Kickoff Wk 3: There Is No "I" In Team

 

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Kickoff Week 3: There Is No “I” in Team

A group of Catholic school children were lined up in the cafeteria for lunch. At the head of the serving table was a large basket of apples and a warning from the cafeteria manager: “take only one. God is watching!” At The other end of the cafeteria line was a big tray of crunchy, delicious chocolate chip cookies. And next to it was a note from one of the boys: “take all you want,” it said. “God is watching the apples. “

Of course, God is big enough to watch the apples and the cookies at the same time and a lot more besides. So what does God see when he looks at us? How does he see our relationship with him? We’ve been praying almost as long as we could talk, telling God we love him and are grateful to him. But is it really so? What does he think?

It’s a worrisome question, but there is a way to find out how we stand with God, and that’s by checking how we’re treating his sons and daughters.

Do we give ourselves wholeheartedly to one another, or do we hedge our best? Do we walk the 2nd mile, or do we walk away? Which is more visible, our love or its limits? Do our commitments to people last, or do they fade with the setting sun? In this weekend’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that it costs a lot to win a battle or build a great tower. It costs a lot to hold a family together or build the character of a child. Every real commitment, every real love, is exceedingly dangerous, because sooner or later it’s going to cost a lot.

The number one thing it’s going to cost you is your own ego, your own agenda, we have to surrender to God and his plans, if we want to live a happy life. For the last few weeks we have been talking about how this time of year is kickoff time because most of our ministries are coming back online after a summer break.

We have used some sports analogies, like kickoff. We said that if we are going to be on the Lord’s team as one of his disciples, we have to be “all in” and invite others to be on the team, invite others to be disciples. Last week we spoke of the fact that God, and his church, have a playbook. God wants us to participate in the church according to his playbook, not our own. We have to humbly leave our own agenda behind. You can find all of those concepts and homilies on our website, saintmary.life. Just click on the homilies tab.

Our ministry TEAMS kickoff next weekend. As we prepare for that, we are reminded that there is no “I” in the word team. That is, there is no room for ego on a successful team, including ministry teams.
It is the same with our Christian journey. For Jesus tells us very pointedly in the gospel today “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” Renouncing possessions means you can not be attached to anything. The thing we humans are most attached to, the thing we do not want to let go of, is our ego.

The number one thing that gets in the way of us being good followers of Jesus, good disciples of Jesus, is our ego. To enter deeply into the spiritual quest with God, we must surrender our ego to him. Surrendering your ego means surrendering our own desires, our agenda, our preconceived notions, and trusting that God has what’s best for us. Elsewhere in the bible, Jesus says, to follow me you must deny yourself and take up your cross. Denying yourself means surrendering your ego.

Renouncing our ego is the primary key to the real spiritual journey in the most Catholic Christian sense. We cannot, you cannot, be on the Lord’s team, all the while thinking there is an I, and ego, in team.
There is a war going on inside of you and me. We struggle with a deep yearning for control, honor, and praise, maybe power. All of which we falsely believe will bring us comfort, love, and peace. Without consciously knowing it, we constantly seek to satiate these aspects of our ego in large and small ways.

We all do it. It is a part of our fallen nature. This is precisely why Jesus did battle against these egotistical tendencies (control, honor, and praise, and power) in the desert. After he was baptized, when the devil came to tempt him with these exact tendencies, he told the devil to get lost because he had surrendered his ego to God the Father.

We too are called to battle against these temptations, but often we don’t realize to what extent we must put these tendencies to death within ourselves. And you may wonder why this is so difficult.

You see, we are made by love and for love. We profoundly desire to be loved and accepted by the people around us. We look to others for adulation, honor, and praise. We want to be confirmed in everything we do. We start seeking other people’s opinions rather than God’s will. We start to mistake those opinions as God’s opinions. This is to invert what God is asking of us. We are to seek him and his ways for our lives.

Part of the reason social media has become an addiction for too many people is because it is a world we create based on our own ego. We are able to share any thought we have and put it out for public consumption. Each new “like” is a form of affirmation, perhaps an affirmation we never got growing up, in our careers, or in other relationships with people. We look for others to reinforce what we believe, even if it is wrong or erroneous. We seek that confirmation rather than turning to God.

What does God see when he looks at you? How does God see your relationship with HIM? Our relationship with God is directly reflected in how we relate to other people, his sons and daughters.

Are we fully invested in his sons and daughters by helping God form them as his disciples. Are we all in by inviting others into relationships with God and others here at church, either in small groups, coming to Mass, or participating on a ministry team. Or are we protecting our ego because we have made our faith journey all about me. Your faith journey can’t be about you and what you want, what you see, your program, your plan, your playbook. That’s not a faith journey. It’s an ego trip. Pun intended.

Jesus is challenging us to accept the cost of investing ourselves in his people. When we take that risk of investing all we are and all we’ve got, God knows it. When we do that, God knows that our love for him is much more than just words, folded hands, and genuflections. He knows that our love is backed by deeds, not just excuses because he knows that at this very moment our reward is already beginning to happen inside of us as we surrender our ego to him. And like a river, fed by spring rains, that surrender will carry us straight into eternity. Let go of your ego, and like a river, fed by spring rains, that surrender will carry you straight into eternity.