Two words for you and me to think about this morning, two words. The
first is the word that the Father says about Jesus, that we just
heard. The Father is pointing to Christ. The voice comes out and
says, “Listen to him.” Listen to Jesus, says this voice from above,
listen. And the second and last word is “Change.” Our parish has
different themes for each week of Lent. Remember last week it was
“Decisions.” And Father Joyce took us through decisions that human
beings have to make in life, big ones, little ones, tough ones, daily
ones ... decisions. The theme for today, for you and me, is
“Change.” Make some change this Lent, some small change, some small
change in your attitude, your life, how you deal with people you
love. So LISTEN to Our Lord and some CHANGE for you and me for Lent.
Those are the key words, those two, listen, change.

I want you to imagine there is a buzzard here, on a perch. He is
malevolent. He’s mean. I’ve had him since I was in the first grade.
He’s imaginary, but he’s been with me a long time. He has a wide wing
span, this buzzard, and a long, yellow beak that pecks, and
malevolent little pink eyes. And he is there, on a perch. And he and
I are having this dialogue, “Buzzard” and (what he calls me,
unkindly) “Baldy.” And we are thinking, with you to help, we’re
thinking about LISTEN (to Our Lord, to each other) and then, make
some small CHANGE for Lent, even this week.

This buzzard has been mocking me and blocking me and knocking me
since I was a little kid. He’s still with me. I once mentioned this
to a brilliant Dominican nun who had just gotten her doctorate in
Psychology from NYU and she nodded and slowly began to back away
from me. “Father, you say you see big birds?” I said, “Sister, I’m an
English teacher. It’s a metaphor. It’s just a metaphor, but it’s very
real to me.” He’s always pecking and.... You know what other people
call “the mean voice in my head” or “the committee in my skull.”
It’s mean, nasty, putting everything down, mocking, blocking,
knocking, certainly anything about faith, about Christ, about being
at Mass. He’s been with me a long time. And that’s not a metaphor.
His presence is very real.

Anyhow, here we are. We are going to talk about LISTENING. There are
three things, listening, first, to Christ, listening to Our Lord. OK,
the Buzzard, he’s over here (gesturing to one side of himself), BUZZ
(to the left), BALDY (to the right.)

BUZZARD says: C’mon, give me a break, listen to Christ. We’re sick
of Christ. We really are, nice guy, a great moral teacher. It’s
wonderful to trot him out in Brotherhood Week. He’s got some lovely
sayings on Hallmark Cards. A great moral teacher, you know, like
Socrates, that bunch.

BALDY: Wait a minute, Buzz. You can’t dismiss Christ as a great moral
teacher like Plato or Albert Schweitzer. He made some claims that are
outrageous. Nobody on the planet has ever made the claims that Jesus
made. He said, “I and the Father are one.” One in nature, he makes
himself God! He goes around forgiving sins! Somebody steps on my toe
and Jesus says, “His sin is forgiven.” Who does he think he is,
forgiving sin? He’s dying and he turns to this clown on his left and
says, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.”? He’s outrageous!
He’s a liar or he’s a lunatic or he is the Lord. You can’t just pat
him on the head, “Nice little Jesus.” If he isn’t what he said he is,
he is disgusting and evil, making these claims. “Take up your cross
and follow me.” If he’s not God, I wouldn’t tip my bald head at him.
He’s a nightmare if he’s not God. Don’t you dare pat Jesus on the
head. I see you have something else to say....

BUZZARD: Yeah. I got something else to say. Nobody’s listening. You
know, you yourself have mentioned this, Baldy. Some people over there
are thinking about donuts and scrambled eggs. Some other people over
here had a rough day last week; a boss made a very sarcastic little
crack, a little mean crack, and he’s still hurting from that crack
the boss made about him. And over here, there is some lady and she is
saying to herself, “God, that fellow over there is gorgeous. He’s
absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t see a wedding ring. I wonder if he’s
dating.” So, come on, you know, talk about Christ. They’ve heard
about Christ since they were kids. Let’s have a little change around
here, Baldy!!

BALDY: I want to get back to Christ. There has been more research
made about that Jewish carpenter than all the other figures of
antiquity put together, more scholarly research about did he say what
he is recorded as having said, did he do what he is recorded as
having done? There is even great acceptance of the fact there must
have been a resurrection.
The most famous empty tomb in history, nobody can find a body.
Cowardly guys who were hanging out in an upper room; at the end of
the weekend they go out and they become spiritual conquistadors and
they begin to change the face of Western civilization in one weekend.
Can you explain that?

BUZZARD: No and I don’t particularly want to. Boring...

BALDY: OK. Dear Congregation, the next topic is “Change, how we
listen to other people, especially people we live with and basically,
people whom we love. Why are you flapping your wings?

BUZZARD: I got to say something about interrupting. Interruptions
are the great corruptions. Nobody listens to anybody in this culture.
They don’t even let them finish the sentence. They are always
thinking about what they are going to say. I love interruptions,
especially at home, with a family. You know, I love it that
interruption is the best corruption in Hell. In Hell, we interrupt
one another all the time. Human beings are getting to the point now
they see the subtext. I know what you are really saying, what you
really mean. You live with the same person year after year, you get
sick of hearing them. So, of course, you think of what you are going
to say. Interruption is the best corruption. We do a lot of it in
Hell....

BALDY: That’s the point, out of nervousness and anticipation, we do
tend to interrupt and leap in, and that’s why we might make a change,
maybe just for this week in Lent. I’ll have you know, Buzz, that a
lady said to me, a young lady who is still in school, said to me last
week, “Dad listens to me now. Dad never interrupts. He always used to
interrupt because he was so worried about me and school and grades.
Dad listens to me now!” And I’ll have you know, Buzz, that she said
it with such awe and affection, that I will never forget it, “He
listens to me now.” And incidentally, Buzz, wouldn’t it be great, not
for you but, if we could sit at a dinner table with people we care
about, let’s say on a Friday night, you’re wiped out with the week
and you are tired, if suddenly each of us could listen to what they
are thinking, as if there were balloons over their heads like
cartoons, and we could read what Dad is thinking. He’s so worried
about money and bills, and Mom, she is worried about new appliances.
They’ve got to get new appliances, and the cost.... and tuition....
and the teenage girl, sitting silently at the dinner table.... Her
heart was broken today at lunch, and don’t call it “puppy love”
because it is agony. And the little kid, he dropped the cruet,
serving Mass at eight o’clock, and he thinks everybody is still
talking about the fact that little dope dropped the cruet. They are
in such pain! If we could listen and not interrupt, just for Lent!
Oh, I got one more thing here....

BUZZ: I thought you might!

BALDY: Change how we listen at Mass.

BUZZ: Mass, smass. They’ve been going to Mass since they were little
kids like you, you know, since the Spanish Civil War, you’ve been
going to Mass. Bor-ing! Tired! Same old, same old... Every Sunday we
trot off to Mass. And what’s this thing now we talk about Jesus all
the time and we concentrate on the New Testament and the Gospel?
That’s the new company line. Why don’t you get back to the good old
stuff that was used to give sermons in the forties and fifties, like
“Canon Law?” You studied Canon Law in the seminary. Canon Law has
lots of interesting stuff like how to arrange a procession in a
Cathedral. You studied that for two weeks. First, the Archbishop,
then, the Bishop, then, the Monsignor, then the run-of-the-mill
priest. People are starving to hear good stuff like that. And I
think you ought to get back to those pamphlets on purity and chastity
and sex sins. Now, there’s a great pamphlet. People are dying to hear
the stuff they don’t hear... No more do they hear it!

BALDY: Watch your grammar... Anymore.

BUZZ: I don’t care about grammar. That little pamphlet about how much
you can kiss your girlfriend before a sin. The kiss itself,
imperfection. If the kiss is longer than thirty seconds, venial sin.
If the kiss goes on, mortal sin! People are starving for that kind of
material! And all I get is “Jesus meant” and “Jesus said...” Come on!
Give me a break! And, by the way, when you say the words of
consecration, “This is my body,” well, why doesn’t something happen?
Why isn’t there a big “POW!?” And he’s there, Jesus Christ that
Jewish guy? And he’s standing, muscles rippling, like a Michelangelo
statue, and he reaches out and says, “Hi, folks!” Boy, they would go
back from this eight o’clock Mass and say, “You should have seen the
Mass today!” We don’t get anything interesting. Same old, same old,
same old....

BALDY: The emphasis on Jesus over the past twenty or thirty years is
essential. We wouldn’t have Canon Law and processions and cathedrals
or vestiges of any kind of sexual morality without Christ. These
people are here for Christ. They aren’t here for me and they aren’t
here for the decor or the music, even though they are very well done.
It is Christ, and everything we suddenly have, new manuscripts and
new documents about what he means, the emphasis on mercy and
forgiveness and the evil of power that crushed people.... That’s what
people need to hear. And I’m glad we’re not in the “old days.”
During Lent, hearing talks about, if you buy clam chowder on Fridays
in Lent, you better check out the back of the clam chowder can
because it may indicate there’s some kind of meat extract. And if you
have any kind of meat on a Friday in Lent, you know where you’re
going....

BUZZ: WELL, about sexual morality, I remember with pride how we had
to stand up and denounce Jane Russell’s cleavage in “The Outlaw.”
There was too much cleavage and it was condemned, and if you went to
the Rialto Theatre in New York City, it was a mortal sin and if you
got run over by a water buffalo, you’d go to Hell! What’s happened to
the Church of the good old days? People are hungry to hear that again!

BALDY: No, I think some of them are glad to concentrate on Christ,
mercy, redemption, helping the poor. That’s how he says we’re going
to get saved, the Beatitudes. Blessed are the Poor. Blessed... Oh, I
see you yawning, Buzz. It bores you. Doesn’t it? All that Christ
stuff! Well that’s your problem. Beatitudes are what are going to
save us, Buzz, Beatitudes! Blessed are the poor and those who help
the poor. Why are you suddenly so quiet? Why are you folding in your
big wings?

BUZZ: I got something to say to you to conclude this harangue. You
say, “Listen” and “Change.” Well, how about you, Baldy?

BALDY: What?

BUZZ: When you got here in May of 1999, after Mass on Sunday, you
greeted the people. You said hello. They said hello. You shook hands.
They shook hands.

BALDY: Yes?

BUZZ: Well, since May of ‘99 you haven’t done it. Every time you say
Mass, you stumble away, back to the sacristy and curl up with your
book. Poor shy, little self-conscious Baldy. Now, Listen and Change.
This is Lent. Why don’t you just, for this Mass, Sunday in Lent, go
down the procession, stand outside and say hello. I know it’s a
nightmare. I don’t know how you’ll survive. Imagine the Catholic
priest saying hello to people on Sunday? I certainly hope you can get
through this ordeal.

BALDY: You want me to greet people?

BUZZ: Yeah, yeah. I know it’s awful...

BALDY: Well, OK. One Lent, one Sunday, one Hello.

BUZZ: Yeah!

BALDY: Well, I’ll think about it...... Amen.