What do you want to be when you grow up? That question is frequently asked to young people. A doctor? A lawyer? An Indian Chief? Do you want to pitch for the Sox? Do you want to be president of the United States? If the current candidates are any indication, why not? What do you want to be? As we grow older we find that our gifts and talents steer us in a certain direction. If you can’t handle math, you’re not going to become an engineer. If you’re six-two, two-forty you’re not going to be a jockey in the Kentucky Derby. If you can’t hit a curve ball you won’t play third base for the Orioles. But the question of what you are to be still nags. Eventually we realize that what we want to be when we grow up is not defined so much by what I do, by the job I have, as by the kind of person that I am. What do you want to be? A loving and faithful husband or wife. A nurturing parent who provides roots and wings to my children. A member of society who builds up rather than tears down. As the song goes: If I can help somebody as I travel along; if I can help somebody with a word or a song, then my living shall not be in vain.
Let’s not forget, however, that we gather on a Sunday because we believe that God has to be taken into account in our choice of what we are to be when we grow up. My choices in life are not simply mine. I seek God’s will for me. God has a plan. While we do try to find God’s will in specific decisions – who to marry, where to live, what job to take — at the most basic level the plan of God for us is simple: we are to become sharers in divine life. St. Basil, St. Augustine and other of the early Fathers of the Church tried to shock their hearers into understanding the radical nature of that statement by saying: God became a human being so that human beings could become God. St. Paul puts is slightly differently but just as provocatively: “Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” What a statement! I no longer live but Christ lives in me. How contrary that is to the way we ordinarily think. We live in an age when personal fulfillment, self-development, individual achievement are the ideals which society holds up for us. To be able to join Paul and say, “I no longer live but Christ lives in me” will take a re-orientation in our value system. Look at it this way: Why do you go to work each day? Why are you a responsible person who pays his bills and hangs in there with your family? Why do you worry about that neighbor or relative who is ill? It’s not simply a matter of being a decent human being. What St. Paul wants us to understand is that we do what we do because of the action and the presence of God in our hearts. The fourth Eucharistic prayer tells us that the reason God bestows the Holy Spirit upon us is so that we can live “no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us.” John the Baptist put it: “He must increase. I must decrease.” But I must confess, I don’t feel comfortable saying “it is no longer I that live but Christ lives in me.” There is still a lot of “me” around.
The one thing the Bible makes clear is that we can’t use our faults and failings, we can’t use our limitations, we can’t use our sinfulness as an excuse for not living in God. God’s mercy trumps our sinfulness. When it comes to sin, we’re all in the same boat and we’re all a little seasick. The Old Testament story of King David and the New Testament lesson about the Penitent Woman in St. Luke’s gospel and St. Paul’s own life story remind us that sinfulness did not keep them from living in God. We can say “Christ lives in me” once we face up to the fact that there are many other things that live in me that need to be eliminated in order to make room for Christ to live in me. King David does it with his words when confronted by the evidence. “I have sinned against the Lord.” The penitent women does it by her actions of weeping and caring for Jesus. St. Paul does it by leaving life one behind to being another. But the important thing is to be willing to dump some of ourselves in order to let God in. There is a famous story of a young Buddhist monk going to see the spiritual master and complaining that he wasn’t making any progress. The master got out his tea pot and two cups and started pouring. He filled the tea cup and still kept pouring. Tea soon spilled over the edge and onto the table and then onto the floor. The young monk yelled, “Stop. Can’t you see the cup is full. You can’t get any more in.” To which the master responded, “Neither can you be filled with God’s spirit if you are full of yourself.” Have you ever noticed how reluctant politicians are to get their stuff out. When testifying about some blunder that just occurred the response is: “mistakes were made.” It’s as if those mistakes just kind of happened with no one doing anything to make it happen. I don’t know about you but if when my mother came up to me and asked, “who just tromped mud into the house” I wouldn’t dare answer, “Mistakes were made.” That kind of response would get the slap of salvation. It is vital to take responsibility for ones’ actions in order to subtract them from your life to give room for Christ. To be able to say, it is not longer I but Christ that lives in me, I’ve got first to say “I did it. I’m sorry. I’ll work to make sure it never happens again.”
What gets us there? How do we subtract the “me” in order to be filled with God. Quite simple: Christ increases in us through love. Jesus himself tells us that in the gospel today. He observes that you can tell that the penitent woman has stopped thinking about herself and stopped worrying about what other people thought about her because “she has shown great love.” Real love, genuine love is not about getting mine but about caring enough about you that I give of myself for your benefit. St. James takes pride in being a church that loves. People give of themselves in order to play their part in helping to bring about the kingdom of God here in Chicago. Each one of us is called to be people of love. We don’t count the cost – you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back. Rather, we give because the need is there and we have the means to fulfill it. What do I want to be when I grow up? Someone full of love who can then say with St. Paul, it is now no longer I, but Christ that lives in me. AMEN!
