Happy Labor Day weekend.
The Labor Day weekend, for many people in the United States, signals the end of summer and the start of school.
Which reminds me of a story about a college-bound student, a doctor, a lawyer, and a Franciscan friar, in a small private plane. Suddenly the plane's engine conked out. The pilot grabbed a parachute, told the passengers he had a family of six to support and bailed out. Unfortunately, there were only three parachutes left. The doctor grabbed one, saying, “The medical profession needs my specialty skills,” and he jumped out. The lawyer said, “I’m one of the smartest litigators in the country so I’m taking this parachute,” and he jumped out. The friar said to the student, “You’re a student and have dreams to fulfill. Take the last parachute.” The student replied, “You take it. I’ll use this one. The smartest lawyer just jumped with my backpack.”
Moral of the story: we may not be as smart as we think.
Seriously, Labor Day is an invitation to take pride in our work. Whatever our life’s work, do it well!
Isn’t that what holiness is all about: doing our life’s work as best we can. You've heard the biblical wisdom that says God sends each person into this life with a special message to deliver, a special song to sing, a special act of love to bestow. Yes, each one of us has a purpose in life.
The word of God today takes us back to the seventh century before Jesus (the 600s). Jeremiah is not happy. “God tricked me,” Jeremiah says, into prophesying doom and gloom about Jerusalem. You’ve heard the saying, “If you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger.”
That’s precisely what the Hebrews did. They beat up Jeremiah badly. From now on, Jeremiah says, he will keep his mouth shut. But he can't. The word of God is like a fire that consumes Jeremiah, burning him up if he doesn’t shout out God's word.
We might ask ourselves whether we speak up when we see wrongs done. If not, when will we? And if we don't, who will?
St. Paul in his letter to the Christian community at Rome urges us to dedicate our lives—our talents and energies—to God. In light of Paul’s letter, we might ask whether our everyday attitudes and behaviors are pleasing to God.
In the Gospel, Jesus predicts his passion, death and resurrection. Peter shouts: “God forbid. No such thing will happen to you, Lord.” But God’s ways are not ours. Out of the cross, the central symbol of Christianity, will burst forth new life. Our faith proclaims that hidden within the mystery of Jesus’s death is the glory of his resurrection. And so too hidden in our death is our resurrection, life eternal.
Jesus continues, “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
The 19th century Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote a book titled “A Confession” in which he describes his own search for purpose in life. Yes, “where did I come from?” “Where am I going?” “What is my life all about?” Tolstoy discovered that many ordinary people were able to answer these questions through their faith in Jesus: their way, their truth and their life.
So, what am I living for? There are as many answers as there are people. We cannot adequately answer and yet we cannot help but answer by how we live and what we do.
On the one hand we are finite and mortal. On the other, we are free, within limits, and accountable for the way in which we live.
The Catholic answer to “why are we here?” acknowledges the brevity of human life. It also acknowledges our freedom to choose good over evil, right over wrong, the true over the false. Hence all of us are responsible for the way in which we choose to live.
Tragically, people do sometimes choose evil over good, wrong over right. Why? The Book of Genesis highlights our brokenness, our fall from grace. The Catholic tradition calls this “original sin.”
There’s plenty of evidence in this world that things are broken. The coronavirus has upended the global economy. Millions of refugees are fleeing violence. Wildfires and hurricanes have devastated communities. Yes, human beings cry out for freedom, peace, justice, salvation!
But who can save us? Some people have looked for answers in things, in other persons, in “isms” of one kind or another.
The Catholic tradition looks to a power beyond ourselves. This awesome and overwhelming power – God -- is a compassionate God who became flesh in Jesus and is alive in our midst by the power of the Spirit—alive especially in the community of disciples we call the Church; and especially alive in the sacraments.
Yes, we possess within our fragile selves the incredible treasure of God’s life. We are in relationship with God by virtue of the life-giving waters of Baptism. But we must continue to struggle, as the prophet Micah said centuries ago, to do right, to love goodness, to walk humbly with our God.
May God grace us so that we can lose our life for his sake, and in doing find eternal life and internal peace.
