A father has a daughter who is four years old. He was trying to teach her about love and marriage. But she didn’t quite understand about how a marriage works. So the Dad brings out a photo album of their wedding day. And he goes on and on about beginning their lives together, the commitment they have and their love.
The girl looks at the photos and asks, "So then, after you were married -- that's when Mom came to work for you?"
Whoa, wrong idea. I’m sure that sometimes you Moms can feel like you are working for the rest of the family, but the idea of marriage and raising a family it that there’s equality. One is not “over” the other, or bossing the other. But sometimes that equality is hard to see. Look in the worship aid and find the graphic. [Mueller-Lyer Illusion]
The question is . . . which line is longer? Well, they are both the same length. Take your finger and measure them. Or in the second picture, are the lines even or curved?
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/discussions/OpticalIllusions/
The lines are all parallel. Look at it from the side view and you can see it more clearly. Now the crazy aspect is that we are all invited to recognize the equality that we share, not only in marriage, but with all people. It’s the grounding for all that Jesus taught and lived for. In the gospel he tells the disciples (and us) that if we love him we are to keep his commandments. He doesn’t say THE commandments, like the 10 commandments. He’s referring to his “new commandment” that we are to treat ALL people with respect and dignity. Not just the ones who look like, talk like us, vote like us. All people.
Jesus was all about inclusion, not exclusion. When he heals, for example a leper, it’s not only about restoring health but including that person back into the group. Jesus plowed right through fences and boundaries.
St. Mother Teresa once said, “We’ve drawn our family circle too small.” Pope Francis said, “The excluded are still waiting.”
You Moms know this (Dads too, but I want to highlight Moms for Mother’s Day). You know the pain when one of your children feels excluded or put off. You love all of your children equally. You may not like one or two from time to time, but the love is there.
I remember overhearing a man praising a woman that her son had become a doctor. He added, “You must be very proud of him.” The woman said, “I am proud of all my children.”
The core of what Jesus taught is to include. But many of us are not quite there. That’s why, in the gospel, Jesus talks about sending the Holy Spirit (the Advocate) to help us in our knowing. Fr. Greg Boyle wrote, “There’s no point of knowing Jesus, unless we’re going to see as Jesus.”
The first disciples understood this as demonstrated in the first reading, when they went to Samaria, a land that prior to Jesus, the Jews would exclude. Jesus didn’t exclude the Samaritans, he often made them the heroes of his stories.
So who are the people, or persons, that you have been excluding, avoiding, gossiping about, or talking about behind their backs? Perhaps the reason they get you so upset, is that they represent what you don’t like about yourself. Work on your own issues, and perhaps that “awful person” won’t seem so awful. If you don’t transform your pain, you’ll always transmit it.
The old Master asked the students, “When is the point when night turns to day?’ One student answered, when I can tell if that tree in the distance is an elm or an oak” No. Another student answered, “When I can tell if that animal in the distance is a sheep or a dog?” The Master said, “No, it’s when you can see that person before you as an equal, as your sister or brother. Otherwise you will stay in darkness.”