A homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 16, 2022
Is 62:1-5, 1 Cor 12:4-11, Jn 2:1-11
Rubik’s Cube. Jenga. Pick-Up Sticks. Checkers and chess. Jigsaw puzzles. Even Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Success in every one of these pastimes and many others depends on having the right pieces in the right place at the right time and, very often, having many pieces precisely where they need to be simultaneously.
And while Life with a capital L may be a game from Hasbro — with pieces for players to move around according to random spins of the number wheel — life as in Real Life from our Almighty Creator is not exactly a game. But we people do serve as the right pieces in the right places, according to our gifts.
That’s why St. Paul’s words to the people of Corinth ring as true today as they did in the First Century.
Paul wrote about what he referred to as spiritual gifts, but the Corinthians — and we — were being challenged to look at the intersection of spirituality, theology, philosophy and psychology. Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, was pleading for every person who heard these words to do a self-inventory and then look around themselves to identify the world’s needs. Or at least their neighborhood’s.
Identify and inventory our gifts and see where we can best use them.
This challenge calls for honesty and humility.
Each of us has skills and talents we can quantify, and some that we may not as yet have tallied up. We must be honest about what we can do or say that will let us uplift our sisters and brothers, that will let us leave the Earth better than we found it.
We cannot play the “Aw, shucks, I’m not that good” game, because that’s a form of lying — aka bearing false witness. There’s a commandment about that somewhere, as I seem to recall.
And that sort of prevarication is not humility, despite what we may have heard.
True humility is an honest and grateful acknowledgment of who we are and what we can do, especially if our skill or talent or other trait qualifies as outstanding. It’s OK to be extraordinary, to even be the GOAT, and to admit it. It’s OK to be proud of who we are and what we can do. Those are gifts from God.
The sin of pride comes into play when we lord our particular form of excellence over anyone else.
In other words, “Thank you for the kudos; it does feel great to have won (or done this well)” is OK. “Nyah, nyah, you’re a loser” is reprehensible. (And it makes whoever said it or thought it the real loser.)
So once we know who we are, and once we know what value we bring to humankind, we need to figure out two things.
First, how do our skills mesh with other people’s? Are we an extra set of hands on the rope in life’s constant tug-of-war? Are we the figurative hammer in the toolbox made up of like-hearted people? Are we best suited to manage and delegate?
We’re all in this together, this Real Life, and even our most individual skills and interests offer something that everyone benefits from.
Not everyone can build or restore a dwelling for people in need of shelter, but some of us can knit or stitch the comforters that make a house a home.
So, yes, we need to know what we can do, and how and when. That’s our first goal.
Second, we need to find out who needs our gifts. We need to put an effort into finding everyone who does, because our fellow children of God on the margins of society are harder to see than the people whose need is obvious.
Though we can never ignore them, either.
We need to be Christ and to see Christ, especially the suffering Christ among us, still carrying that massive, crushing cross. We need to look. We need to search.
Now, here’s where our personal inventory can get interesting.
Remember the notion of having talents and traits we may not have identified yet?
Our place in the puzzle may be someplace we hadn’t expected.
God often introduces us to people whose needs are best satisfied by aspects of ourselves we didn’t realize we had.
We who love to talk may find the ability to listen, or simply to be present, when we meet someone who needs that.
We who never pulled weed in our lives may find joy and fulfillment in volunteering at a community garden.
We who love our couch and ESPN may brave the cold to deliver meals or the Eucharist to shut-ins, or provide them with transportation to doctors or stores.
God sends the Holy Spirit to help us look within and then look around.
As Paul said:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
We benefit best and benefit most when everyone benefits because of the Spirit working through us.
