Today, my family attended a memorial mass to commemorate the first anniversary of my father’s death. Since I didn’t burst into flames the moment I walked into the church, I took that as a good sign. Taking a pew next to my mother, I took a deep breath and prepared to get aggravated. I’m not knocking the Catholic Church, but I never liked the changes Pope Benedict foisted on liturgy back in 2011. “And with your spirit?” “Consubstantial?” Replacing “cup” with “chalice” in the Words of Institution? C’mon. The mass I grew up with was lovely and, to me at least, flowed seamlessly. Now priests seem to be trying to cram the name of every saint who ever lived into the program. Linus, Cletus, Clement, and Sixtus? Who? They did mention Stephen though. That’s okay.
The Gospel that day was from Matthew where Jesus proclaimed, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.” When I was a kid, that passage always spooked me. Did Jesus seriously want me to mutilate myself? Looking around I saw some elementary age children in attendance and, since it was a noonday mass, I assumed they were home schooled. What did they think about what they just heard? Sitting back, I turned up the gain on my hearing aids, wondering how the priest would explain that one. He didn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
Instead, he pivoted to the Old Testament reading from Sirach that said, “Do not be so confident of atonement that you add sin to sin. Do not say, ‘His mercy is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins’ and launched into a ditty about the “Sin or Presumption” which basically means you can’t go out and sin your ass off because God’s going to forgive you anyway. Since seminary wrecked my ability to ever enjoy a sermon without nitpicking it, I thought to myself, “It’d just be quicker and easier to say, “Yeah, God loves you, but don’t be an asshole about it.” Probably a good thing I was never ordained.
By the time the priest had finished, however, I’d already written a replacement sermon in my head. “Don’t go plucking out your eyes out or cutting off your feet, everyone,” I would’ve preached. “Jesus said that to get your attention. And he got your attention, right? The Lord used such extreme language to make a point; that sin is destructive to you and everyone around you and, sometimes, we have to make drastic changes to live a good and holy life. How many of us drink too much? Maybe it’s time to stop going to bars. Do drugs? Maybe stop hanging out with those who do, even if that means leaving behind people we’ve known all our life. Bet on the ponies to the point where we can’t provide for our family’s basic needs? Maybe it’s time to stop hanging out at the track. But here’s a sin I know we all can relate to. How many of us stare at our cellphones instead of spending quality time with our spouses, friends and children? When we sit down with our family to eat, letting our eyes be drawn away by notifications, texts, videos, tweets and Candy Crush instead of listening to each other? Don’t we realize how insulting and dehumanizing that is to those around us? Telling them what whatever’s on a video screen is somehow more important to us than they are? To avoid that sin, turn off your phone! Leave it at home! For many of us, that would be like plucking out our eyes anyway!” Short, timely, relatable and a little bit funny. That’s how I would’ve done it.
Chucking to myself, I wondered how those who take the bible literally deal with that Gospel passage. Last time I checked, there aren’t many “no-fap” evangelicals out there gouging out their eyes and hacking off their hands to stop logging onto PornHub. I think we would’ve heard about that. Funny how that deracinated system of biblical exegesis works. Then again, despite Jesus’ clear teachings on the dangers of wealth, giving to the poor, and welcoming the stranger, quite a few religious types out there seem to have turned the Gospels into a mandate to get rich, burn the queers, and herd immigrants into detention camps. Amazing how people twist Jesus’ words to suit their worldview instead of truly taking what He said to heart.
After the service was over, we took my mom to the cemetery to view dad’s urn under glass, say a few prayers and then went to a restaurant for a nice lunch. Today was not the exact anniversary of my father’s death, just when the church had a free slot in their intercession schedule. When that actual day and hour arrives, I will be on a plane winging its way over the Gulf of Mexico on my way to visit a friend in Costa Rica. Something tells me my father would’ve wanted it that way. But leaving church today, I knew making changes is a necessary part of life. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to adjust to the demands of an aging body, the needs of a growing child, a marriage that’s always evolving, and the knowledge the days behind me outnumber the ones ahead. What did Dylan say, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying?” You’ve got to roll with the punches and, when you see something isn’t working for you anymore – or for those around you – you’ve got to at least try and fix it. When you think about it, change is a mark of intelligence. Only dumb people never change. Maybe what Jesus meant in that Gospel passage was simply this:
“Don’t be a stupid asshole.”
