13th Sunday in ordinary time, June 13, 2010
Fr. Anthony Brankin
(Sorry, no audio) Gospel: Luke 7:36-50 She who has been forgiven much, loves much.
A couple of years ago, there was an interesting radio commercial put out by a woman named Barbara Scheerer. She must have made enough money on it because it doesn’t run anymore—but in this commercial you hear a woman’s voice—in a very no-nonsense tone telling the radio listeners that she doesn’t want to know your age, your educational background, your training, where you live or what you do for a living.
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What she really wants to know is what you love— because she says if you can figure out what you really love to do, then she can help you find total life fulfillment and help you make your fortune.
And of course, if you call her number, she will help you discover—for a fee I am sure—what you really love to do.
Now—at a certain level—there is a point to what this woman is saying: a person is fortunate if they actually love the job they have. You always hear baseball players saying how lucky they are that they are able to make a living—and a good living at that—playing baseball. And they are lucky.
However, many people—maybe most people—do not love the job they have. Many people feel trapped in a job or even a career that is simply not enjoyable and fun and self-fulfilling—but pretty much full of drudgery and burden. But you have to pay the bills—and thank God there are some jobs out there.
But the radio commercial implies that your life is defined by your job—that the sum and substance of your life is that which you do from 9 to 5. That a secretary is no more than a secretary—that a manure shoveler at the water Reclamation District is no more than a manure shoveler.
The radio commercial—and pretty much the world in which we live—tells us that we are no more than what we do— and the implication is that if our job is awful—then we are awful—and that if we hate our job, then we ought to hate ourselves.
But this is the farthest thing from the truth and makes for many unhappy people who have allowed themselves to be convinced that their worth or value as human beings is measured by their occupations—by what they do everyday in a job. That if they don’t enjoy their jobs, then their lives are totally unfulfilled. And that is an awful attitude—and sad to boot, Because it teaches us that our lives are defined by the jobs we have—and whether or not we have fulfilled all our most superficial desires—and that the only way to fulfill our lives is to do what we want to do.
Otherwise we are living unfulfilled lives. And all I can say is “Really?” What could be more fulfilling than hugging your children? Or your grandchildren? And singing songs to them? Who cares what you had to for a living to raise those children—as long as you had them and they loved you and you loved them.
What could be more fulfilling than being a strong loving father who patiently teaches his children what he knows about this or that? What could be more fulfilling than being a devoted mother who would die for the sake of her children if they were in danger and her death could save them?
What could be more fulfilling than being a doting aunt or uncle or grandparent? What could be more fulfilling than talking everyday to God in prayer?
No job will ever fulfill anyone—even a job you love. Only persons can fulfill us, and a job is simply what we sometimes have to do in order to do the really fulfilling things in life—loving God and the people He has put in our path.
And we define ourselves accurately not by jobs or careers or tasks but when we understand ourselves as people who are in relationships first to God and then to each other—as people who love Jesus and go to Mass every Sunday and pray their prayers everyday—who talk lovingly to God and allow God to talk lovingly to them.
And then—as that loving relationship with God develops, we find ourselves loving our spouses, our children, our parents, the rest of our family and all our friends and neighbors. And we discover that our lives revolve happily around God and God’s people—particularly our families—and nothing less than that. We learn that everything else we may do in our lives—from answering phones or selling bananas or shoveling manure is only to help our family. We are defined not by our jobs, but by our love for God and persons.
What has caused the cultural familial and spiritual mess in this country—and the modern world for that matter is that we have allowed them to make us think that the most important thing we can do is work for them, and that it is even better if we like what we do for them. That way they can confuse us into thinking that our jobs are what make us happy and that we ought to do only that which will make us happy. And then our families—rather than being the reason and focus and core for everything we do—our families become a distraction to us and a drag on our real life goal—which is to do what we want to do—and the heck everything else!
That is incredibly immature and we all know children and adults for whom unbridled self-gratification is all that will satisfy them. “I will do what I want to do and nothing will get in my way.” At that point we begin to use people including our spouses and children– as tools for our happiness—as the disposable means to our ends.
And every other consideration—happiness of others, peace, health and well-being of others—and finally family life, is dismissed as not being worthy of our efforts.
The whole notion of life as “me doing what I want to do” is why some people feel they are allowed kill their unborn babies in abortions. They worry that a pregnancy might put unwelcome constraints on their lives—maybe delay school or career or vacations. An unwanted pregnancy creates obstacles to those goals. So get rid of that baby! He is in your way! He is blocking your chance for happiness and fun.
That is where the modern day sympathy for euthanasia and assisted suicide comes from. It would seem easier for some people to give their parents that fateful shot that will take their lives so that they can then get on with their own lives and be able to do what they really want to do—which is certainly not cleaning and comforting your elderly parents for the next five years!
The modern attitude is that if by someone else’ death, our lives are enhanced—and we can finally do what we want to do—then so be it.
This is what comes of believing that our lives are defined by our careers and jobs and that by doing only what we love to do will we be happy.
This is why today’s young people live together without benefit of marriage—you wouldn’t want a commitment to cramp your happy lifestyle. You have to be ready—when the times get tough—you gotta get going.
And modern day divorce? Why should some promise that you made twenty years ago hinder your happiness now?
Only God knows when the first person said that being a good husband or father—a good wife or mother—a good daughter or son—was not enough.
Only God knows when money and self-fulfillment and fun became reasons for living.
All of this is to say that we must define ourselves—explain our identity—not by what we do and the jobs we have, and whether or not we enjoy our jobs, but by who we are—and who we are is persons loved by God whom God asks to love others.
And when we accept that we are defined by love—why that will be all the self fulfillment we should ever need.