Kenny Chesney the Theologian

 Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Since I’ve been a priest for ten years, people ask me if I just recycle my old homilies.  Generally, the answer is no, as each time I preach I am in a different place, and so is the parish to which I’m preaching.  And yet, as I heard this Gospel passage, and saw the theme developing, especially from the first reading and Gospel, my mind kept going back to a Kenny Chesney song that I knew I had used before in a Sunday homily.
    So I went to my blog where I keep all my homilies to see how I had used it, and if I had used it here at St. Pius X.  And lo and behold, I have used the song…twice…once in 2012 when I was at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Lansing, and once in 2014 when I was administrator of St. Joseph parish in Adrian.  So, now I guess it’s your turn to hear the words of this Kenney Chesney song that my previous two parishes had heard.
    The song is from the album “Lucky Old Sun,” and was written by Jim Collins and Marty Dodson.  It became Kenny’s fifteenth number one hit.  The song is entitled, “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven.”  Country music has long been known for its lyrics, and was described by Harlan Howard as “three chords and the truth.”  The lyrics I’ll highlight today are from the refrain and a little from a verse.  Kenny sings:

Everybody wants to go to heaven,
Have a mansion high above the clouds.
Everybody want to go to heaven,
But nobody want to go now.
[…]
Said preacher maybe you didn’t see me
Throw an extra twenty in the plate.
There’s one for everything I did last night
And one to get me through today.
Here’s a ten to help you remember
Next time you got the good Lord’s ear,
Say I’m coming but there ain’t no hurry
I’m having fun down here.

The lyrics are even better with the melody.
    There is truth in those lyrics, as in there are people who would say those words echo their sentiments.  There’s this general desire of people to go heaven, that mountain of the Lord about which the Prophet Isaiah spoke in our first reading.  But, if pressed, there are things that they would prefer to do while on earth, items to check off their bucket list, however saintly or devilish, that they want to do first.  Everyone wants to say with Psalm 23, “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord / for years to come,” even if they don’t always want to follow the lead of the Good Shepherd and go to the pastures He points out.
    So there’s this cognitive disconnect.  When we hear the parable that Jesus tells, the one we hear today about the wedding feast to which the king invited guests, we think they’re crazy to say “thank, but not thanks,” especially for something as simple as farming or doing business.  But, if pressed, we often RSVP in the negative, but for worse or flimsier reasons than for farming or business.  
    The excuses become even more mundane if we look at the Mass as the foretaste of heaven.  Each week I say: “Behold the Lamb of God.  Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.  Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.”  This is as close to heaven on earth as we can come.  And yet, even without COVID, we have all sorts of excuses why we can’t make it.  
    But truly, each day we are RSVPing to the King’s invitation for the wedding feast for His Son, Jesus.  Each day we make choices that say, “Yes, I’m coming,” or “Nobody want to go now.”  And what the Gospel reminds us is that a simple desire to go may not be enough.  Jesus, in the parable, tells of a guest who came, but one was not in a wedding garment (and in the parable it’s a man, which isn’t surprising, since men often wouldn’t know how to dress for a particular occasion).  The king says to him, “‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’”  The man has no answer.  So he is bound and cast outside into the darkness.  
    When we were baptized, we were given a wedding garment, a white cloth which represented the cleanness of our soul.  The priest said, “you have become a new creation and have clothed yourself in Christ.  May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity.  With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.”  When we make a choice against God, when we deem something other than God a higher and more important good, we stain that garment.  God, in His mercy, can cleanse it for us in the Sacrament of Penance, but we still have to hold on to it (symbolically speaking) and not throw it away by our choices.  
    It is so easy to fix our hearts and minds and attention on what is earthly, on the physical things that scream for our attention.  It is so easy to go day-to-day with an earthly mentality, that we don’t want to go to heaven, yet.  But that is why St. Paul reminds us to set our minds on what is above.  That is why, as we will hear in a few minutes, we are invited to lift up our hearts, so that we are, once more, reminded that getting to heaven is our top concern so that, at our time, we are ready for the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Our Time to Shine

Second Sunday of Lent

The most recent Marvel movie that debuted is “Captain Marvel.”  The previews didn’t really excite me, but on a Sunday afternoon I had some free time and decided to catch the movie.  I have to say, I was really impressed with the movie, both as something enjoyable, and as a good part of the Marvel universe, especially with the upcoming late-April release of the latest Avengers film.

I don’t want to give away the movie, but like many of the first movies of a superhero (or in this case, superheroine) it explains Carol Danvers’ history and identity, as well as her becoming who she truly is meant to be.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus shows us a glimpse of what we’re supposed to be.  In the midst of the impending Passion of our Lord (in the Gospel according to Luke, the Transfiguration happens after the first prediction of Jesus’ Passion, and right before Jesus sets out for Jerusalem to undergo His Passion), Jesus gives Peter, James, and John a glimpse of what will happen after Jesus’ Passion and Death.  The Gospel describes Jesus as with “dazzling white” clothing and His face changed in appearance.  We often depict Jesus as glowing in His Transfiguration.  But what it comes down to is that Jesus shows His special apostles a prefigurement of His glorified body, and Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah about “his exodus,” Jesus leading His people from slavery to freedom.

We were created for that glory that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.  We were created to communion with the saints in heaven as we make our way on our pilgrimage on earth.  We were made for heaven; that is the goal of every human life.

When we depict saints artistically or for sacred worship, we do so with a glorified body, and with a halo.  Good liturgical depictions of the saints may include the instruments of their life or even their death, but it does so in a way that shows that they are at peace.  We also try to make it look like the eternal light of heaven, that place where there is no night because the Lamb is the light and He is never hidden.  If you look at our icons, we have gold leaf for their halos as a way of reflecting and showing off the light.  And their faces are definitely peaceful, not affected by the passions or by even the external events of the world, but simply living the peace of Christ.

But that reality is not only for those in heaven.  If we are living the life of Christ, if we are putting on Christ and living as He desires, then we, too, can shine here on earth.  About certain holy men and women on earth, some have even mentioned that they seemed to shine.  Moses’ face shone after every encounter with God, as we read in the Old Testament.  

And if we shine more and more as we live the heavenly life, then we become more dull the more we immerse ourselves in our earthly life.  St. Paul speaks about that in our second reading.  He talks about those whose “end is destruction.  Their god is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame.’  Their minds are occupied with earthly things.”  The more that we focus, instead, on the heavenly life, the more Jesus “will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body.”  The more that we focus on our earthly life, the more we resist that transformation that Jesus shows us in the Transfiguration.

Now, you might be thinking that you have to focus on our earthly life because you live an earthly life.  You, like I, have to pay bills, buy food, travel back and forth, pay mortgages or rent, etc.  But that’s not what I mean by the earthly life.  Earthly life is when we focus on our fallen and base desires.  When we are lustful; when we are greedy; when we make money or power or fame a god; when we lie; when we gossip.  When we do those things, we say no to the divine light that wants to change us, wants to transfigure us.  When we focus on prayer, on generosity, on helping our neighbors, on the common good, even while we are working or vacationing, then we allow that light to penetrate into the very fabric of our life and make us shine with the light of the eternal sun that never sets in heaven.  When we live the heavenly life, we can truly say that the “Lord is my light.”  

I don’t know about you, but I feel like our world is darker now than it was even not that long ago when I was growing up.  And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since that time, people’s participation in the faith has decreased greatly.  Our world is darker because it is not illuminated by as many men and women striving for holiness, striving to let the light of the Lord shine through them.  And even some of those who do attend Mass do not have their hearts set on the Lord, but are living a double life where greed and power and lust are the happy focus of their life for six and a half days of the week, and the Lord is the focus for one hour on Sunday.  The light will not shine through those people, either.   Instead, by the grace of God, we need to allow God to change us, to forgive us through the Sacrament of Penance when we fall, and to transfigure us with His light.  

Our identity is not in our base desires.  Perhaps you’re still discovering the “superhero” that God is calling you to be.  Be that superhero of the faith.  Be that saint, even in your daily life.  Let God transfigure you to let His light shine through you.