Friends
Peace be with you.
Who were your favorite teachers? It could be a high school or middle school or grade school teacher. It could be a college professor. Or it could be someone who trained you how to do your job. Think about two or three of the people who were good teachers. What did they have in common? I think of a guy I met at my Uncle Jim’s bowling alley when I was a kid. He was a 300 bowler who looked over and saw a kid struggling to bowl and came over to help give me some pointers. I remember him showing me how to twist my wrist and aim for a diamond on the lane. I’m still not a 300 bowler like he was but I’m better than a 40-50 pin bowler. I think of my high school German teacher, Herr Brinkmann. He was patient but challenging with us. We wanted to do our homework so we could talk to him in the next class in German when he asked us questions. I also think of my high school english teacher, Mrs. Maulin. I thought she hated me until she walked up to me in the lunchroom one day and asked me why I wasn’t in AP Speech. I kind of stammered that I didn’t know but the truth was that I wasn’t in AP speech because I didn’t view myself as being AP material. She knew when a student needed to be pushed a little and wasn’t afraid to do it.
Our readings today invite us to reflect upon the quality of the people who are our present teachers. Now, we may be tempted to say that, if we are not in school, we don’t have any teachers in our lives. But, let’s ponder that for a second because I think we have even more teachers, just doing it in subtler ways. Aren’t our coworkers and employers also teachers. I don’t just mean because we have to do our jobs to their specifications but because we also probably find ourselves acting like them. If they have a foul mouth, we probably also find ourselves using bad language. If they are passionate about a television show or a hobby or a sport or a political party, we probably either find ourselves becoming supportive of those things or rolling our eyes whenever she or he starts talking about it and struggling to work with that person. Think about our television shows or movies or whatever we watch on our computers, tablets or smartphones if you’re a streamer. They are extremely powerfully forming us. In the mid 90s, Americans were in agreement that the nature of marriage was that it happened between a man and a woman. Then, beginning with a show called Will and Grace, almost every television show to this day has a “good guy” gay character in it so that by the mid 2010’s, Americans were overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. We were formed in it. The same thing has been happening with the idea of fluidity in gender, that a man can choose to become a woman and vice versa. We are still very much being formed by the culture we allow ourselves to participate in with our various forms of media. So, it’s worth listening to these readings to hear some cautionary tales.
The first reading from Sirach says that you can judge a teacher by the way they speak. I think this is a particularly important thing in my life. One of the things that makes me love the Benedictine movement in the church is because they prioritize listening. There have been many meetings, even a few in the last few days, where I’ve been tempted to speak and answer a question that’s hanging in the air only to find that it was important to listen and allow the person to reveal their true motives, which were far from the innocent ones they initially portrayed. We need to listen and discern first and foremost if the person is even someone we should allow to form us.
Jesus, in the gospel, challenges us to make sure the people forming us are clear sighted and bearing good fruit. I think the clear sighted part has to do with whether the person is reformed from sin or if they’re still mired in it trying to tell us how to get out. Someone who has conquered alcohol or conquered addiction to pornography can be helpful to people who are still mired in it but someone who hasn’t found the way out themselves are like the blind guides Jesus cautions us against in the gospel. They may know the principles that can get a person out but they can’t show a person how to do so by the way they’re living their lives. A person that uses the Lord’s name in vain or swears often may be great at showing us how to do a job but they're leading us down a poison path if we find ourselves following in their footsteps.
That’s why we should turn to the second reading, the last reading we’re going to hear from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, to hear the challenge of being formed. St. Paul says that we need to take off corruptible things and put on incorruptible things, stop engaging in mortal pleasures and engage in immortal ones. But who is our teacher if what we should be seeking the incorruptible and immortal things? St. Paul makes it clear that we are to “be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” We are to be in the Lord. In other words, we aren’t just learning from a mentor but working inside the church, which is the body of Christ. That should be what is forming us.
Let’s think about our typical week. How much of it do we allow Jesus to be forming us? What’s the first thing we do in the morning? I’ve picked up this terrible habit of looking at my phone first thing in the morning. Eventually, I put on the Bible in a Year Podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz on my phone but I’m probably going to look at the weather and make sure it hasn’t changed overnight. I’ll probably look at Facebook or YouTube to see if anything happened…and watch a couple of stupid videos. But, eventually, I will put on the Bible in a Year Podcast just not first like it used to be when I started it. Is there a way I could more easily get to what is forming me in God and spend less time in what is taking me away? Now, here’s the good news: We’re just a few days away from Lent, that time of spiritual transformation and correction. Tomorrow/today is a good day to ask ourselves: what can I do this Lent to make sure Jesus is forming me and not this world?
