03.20.2021 Homily

 

Today, we begin the final weeks of preparation before the Easter Feast. In reading this gospel passage, it's not uncommon that the first couple of sentences become, if you will, throwaway sentences, because we wait until we get the actual words of Jesus, and that's what sticks in our minds. The passage starts by saying that there were some Greeks who came to worship at the Passover, and they wanted to see Jesus. This request is more than an act of star-crazed Gentiles looking to get a glimpse of Jesus. It is really a desire to know who Jesus really is.

Jesus answers their desire in quick fashion, and He points out, "You want to see me, what it is like to be me? The seed must die in order to produce fruit." By following Jesus, we must experience daily the dying, know that we will get it wrong and we will take two steps forward and then move backwards and false assumptions will be exposed and the false self will die. And then the lens through which we see ourselves and through which we see humanity and which we see God will change, allowing us to see in a new way.

Years ago, Miami Dolphin coach Don Shula took his family, his wife and his five children, on vacation to Maine. One rainy afternoon, they went to the town's only movie theater, and when they walked in there, there were only six people in the entire theater. But to a person, those people stood and they applauded and they cheered.

Don smiled at them and he waved and he bowed. And then the family sat down. A man ran up and shook his hand, and Don said, "How did you recognize me?" And the man said, "I don't know who you are. All I know is that before your family walked into the theater, the manager said that unless at least five more people showed up we won't have a movie today." In other words, to use the gospel image, a grain of wheat needed to die. Don needed to face some reality in his life. Not everybody in the world knows who he is.

And some things go on that have nothing to do with him. That's a message that many of us, all of us could wrestle with. What part needs to die? The part that feeds the ego, the part that believes that I stand at the center of the universe. I would never say that, but I act that way. The part that blocks me from seeing my real self.

Now this requires us to let go of our past mistakes. We have to allow the grain of wheat to die. There must be a piece of us that is willing to undergo a daily death and resurrection. In the first reading, God promises that He will always be our God, no matter how much we screw up. God does forget our sins, and God does promise us a new beginning, again and again and again. The gift that God gives is the new beginning. You see, humility isn't thinking little of myself. It's thinking not at all of myself. It's understanding that the world around me is a world that I must embrace truly and in which I must live just as I am.