Monday, September 10, 2018

Frustration works for our good


Homily: 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
A number of years ago, while I was still in the seminary, I spent time in Guatemala in order to study Spanish and immerse myself in Hispanic culture.  I remember that one of the things that struck me about life in Guatemala was how frustrating it seemed be for the Guatemalan people.  All of the infrastructure things that make our lives here relatively comfortable—things like, good roads, new cars, convenience stores, etc.—are relatively underdeveloped there (if they’re even developed at all).  I imagined that this meant that their daily lives are probably filled with frustrations as they try to accomplish even what I might consider to be the simplest tasks; because, for example, maybe the electricity shut off, or the gas station was out of fuel, or the road washed out in the heavy rain last night.  They, I supposed, are a people very familiar with frustration.
On some level, however, all of us are familiar with frustration in one form or another.  When your pen runs out of ink, or your coupon is expired, or you leave your leftovers on the table at the restaurant… these are all examples of how we experience frustrations even in the smallest things of our daily lives. Now, while this may seem weird, I want to propose to you that all of those frustrations have a purpose.  Yes, a purpose.  Believe it or not, frustrations are meant to be a signal to us that something isn’t right.  In other words, much in the same way that the pain that we feel in our hand when we touch a hot stove has as its purpose to warn us that we are doing something to harm ourselves, so too frustrations have as their purpose to remind us that the world is “out of order”. 
Why do we need to be reminded that the world is “out of order”?  Well, because our souls long for things to be “in order”.  Let’s think about this for a second: if being “out of order” was the way things were supposed to be, then we wouldn’t get frustrated because everything would seem to be just as it ought.  For example, in a world where “out of order” is the way things are supposed to be, if I were to blow out a tire on my car during a trip I wouldn’t get frustrated because I would be able to say to myself “Well, I expected this to happen because that’s how the world works.”  But “out of order” is not the “order” of things, and so we become frustrated when “out of order” things happen.  We instinctively know that “out of order” isn’t right and so we experience discomfort when we encounter it as a sign to remind us that it isn’t right.
And this is so important for us, and here’s why.  You see, when I think about it, I find that there are two basic ways that we deal with frustration: either 1) we confront it and try to overcome it (that is, we try to put back “in order” what is “out of order”) or 2) we resign ourselves to being frustrated and thus give up on trying to overcome it altogether (in other words, we accept that being frustrated with “out of order” is the only way that it can be).  Because there are so many things that are outside of our control in this world, we more often than not deal with frustration in the second way that I described.  The danger of this is that, if we are constantly facing frustrations, we might quickly lose hope that anything really ever could be “in order” again.  This can lead us into apathy, which numbs our sense of frustration, thus causing us to forget that there is an ideal “order” for which we should be striving, and “out of order” becomes the “way things are supposed to be”.
In the first reading, we heard an encouraging proclamation from Isaiah.  In his proclamation he is talking about how God is coming to vindicate his people from their enemies and he is using terms of restoration: that is, of restoring things that are “out of order” so as to put them back “in order”.  In other words, Isaiah is saying that, when God’s vindication comes, things that had been out of order—like eyes that are blind, ears that cannot hear, legs that cannot be used for jumping, and tongues that cannot speak—will be restored to order—for the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will leap, and the mute will speak.  He proclaimed this to them so that they wouldn’t become resigned to accept what they couldn’t change and thus become apathetic to how “out of order” everything was.  In God’s eyes, it was better for the people to have a healthy sense of frustration, for that would keep them longing for the order that he planned to restore for them; and so, would strengthen their faith.
As Christians we know that God sent his Son Jesus to vindicate us from our enemies and thus to restore order to the world; and the stories recorded for us in the Gospels are meant to support this claim.  Today we heard of how Jesus opened the ears of a man who was deaf and of how he freed the tongue of that same man who also had a speech impediment.  This was a sign that Jesus had come to vindicate God’s people as he put back “in order” that which was “out of order” in this man.  When he suffered and died on the cross Jesus made atonement for our sins; and when he rose from the dead he put back “in order” that which was most “out of order” in us: as he restored mankind’s ability to be in communion with God, which is the very reason for which man was created.
Friends, none of you would be surprised if I told you that we are walking around in a world that is still gravely “out of order”; and none of you would be surprised if I told you that the Church has, in many ways, become “out of order”, too: this, in spite of the fact that Jesus left us the Church precisely to be the place in which we might experience the world put back “in order”.  I believe that God is permitting these scandals to come to light so that we might become highly frustrated once again and, therefore, by cooperating with his grace, put things back “in order” in his Church.
If we are going to do so, we have to pay attention to one extremely important thing.  Brothers and sisters, we cannot put the Church back in order if we are walking around deaf to God’s word.  In other words, God’s Church will never be restored to be the sign of a world put back “in order” as long as her members continue to ignore God’s Word—the Logos, the eternal Truth by which “order” is possible.  The “Ten Commandments” are known in the ancient Greek as the Decalogue—literally, the “Ten Words” of God: commands given to us to show us what the world looks like when it is “in order”.  Given the fact that 75% of Americans who identify as Catholic don’t attend Mass on a weekly basis and that a significant percentage of American Catholics have divorced and remarried without an annulment or have married outside of the Church, it should be pretty clear that a great majority of us are walking around deaf to these Ten Words of God.
Thus, the challenge for us is this: Ask Jesus to open your ears to hear these Words and then ask yourselves, “Am I truly (and I mean truly, without excuses) following them?”  If not, we must repent, confess our sins to a priest and receive absolution, and then strive with all our might to order our lives according to these Words once again.  Brothers and sisters, without your striving—without my striving, without Bishop Doherty’s striving, without Pope Francis’ striving—the Church—God's sign of a world “out of order” put back “in order—will continue to be an ineffective one that people ignore.  By our living witnesses, however, (imperfect though they may be) Christ’s power to open ears to hear his word and loosen tongues to proclaim his praise will flow through us; and the world, with all of its frustrations, will begin to look more and more like the kingdom of God: a place of order, harmony, and peace.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid to allow the Holy Spirit to illumine for us all that is “out of order” in us and then to bring those things to Jesus, who will forgive us and restore them to order for us.  And let us hold on to hope: the hope that we have in the fact that Jesus has vindicated us; and that the world of perfect order that our hearts long for—the kingdom of God—will come to us when Jesus himself comes again to make all things new.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – September 9th, 2018

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