[Reveal two hockey sticks] I don’t play hockey, so I need a volunteer who does, to come up here and help me out. [Invite someone up and give him/her a hockey stick]. I have heard that one of the techniques of hockey is to be able to check. Could you show me how to check? Go ahead and check me.
[I ask the volunteer] WHY does someone check another player? [Elicit from him/her that it is to distract a player who has the puck].
Many times checking works fine. The problem comes with an illegal check, but usually the person with the puck is expecting to be checked. They need to stay focused and “get back” to do what they need to do.
In life, many times we feel like we are being checked. That is, the little (or big) shoves in our lives can sometimes “throw us off our game.’ There can be a comment (on-line or in person) or a look and we are completely thrown apart. Or there can be a situation, when someone has let us down or not done what they said they would . . . and we take it personally. E.g. thinking, “She hates me.” Or there can be a big event that really sets us back, such as a really big lie that was told about us, or a hurtful event and we are really thrown us down.
Well, the gospel story is about Jesus being revealed in how he actually is. The voice from heaven says, “This is my beloved Son.” Wow. I believe that is the same statement that God would say about each of us. “This is my beloved daughter, my beloved son.”
That is at the core of how God views us. God doesn’t just tolerate us or endure the times we are in the penalty box. God loves us 24/7, not just when we are on the ice. The trouble comes when we get distracted or checked and we lose focus of who we really are. Sometimes those shoves of life are illegal or really “too much” for what we are doing. Or sometimes we think that our “penalties” or mistakes define us. They do not. Those things are our life situations; they are not our lives. Our lives are bigger than they are. It is like Paul wrote in the second reading to the Roman. “If God is for us, who can be against?”
Our task is to focus on who are in God. Not what anyone else says about us or to us. Or on what we have done (or not done) We are God’s beloved.
When we can stay focused on that (like a hockey player stays focused on the puck) then hopefully we can simply “shake off” the checks of life. That is, bounce back and get on the stick.
No matter what happened or will happen, you are loved by God. Actually, God is in love with you. And remember God loves you not because you are good, but because God is good.