Homily

I remember watching, several years ago one episode of the TV show “Undercover Boss.” If you are not familiar with it, it is a reality TV program where the heads of companies disguise themselves and work alongside the employees of their company to find out how things are going with their business right there on the front lines. In this particular program the boss, a man, was the founder and CEO of a string of bars that has been successful in the South. When you see the waitresses at work, you immediately understand the angle of this business. The servers are all young women wearing uniforms that are just an inch away from what strippers would wear. It is also obvious that you won't get hired at these bars as a waitress unless you have a certain sized chest.

We see, before their shift starts, all the women attending the daily meeting. According to company practice, each day the manager, a man, evaluates each of the women on their hair, make-up, general appearance, friendliness with customers and other aspects of work. Those who rank the highest each day get the best sections in the bar. One waitress is paired up with the owner of the company who is in disguise. His job is to help the waitress. She complains to him: "It's not fair the way we get evaluated. The girls who flirt with the manager always get the best tables. And this ranking list is always creating trouble between the girls. It causes a lot of bad feelings between us." Imagine a bar manager every day telling his staff how they rate in sex appeal, every day, in front of all the group. And how does the Undercover Boss respond to her remarks? "The manager must not be doing it correctly because I was the person who invented the ranking system."

As he is talking further with this waitress she tells him there is a lot of harassment on the job. Men can become abusive, they make propositions, and sometimes they wait in the parking lot and follow them home after work. She said that she gets abusive treatment from at least one guy every shift. Undercover Boss is shocked. "I can't believe this. I can't believe there is so much trouble with customers like this." And I'm thinking, are you kidding me? You dress them up like strippers and you expect them to be treated with respect? The boss is also shocked that this waitress is constantly using profanities with customers. You dress them up as sex objects, but you want them to talk like debutantes?

I think this is one of the growing problems of our age: people speak and act in certain ways and then they are surprised when the natural results take place. Dress your employees up as strippers and prostitutes, put them in competition with each other, create an atmosphere of sexual teasing, do one thing after another to treat your servers as though they are sex objects, and then be shocked by the natural outcome? I think it’s evidence of a problem that is growing stronger with every year as people refuse to acknowledge the natural consequences of their actions and behaviors.

I thought of this TV episode because of an article in the Register-Guard this past Tuesday. It’s been 2 years since Oregonians voted to decriminalize drug usage. The “Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance” is the primary group promoting the idea that addicts should not be treated as criminals. We are told that we should be offering treatment instead of jail sentences. It sounds like a great idea. I am absolutely for helping addicts get free from drug use. But what has been the actual result since decriminalization? Oregon is one of the most drug-addicted states in America, and after the first year under the new law there was a 33% increase in deaths by overdose, twice the national average. The idea is that if people are offered treatment, they will take it. But of the 16,000 addicts who accessed public services in the first year of decriminalization, less than 1% entered a treatment program. But 60% of those who contacted public services received free syringes. There is no mention of drug-related crimes, such as burglaries, theft, and acts of violence. Even more disturbing to me—there is very little interest in trying to discover why drug addiction is continually increasing in our state, and what can be done to try and prevent it. Why is that?

Today it has become much more common for people to act in ways that can reasonably be seen as having a bad outcome, and yet we find more people who are surprised by it, upset, or even angry when the bad result happens, because it’s not what they wanted.

The Byzantine Christians named their greatest church Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, and that holy wisdom is Jesus Christ. He came to give us a wisdom we could not find on our own. So, we see in today's Gospel that there is a certain natural wisdom that Jesus recognizes. People will love those who love them. They will do good to those who are good to them. They will lend money to people who will pay them back. Those are statements of natural wisdom. But the Lord urges us to go beyond this natural wisdom and strive for a higher goal. Unlike the Undercover Boss whose policies lead to many bad results that could reasonably have been predicted, the wisdom of Christ leads to very good results that do not appear so obviously. It does not seem so wise to love your enemies. And yet we see that Christ died for us sinners when we were not worthy in any sense or form to merit His sacrifice. He sacrificed Himself in love for those who love Him little, as well as for those who even hate Him. This is His wisdom. We don’t always choose it, because it seems to us that our natural wisdom should work better, even though we have plenty of examples to remind us that is not true. Often, we want worldly wisdom to guide us in this life, and we disregard the true wisdom of Christ, because it means we have to trust that what He says is actually true, and it is often difficult to live according to that truth.

He has done all good for us by offering us His own divine life even though there is nothing we can give Him that even in the smallest way can approach the goodness He has given us. The Lord is so gracious, so generous, so compassionate that everything He gives to us comes without any request for payback. He is not one Who loans, but only One Who gives. The wisdom of Christ in today's Gospel is not the wisdom of the world, which, so very often does not produce the good results we think we should get, as Undercover Boss clearly showed. It's a supernatural wisdom that elevates us up into the likeness of Christ. It's a wisdom that does not follow worldly standards of equality, equity, material fairness or even justice, because to love your enemies and to do good to others without expecting anything in return is not what comes to us naturally. We are called instead to share in and give forth the love of Christ which lifts us above our fallen natures, and to live, so to speak, a supernatural life even here in this natural world, because we won't be here very long. It’s hard to do, but it’s our calling.

May He Who is the Holy Wisdom give us the grace to think less about the wrongs that may have been done to us, and more about His great mercy and compassion for us sinners who have failed so may times. Confessing our failures should not lead us to despair, but rather lead us into the loving arms of our Savior, Who is ever-ready to help us live better, according to our great vocation as Christians.