Love At First Sight

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A

Is 8:23-9:3-1
Ps 27:1,4,13-14
1 Cor 1:10-13, 17
Mt 4: 12-23

It was love at first sight.

Do you believe in love at first sight? For years I didn’t. I thought that love is too complicated to fall into so casually. Love is not a thunderbolt that strikes you, it comes only through gaining knowledge of another person over time, which eventually turns to trust and then to love. Anything else is just infatuation. And yet for Peter, Andrew, James and John it was love at first sight. All it took for them to leave their jobs, their families and the lives they’d built for themselves was one look at Jesus. Their love at first sight was life changing and everlasting. They never went back to their old ways of life. Everything had changed for them in an instant.

The political and social commentator Dennis Prager wrote a couple of articles recently on the subject, “What do men and women want?” He started with what men want most, and he made the point that what a man wants most of all from the woman he loves is to be admired. At first I thought that was a bit shallow, but then I thought that maybe he was right, and I could relate to it. We men work hard to make a name for ourselves, and we look for acceptance and kudos most from those whose opinion we value the most. He then followed up with what a woman wants most of all. I figured it would be love, love, love, because women are all about love. Or jewelry. Prager said that what a woman most wants is to be loved by a man she admires. Men want to be admired by those they love, women want to love someone they admire. Sounds perfectly complementary. But I think it is a bit too restrictive. I think we all want to be admired by those we love, and we all want to be loved by those we admire. It’s not a gender thing. It’s universal. When we are loved by someone we admire it raises our self worth. If someone so special loves us then we must also be special, and everyone wants to feel special.

And that explains a bit about why those fishermen could leave hearth and home and follow someone they had just met. There must have been something special about Jesus’ manner, how he carried himself, how he spoke, the way he looked at you, that compelled people to follow him. We have a word for it – charisma. And I think that special thing was a pure and unconditional love. Along with a complete knowledge and understanding of who they were and what they wanted. When Jesus looked at them they looked into the eyes of love himself. With no judgments or preconditions or baggage. Just love. And that must have been overwhelmingly attractive.

It was love at first sight for Jesus, too. He asked those fishermen to follow him because he loved them from the moment he first saw them. He loved them because he admired them, too. He admired them from the moment he conceived his first thought of them, before their parents or grandparents were even born. From the beginning of time. He admired them because he knew them from the womb. He knew all their strengths and weaknesses. He knew all their joys and fears. He knew who they had been and who they were destined to become. And all that knowledge shone forth in his eyes as he greeted them on the shoreline.

That look of love was only the beginning. When Jesus invited the apostles to follow him he didn’t sit and talk to them awhile about who he was or what he was all about, or leave them with a little pamphlet to read. He simply went on his way and left it up to them whether or not they came after him. His invitation was not to follow him intellectually, it was to leave their old lives behind completely and live the life he had chosen. He didn’t ask them about their pasts or backgrounds. He didn’t care about their sins or shortcomings. He wasn’t worried about where they had been. He was interested in where they were going. He never judged them, but he challenged them. When they left their old selves behind they were called to a life of action. And that action led eventually to their martyrdom. Just like Jesus.

Jesus came upon James and John mending their nets. They were not fishing, they were preparing to fish. They had been preparing to meet Jesus their entire lives, without knowing it. And Jesus took them where they were in their stations in life and turned their vocations into discipleship. We also have been preparing to meet Jesus our entire lives, without knowing it. When we finally encounter his look of love we are also called to discipleship. And he calls us where we are, as who we are. If we are educators he calls us to be teachers of men. If we are doctors he calls us to be healers of men. If we are mothers he calls us to be nurturers of men. If we are fathers he calls us to be providers and protectors of men.

He calls us all in his own way, and he doesn’t just leave us with a pamphlet, or a bible, or a DVD. He simply says, “Come, follow me”. He doesn’t care where we’ve been, he’s only concerned where we are going. He looks into our eyes and knows us. He admires us for who we are. All he asks is that we look back into those eyes of love and accept that love and admiration.

But then we have to walk along life's shoreline and call others to him in exactly the same way.

Look What He's Done For You!

Mass at Midnight

Christmas Eve

One of the best things about the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is that there are no more commercials on the air urging us to buy something. The stores are all closed. It’s too late. If you haven’t bought it by now, too bad. All that’s left is the Christmas music on the radio. When you leave here tonight you will drive home through a world at peace. Most folks are at home in bed, there’s very little traffic and things are quiet. It’s a good time to reflect and be at peace.

For weeks we’ve been bombarded with conflicting messages. Retailers are telling us to buy, buy, buy. The secular world is trying to completely remove all religiosity from Christmas. It’s all Santa and no Jesus. Or it’s Kwanza or Festivus or the Winter Equinox or whatever. There’s the war against Christmas and the battle for Christmas. We have been struggling to keep Christ in Christmas. And we try to keep things in perspective, not letting the kids, and ourselves, get too greedy or selfish. We try to keep the focus on others and remember that it’s the season for giving, not receiving. It’s the season for greed and the season for benevolence. Give to the poor while we give to ourselves.

But tonight, it’s ok to be selfish. It’s okay to think it’s all about us. Because it is. We think Christmas is all about Jesus. But Christmas is all about us.

Do you think God became man for his own sake? Do you think he needed to come down here in the dirt with us? The Word did not become flesh for his own benefit. God didn’t need to become man. What good would it do him? What kind of a life did he give himself? Was he a prince? A rich man, powerful and majestic? No. God became the lowest kind of man. He wasn’t born in a palace. He was born in a filthy stable surrounded by dirty animals and dirty people. He grew up in a nothing backwater town in a nothing backwater province in a small, insignificant country that was basically enslaved to one of the cruelest regimes in all of history. He surrounded himself with lowlifes and losers, crooks and prostitutes. He never owned a home. He had few possessions. What good did it do him? What did we ever give him in return for his generosity? What could we ever give him to pay him back?

Jesus didn’t do it for himself. No, God became man only for us. Just like a poor father who takes on a second job cleaning toilets so that he can afford to buy his kids some decent Christmas presents, God emptied himself and took on the form of a slave so that we could be with him. He became one of us so that we could become like him. He didn’t have to, he wanted to.

One thing in all the stupid, materialistic Christmas commercials is true, however. And that’s how the emphasis is on getting that special someone that special gift and then waiting in anticipation for their reaction when they open it. Make sure you get just the right gift or they won’t like it, and then how would you feel. I think we who give have just as great an anticipation as those who receive. It’s not just the children who are anxious to open their gifts. We parents are anxious for them to open them, because we want to see the look on their faces when they do so. I think God is the same way with his children. It’s like he’s saying, “Look what I’m giving to you! Look what I’ve done for you! Do you like him?” And he’s hoping to see that look of joy on our faces when we see the gift.

And who were the angels singing for? They didn’t sit around the stable singing to the baby Jesus. They weren’t happy for him. They knew this wasn’t exactly a wonderful experience he was going through, wrapped up against the cold in the straw. They knew it was a great day for humanity. They saw the supreme value in the gift that was being given us. They knew the necessity of the gift. And they were just so excited they had to tell someone, anyone. So they went to the first people they could find, the shepherds, and they just had to blurt it out. “Look what he’s done for you. For you. Isn’t it awesome?” Sort of like when one of your kids comes home and breathlessly tells you, “Did you see that the neighbors got a new car?”

And they knew how it would end. Those same angels who were rejoicing in Bethlehem would be weeping at Calvary. They knew this child would be rejected, scorned, tortured and killed. But tonight it does not matter. Because the gift is still the gift. The gift is wonderful and meaningful and perfect whether you like it or not. Whether you wrap your arms around it and make it your favorite, the one you just can’t put down, or if it’s the one you drop to the side while you open the other presents. It doesn’t matter. And God is the ultimate re-gifter. He will take the same gift of himself, and keep on giving it to you over and over again, until you accept it and love it. He won’t even change the wrapping, he won’t spruce it up or change it so that it’s more attractive to you. He’ll just keep giving it to you. And hopefully someday you’ll receive it and love it as it is and keep it with you always. Because he wants to receive you and love you and keep you with him always. And then he wants you to re-gift it to someone else.

For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
His dominion is vast
and forever peaceful,
from David’s throne, and over his kingdom,
which he confirms and sustains
by judgment and justice,
both now and forever.