The fig tree gets another chance. And I think the invitation of the
gospel today is to give us another chance, individually and
collectively. The tree is given the opportunity to bear fruit. And
each of us has that potential within us and, in recognizing that
potential, we are each called to be the best possible person that we
can be. Somewhere in this homily, or in this Mass, you are called to
pick one thing that will make you more of what God wants you to be.
And I would like to suggest to you that that road to Jerusalem (In
these past few Sundays, we have used the road to Jerusalem as the
symbol of our Lenten journeys.) .... Jerusalem, the holy city, is
very real. I have not been there, but it is a place that we know of.
It has vast and rich history, three different faith traditions that
have grown up there.... I’d call it the cradle of the faith,
including our own. It is a real place with real people who have hopes
and dreams, pain and suffering, just as all of us do. It’s a real place.

In our funeral liturgy in the Catholic tradition we have, at the end
of the funeral Mass, “Go home, Faithful servant, to the new and
eternal Jerusalem.” The new Jerusalem is heaven. And we have, I
would like to suggest to you, the celebration today of the Jerusalem
that is our own human condition.

The idea of our humanity, celebrating the gift of our human
condition, as Jerusalem and, in asmuch as you and I journey toward
that Jerusalem, becoming the full potential of what God is calling us
to be, then we are traveling in the right direction. To the extent
that you and I move away from who God is calling us to be.... (We all
know in the deepest part of our own reality when we are on the right
path, when you marry the right person, when you are with the person
you love, when you are in the right vocation, when you have...... I
could go on and on about that deep sense of who we are called to be
or the gift and the beauty of our Jerusalem.) And Jerusalem is not
only the giftedness of all of the hopes and dreams we have for our
reality, but it also encompasses the reality of the pain and the
suffering of life. Isn’t that true? And so, it’s in this context that
Jesus is talking about, in the very beginning of the gospel, he is
saying to us and he is challenging us to say “Why do bad things
happen to good people?” We are almost hard-wired to automatically
start thinking, “Why me?.... Why is this awful thing happening to
me?” I had a lady a few weeks ago whose sister I had buried and we
had the funeral Mass and, at the beginning, she said, “Father, this
is the fifth person in our family I’ve lost this year. What did we do
wrong as a family?” And, you know what? There is no real way to
answer something like that. Any pious platitude you might give, you
just need to really not say anything. Be there. Be present. But the
question really is not the why. (Why is this happening?) God is not
standing over us, dangling us like little strings and orchestrating
the sufferings of this life. He is not the author of it. And we have
to embrace the reality of our existence in this place. The question
more should be maybe, “ What can I learn from this experience?” Often
times, it is in the rear view mirror of our lives that we are able to
see where God was in the grief moments, in the difficult moments of
our lives, that we are able to learn and see the why and help us
become our Jerusalem, become the best possible person that God wants
us to be. And to me that’s very, very powerful. So, we are not saying
that its the result of sin that you have big disasters. That’s some
sort of Jerry Falwell thing of an earthquake hitting San Francisco
but not hitting the right zipcode to get the right people, the big
sinners. You know, it’s that sort of really stupid thinking. God does
not work like that. God is the God of Love, is the author of Love and
it is he that sends his son to give us a second chance.

The black book,which many of us are reading for our Lenten journey,
calls us to reflect on death. But it’s a very real subject, a part of
our human condition. And, to the extent that you and I embrace that,
and not see it as the big sin at the end of life, that it’s our
journey through life and it’s natural and real, it is part of our
reality. How many of you watched the Oscars a few weeks ago? ....Wow!
What were the rest of you doing? Well, we’re watching the Oscars, and
when you watch all of that and you see here is everything that our
American culture, capitalism, riches, beauty, all this wondering
who’s going to win... In the middle of that reality, you see a clip,
a little jarring, of all of the people that have gone the year
before, that have died. And it’s sobering that we remember and see
all these faces and say, “Wow! I didn’t know that he died, or she
died,” and “Oh, remember this movie...” How many of you watched
“Commander in Chief?” (Several in the congregation put up their
hands.) .... You’re all the good people, as far as Father Brian
Timoney or Brian Joyce and I are concerned. We loved that show. But
the reason it isn’t on anymore is because all of the rest of you
didn’t watch it. If you watched the Fall season, when the big three
networks present the new shows, they are hoping that the Nielsen
ratings will just fly and then they stay. But “Commander in Chief”
didn’t stay because most of you didn’t watch it, along with a lot of
other shows. Things begin, have a middle and an end. And when they
are not popular, they go away. “Commander in Chief” died. So, Father
Brian and I had to Tivo all of them and then have our little drink in
the evening to bond together with another show. I’m glad you all
watched “Boston Legal” because then we can watch that one! But, you
know there is the ying and the yang of life and the natural flow of
life, and we are called to think about that.

Yesterday morning, we had our First Reconciliation for our kids, and
we had ninety of them, and there’s Father Brian Joyce and I. So we
heard the First Confession of these guys, and the two of us were in
the box in the back. In the morning time I, for some reason, started
to think of my brother and he was sort of present to me in my prayer,
and there’s always a little sadness in your heart at the loss of
somebody in your family and he just was sort of sitting there. When I
started the Reconciliation, the kids were just so wonderful. They are
so prepared and they want to say the right words and the right
things, and so I would throw them off a little bit by saying, “What’s
your name?” It’s face to face. And then I’d say, “What do you want to
be when you grow up?” You try to have a little conversation just to
make them feel good because they are a little nervous. And one little
guy came in, with a kind of Irish-y looking face. (His mom actually
was at the last Mass.) And he came in and I said, “What’s your name?”
He said, “Jared.” (My brother was called “Jared.”) And then I said to
him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And he went, “... a
soccer player.” (My brother adored sports and soccer, and especially
soccer. If he were going to be anything in life, it would have been a
soccer player.) And then I kind of had second thoughts about asking
him the next question, “What was your favorite soccer team?” And he
goes, “Manchester United.” (That was my brother’s absolute
favorite.... In fact, he was actually buried in his Manchester United
outfit. I objected to that, but I was over-ruled by my brothers. So,
he loved this team.) At this stage, I am sitting there thinking, “Oh,
my God!” And I didn’t want to burst into tears in front of this
little ten year old kid. I didn’t want him to have a bad experience.
But I was very conscious of my brother being present in that moment,
and where he is in heaven, and the reality of life and death, and
sometimes I think we are called to reflect on that and to befriend it
in a powerful way.

In the story of the tree there is this potential in all of us for
this giftedness. You and I are the only people that can be the gift
that God needs for the world. Nobody else can do the job that you
need to do, to reach your full potential, to go on the right path. To
the extent that we don’t go on that path to Jerusalem and embrace
our Jerusalem, as a community and as a reality, are the barren parts
of our lives, where we don’t bear fruit. Here we get a second chance.
Join with me for a moment and watch this clip of Sean.

(A filmclip follows of a student who is about to be expelled from
school, and the adults who are seeking to help him.... and the
teacher who ultimately puts his own career on the line to give this
student a second chance.)

The fig tree and the bearing of the fruit is what we are called to
do. We get a second chance. We get many chances actually. But now is
the right time. So, I want you to take a moment to think about the
second chances that you’ve had in your lives and I’d like you to turn
to the person beside you and just you don’t even have to share what
the experience is. It might be “speeding ticket.” Husbands and wives
or partners that are gathered, don’t be turning to anybody and
saying, “I’ve given you thousands of second chances!” But, for a
moment, just reflect with the people beside you. It’s easy to tell
who the Jesus figure is (in the filmclip). It’s obviously the
teacher. So we have second chances. Take a moment to share just a
word or share a little more at your own comfort levels.