This is from the “God has a sense of humor and knows how to kick butt” department.
This weekend’s Gospel Story is where the folks felt they knew Jesus and so he couldn’t teach them anything. This was going to be the focus of my homily — are we really ready when Jesus is trying to teach us something. It was the wrong question.
The real question is whether I am ready when Jesus wants to teach me something.
All week and especially today I had been working hard on my homily for this weekend. Today was mostly a day of prayer and homily work. I put a lot of time on my homily today and even wrote a lot of it out. I was so impressed that I sent snippets of it to some folks. Around 3 pm I was still at the table working on it and didn’t know I had lost track of time. I was really proud of myself, and knew that the folks were going to get a great homily. As I drove to the church I was feeling no doubt smug, without my usual quiet thinking and prayerful prep. My attitude was “I got this!”.
As I turned into the parking lot I saw the lot was full. As I walked into the church the pastor was just starting the mass I was supposed to have — definitely a WTF moment.
I’m still very joyfully processing what Jesus is trying to teach me, and this may take a while. But it’s nice to know Jesus cares enough about me to really kick my butt.