachers and even
to their friends, all to get ahead…
Quietly there were those that were
volunteering to tutor younger students, those offering to pick up your tray
when you were done eating, those that stayed behind to help the teacher clean
up the classroom after a particularly active class, those kids that would help
you pick up your dropped books from the floor. Often these kids didn’t get the
limelight, they didn’t get the letterman jacket, or have the large following of
popular friends, or win the talent show, or star in the school play, and they
usually didn’t get the sports
scholarships.
But while the popular kids were
always in a battle to achieve and maintain that top-dog position, those with a
servant heart found peace in helping others.
You can see this conflict played
out in a very obvious way in today’s culture. There is the constant message from
advertisers that you have to have the latest, largest, fastest, newest, most
trendy color in order to please yourself, to have happiness. You see the message
through ads, TV’s, movies, social media and the news that you are not free
until you can do whatever you want to get power, pleasure, and wealth.
Then you come to Church and Deacon
Dave gives another great homily on how you should have a servant heart, you
hear how my Mom was always the last to sit down at the dinner table every day
for my entire eighteen years of living at home… 365 days a year, and how that
was how with my dad at her side she raised six wonderful children! You sit here
and hear how my Dad was a Boy Scout Leader, a Scout Master at 19 years old, and
started a new troop for my brothers and I after moving to their new home, and
how he later went on to volunteer over 9500 hours with the local volunteer
ambulance in his hometown. How both of them had a servant’s heart and served as
an example of how I should serve others. How my wife rediscovered her faith in
her adult years, sparked by my son’s desire to follow God while still a child,
and together they drove me, a non-practicing Christian, to live a life of faith.
But more important than the example
of my parents, wife, and son is Jesus’ example. How God, Lord of Lords, King of
Kings, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth… that God humbled himself and
came down to earth as a baby in a manager, so that he might serve us, to serve
as an example, to show us how to love, to show us how to be humble, to show us
that there is success in being the servant. That in our service to God, and in
our service to others, in living out a life of loving our God and our neighbor
that we will find happiness, not just in our earthly life, but in the life ever
after in heaven if we choose to follow God’s example.
In the Mark’s Gospel today, Jesus
had no sooner finished talking about the great suffering he would endure… how
he would be handed over, killed, and then would rise from the dead, in the
greatest of all miracles, conquering death.
