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Peter
Pan or the Kingdom
of God
?
September
23-24, 2006
Fr.
George Smiga
Mark
9:30-37
All
of us have heard of Peter Pan and the magical place where
he lived, called Never Never Land. It was a place where children
never had to grow up or assume any responsibility, where they
could do what they wanted to do whenever they chose to do
it. Oh occasionally you'd have to deal with a pesky pirate,
but all the needs and pleasures of life were magically available.
What
would Never Never Land look like if we tried to update it
to our own times? It might be a place where we could watch
any TV program or movie we wanted twenty four hours a day;
a place where, if we decided, we could fly to the other side
of the world or move across town in a few minutes; a place
where every kind of food was available, from steaks to pizza,
from capers to cantaloupe, and we could eat as much as we
wanted, even if it made us sick; a place where if we wanted
to play golf, we would not have just one beautiful golf course
to choose from, but maybe ten or twenty; a place where we
could watch it football games from all parts of the country;
a place that had malls full of merchandise, more than we could
ever buy or need, and where we could shop until we became
bored with doing so.
Could
it be that our lifestyle has much in common with Peter Pan's
magic place? Could it be that America is in some sense a Never
Never Land? It certainly seems so when we compare the way
we live to the way that most of the people on this planet
live. If you were living in Zambia , in Africa , you would
wake up each morning and 86% of your friends and neighbors
in that same country would be living under the poverty line.
86 %. Many without electricity or clean water or sewage, not
to mention education or health care. In 1970, people who lived
in the United States and in the first world had a standard
of life that was 30 times better than those who were in the
lowest 20% of the world's population. Today, three decades
later, that gap has doubled. Now we have a standard of living
60 times greater than the poorest people on the planet.
When
you look at the size of that gap, do not the things which
often concern us seem a bit childish, a bit self-indulgent:
whether we should buy a new blouse or a pair of pants, when
we have 30 pairs of pants or blouses in our closet and we
have not worn many of them for years; whether we need a third
car or a second home. If Jesus were suddenly to appear and
ask us, “What are you talking about, what are you discussing
with your broker or with your employer or with your spouse?”
wouldn't we be embarrassed to admit what was filling up our
lives?
The
disciples in today's gospel were embarrassed when Jesus asked
them such a question, for they were discussing which one among
them was the greatest. Even as Jesus talked about his own
necessary suffering and death, they were concerned about their
own issues, their own indulgence. They were living in their
own Never Never Land.
To
the extent that we can identify with the disciples, what can
be done? How can you and I live in our society as disciples
of Christ in a culture that seeks to pamper us and indulge
us? It is not an easy question. But I am not sure that our
answer to it should be taken to the extreme. I am not sure
that Jesus would ask most or any of us to give away all that
we have and live in a hut in Africa . I certainly know I do
not have the will or the courage to live the way most people
in the world are forced to live. The issue, after all, is
not that the comforts that we have are evil or bad, but that
they become so problematic when compared to how little the
rest of the world has.
So
what can we do? Is there any realistic or practical way that
we can hear the gospel and deal with these hard realities?
Jesus shows a way. When the disciples are lost in their other
worldly, self-indulgent thoughts, he takes a little child
and places her in their midst and says, “Whoever welcomes
one such child as this in my name, welcomes me.” Jesus is
asking us to do one small thing this week that brings our
thinking and our lifestyle more in conformity with reality?
Can we take a few minutes just to realize how much we have
and be thankful? Can we spend 30 minutes on the internet learning
some of the hard facts about the distribution of wealth in
our world and the many organizations that are trying to bridge
the gap that separates us? Can we identify one vulnerable
and hurting person in our family, in our neighborhood, at
our workplace and give something to that person? What we might
give need not be financial. We could give of our time and
our compassion. Could we think of one small thing that would
simplify our lifestyle, make one decision that would go against
the American mantra of more and better and bigger?
I
think this is what the gospel challenges us to do. Just as
Jesus welcomed one small child, we are asked to take one small
step that could lessen the gap between the life that we live
and the life most of the world lives? I realize that even
taking one step can be challenging. Having to face some of
the real gaps, some of the real injustices in our world is
uncomfortable, disconcerting to the way we would like to think
the world is. But facing such hard realities is, after all,
the difference between a child and an adult, between those
who are worried only about their own life and needs and those
who can serve the needs of others. It is the difference between
someone who wants to play in Never Never Land and someone
who is committed to build the Kingdom of God.
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