Homily for September 21, 2008

Homily September 21, 2008
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Catechetical Sunday

I don't normally comment before I recite the Gospel, but I want to frame this Gospel for you a little bit. First of all, let yourself identify with the characters who feel they aren't being treated fairly, because this Gospel always strikes people as unfair, and secondly, to put it in its context. It's the end of a series of private lessons that Jesus has given to his inner circle, so it's addressed to them and not to everybody or the crowds. And it follows Peter's question, "What are we going to get for following you?"
[The Gospel was recited.]
Could you imagine telling this parable in a union hall? Does it strike you as unfair? Yes. Then let it strike you that way, and remember what was said in the first reading, where God said, "My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts."
Today we're celebrating catechetical Sunday, and we have many of our school children and teachers here, and after the homily we want to recognize them. So I'm going to try to fit this parable into the realm of education and of our teaching. I want to start with a story of what happened last week, and then with a modern rendition of this parable that I made up today.
Monday night I baptized a young woman who was deployed to Iraq last Friday. I baptized her after meeting with her one time, because I thought somebody going to Iraq who is frightened needs all the help they can get. I could imagine somebody who was brought into the church and had to go through RCIA for a whole year saying, "That's not fair. She got baptized after one meeting, and we had to go to all these meetings all year."
Well, if the prize is baptism, I can see where that might look unfair. On the other hand, if the prize is being part of a community of lifelong living, what difference does it make?
Now the parable that I thought up:
A group of teachers decided to start a school. They went out in mid August and recruited some students, and they said, "Come to our school and you will learn many wonderful things, and you'll be exposed to a wonderful world of learning." So the students came.
Then they went out in September and October and found other kids on the playground, and they said, "You go to school, too." And they came out in January and February and did the same.
Finally they went out in May, and they found some kids who had been playing all year, and they said, "Why aren’t you in school?” They answered, “No one told us about school.” The Teachers said, “You go to school, too."
When June came, they gave them their grades. Those who came in May all got As and a certificate of achievement, so those who came in August said, "Wow, what are we going to get?" And they too got As, and a certificate of achievement.
And they complained, "We had to go to school for nine months, and do all that homework, and write all those papers, and take all those tests, and you've made the kids that came in May equal to us?"
What do you have to say about that? [Asking a student.]
I don't know.
What do you think about that? [Asking another student.]
It's not fair.
Not fair. I have a friend who, whenever anybody says "not fair," says, "Fair is on East 38th Street."
But why isn't it fair? If, by the way, you're thinking that what it's all about is the grade and the diploma and the hard work that people have to do, it isn't fair that some people would work really, really hard and get the same reward as those who don't work near as long.
But what if it's all about being part of a community of learning? What if it's all about being engaged in learning? Then we're all equal. Those of us who've been here a long time are equal to those who just got here. By the way, isn't it true that sometimes the new kid on the block has an insight that is every bit as deep as those who've been here a long time?
Do you see the shift in thinking? What I want to suggest is that, if all of us are, first of all, a community of learners in which all of us are here to learn, and learning is the prize, then we're all the same and we're all equal. None of us can say we deserve more than the other.
I thought – and I’m repeating my letter in the bulletin today -- when I was in grade school here, we learned religion by memorizing questions and answers in the old Baltimore catechism. How many of you learned religion that way? Good. I learned math by memorizing multiplication tables and division tables. I learned reading by memorizing vocabulary words and, as you know, I have been blessed with a very good memory. So that way of learning served me very well. I knew how to define contrition before I knew how to feel it. I knew the definition of many things before I knew the human experience that was part of it.
Over the years we've seen a lot of changes in education. I there's a whole generation of you who didn't get much substance at all in your religious upbringing. Those of you who feel that way, would you raise your hand? Yeah, there are some of you who feel that way. It was all about the feeling and not at all about anything intellectual. One of my friends said we went through a time when it was the "collage and Kumbaya stage," and the content of our religious education was "God loves you." If somebody said, "We want more substance than that," they would say, "God really loves you."
Young priests are much more conservative than I am. I wish they weren't, but they are.  When I ask them why they are, do you know what they say back? "You got all that substance and structure, and we didn't get it. And now we want it." The way my generation rebelled was to throw away all the structure and discipline. Now how do you rebel against my generation? "We want structure and discipline."
That's what I think is happening in our church today. I think we'll survive it all somehow. Underneath it all is the reality that we are all learners, we're baptized into what is supposed to be a lifelong process of learning, and there is an infinite richness there to absorb.
All of us are both teachers and learners. The job of teaching belongs to everybody who has any experience and wisdom to pass on. Those who are learners, the children in our midst are the most important. (By the way, one of the private instructions Jesus gave to his Apostles for this Gospel -- look at that last window in church back there. Those of you over there can't see it, but it's Jesus blessing the children. And for many years that poor little girl holding the flowers for Jesus had no face, and just this past year we were able to give her a face when we fixed the windows.) but that was one of the private lessons Jesus gave, that children are important.
One of the things that made Matthew's church community different from every other community around him was that children were welcomed and were part of the community, and they were seen to be an integral part of the community. I think as we celebrate today, we all have that inherent sense that the children in our midst are the lifeblood of our parish, and the school and our catechetical efforts are very much a part of that lifeblood.
Lastly, on being nostalgic, I want to share one other experience that has been very strongly with me in the past couple weeks. The week before last we did two funerals, John Frazee's, and on Saturday the funeral of Francis Schoppenhorst. In both funerals there was a military component at the cemetery. Now, normally I don't like military components. Often they are put on by old men my age who belong to VFW, and I'm scared to death they'll fall in the grave. And they are holding their guns and look like they can hardly carry them, and there's nothing crisp about what they do at all.
But in these cases they were young soldiers in the Army in their dress uniforms. They didn't shoot guns, but they folded the flag. And I stood there and I watched them fold the flag. I watched the precision with which they moved, and the great dignity with which they turned corners and moved. I watched the reverence and the slowness with which they folded the flag in great solemnity. I watched them hold the flag to their breast while the others saluted it with great solemnity. And I watched them hand the flag to the other with great reverence and watched it being saluted. And, you know, I'm not overly patriotic, but that stirred something up in me. How many of you who were raised in earlier generations feel from time to time a nostalgia for that kind of reverence and dignity?
Anyway, I've thought we could learn a lot from them about our own liturgy and the way we move and the way we act in church. There are some things that are deep and abiding down through generations.
Today I think we celebrate our desire to be part of passing that on, and we honor those who have committed of their time and energy to do that.
[Presentation of catechists and teachers.]