When you hear the names Thomas Edison and Sylvester Stallone, it may be hard to imagine what they might have in common. Maybe we could find a general thread like “They’re both famous people.” But few would imagine anything else that could link the inventor of the Light Bulb with the actor best known as Rocky. Yet remarkably, both men shared an incredibly profound experience. Both men faced immense struggles with self-doubt and rejection before achieving success.
Thanks so much for stopping by to read this homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 6, 2024. I appreciate your sharing this on your social media posts and your feedback and comments… I’m also grateful for all those who’ve asked for the audio version and share them as well at SOUNDCLOUD click HERE or from ITUNES as a podcast HERE. May the Lord be glorified in your reading and sharing- Father Jim
Thomas Edison’s story begins with a childhood marked by challenges. Born in 1847, he was labeled “too stupid to learn” by his teachers. Its shocking reading such a cold and dismissive evaluation of a child by supposedly well-educated professional adults. It could have easily led him to believe he was destined for failure. Instead, his mother encouraged him to pursue his interests, igniting a lifelong passion for discovery. As an adult, Edison faced thousands of failures in his experiments—some estimates say he failed over a thousand times before successfully inventing the light bulb. Each setback could have crushed his spirit, but he viewed them as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks. “I have not failed,” he famously said, “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This persevering spirit gave life to his vision that ultimately transformed the world.
Similarly, Sylvester Stallone faced considerable adversity on his path to success. Growing up in New York City, he struggled with a speech impediment and financial instability. Despite his passion for acting and writing, he was struggling to make it in Hollywood. He achieved some minor film roles but he was broke and finding it hard to make ends meet. Things were so bad he tells this heart breaking story of having to sell his dog because he couldn’t afford to feed it. He poured his heart into writing the script for Rocky. After being dismissed from another casting call, he mentioned his story idea to some of the producers. Their interest was piqued but they didn’t want to have Sylvester Stallone, this unknown actor, play the main character, Rocky. They imagined someone more established like Burt Reynolds. So they offered Stallone $360,000 for the script, with the condition that he wouldn’t play Rocky. Remember that he had no car, $106 in the bank, and sold his dog to pay the bills. With his back against the wall, Stallone made a bold decision: he refused to sell the script unless he could play the lead role. This was a risky gamble, but he believed in the story he had created and his ability to bring it to life. When Rocky was released, it became a cultural phenomenon, showcasing that perseverance and self-belief can indeed lead to greatness.
It is both amazing and inspirational to hear how people have overcome challenging experiences. But far too often, we can find it difficult if not impossible to imagine those stories could be our stories. Maybe you’ve heard those negative voices that cause you to sell yourself short, diminish yourself, or tell yourself that something in life is too difficult to achieve? Do you believe false narratives about your abilities and yield to the lies in your head about your potential? Do you speak words of defeat, thinking or saying that it’s best not to get your hopes up or expect too much?
That came to mind praying with this Gospel because, in some ways, that’s what is going on with the Pharisees in today’s back-and-forth with Jesus. Oftentimes, when this Gospel is proclaimed, we can get laser-like focused on Jesus’ rejection of divorce. And this isn’t meant to discount the importance of what Jesus teaches about the significance of marriage and how divorce is something that God “hates,” as He is described as saying from the mouth of the prophet Malachi (2:16). And you know what? I think that a majority of people who’ve suffered through a divorce hate it as well. They hate that it happened… They hate why it happened… They hate the hurt and pain and blame that comes from it. Knowing Jesus as I hope I do, the last thing I can imagine is that He’s using this as an opportunity to make divorced people feel worse about themselves and their situations.
So when the Pharisees confront Jesus about divorce, their focus is not on the beauty of God’s design for marriage but rather on legalistic interpretations and the bare minimum requirements to appease God. They have allowed their hearts to harden, losing sight of the ideal God desires for humanity—a deep, sacrificial love that reflects His love for us.
The Pharisees had forgotten or ignored what was the importance, the ideal of marriage that we heard in beautifully poetic ways in the first reading from Genesis. That God created marriage as a way to demonstrate His desire for humanity never to suffer from aloneness. For us to see in the union of a man and a woman in becoming husband and wife, a dynamic relationship of sacrifice and service to one another that is so powerful that the love they share allows them to participate in the divine work of creating life (a.k.a having children!) That’s hard work. That’s tough. You don’t have to believe the celibate priest saying this. Ask any couple whether they’re married for a few months or decades – it’s a roller coaster of ups and downs that is hardly predictable. But as they remain faithful to each other and their covenant, as they recognize how Jesus’ is made real and visible through these imperfect people striving for holiness in this unique vocation – they experience new dimensions, experiences of love they could never have imagined on their wedding days.
The Pharisees, in this instance, though, are trying to “test” Jesus, as St. Mark, the author of the Gospel, points out to us. They are not just testing him but also trying to embarrass him and put him in the midst of another debate that was going on at the time.
John the Baptist had preached against divorce, so if Jesus had agreed with the Pharisees that it was permissible, Jesus would’ve angered many of Jesus’ disciples who had first come to Him through the preaching of John. If Jesus disagreed with divorce, the Pharisees thought they could make the charge that Jesus rejected Moses. Neither were good options. It’s sick and twisted how easily the evil one can manipulate things. They have gone from Moses begrudgingly allowing a narrow window where, for the health and safety of people, they needed some protection that he said divorce was permitted – to the extreme of saying, “Moses said it was lawful.”
Permission didn’t (and doesn’t) equal approval. But as the Pharisees demonstrated, when people suffer from hardness of heart, things can go from bad to worse—and have even bigger difficulties at stake.
Which is why this is more than just about marriage and divorce. What’s at the heart of this is that the Pharisees, the religious leaders of that day and age, weren’t considering God’s plan as something to strive for – as something that needed to be nourished and encouraged and talk about how, as a community, they could support the husbands and wives in their covenant, how they could see the blessing of children as precisely that – a blessing. They could be honest about how hard it is and try to help and support one another as a community striving to be attentive and obedient to God’s law and His vision. Instead these religious authorities accepted the premise – the lie that “this isn’t possible for everybody.” They had let that evolve into a false narrative that said, “We need to have a plan for if or rather when people fail,” rather than “what can we do to help them avoid that painful situation?” The hardness of their hearts made them believe more in themselves than in God’s desire for us to strive and for each of us to encourage and assist each other to go beyond what we imagined was ever possible for us.
How true is that in so many other things when it comes to our faith lives? Because we can easily swap out “divorce” for any number of things that people struggle with and hear and find how this idea of what’s the minimum we need to do affects people in all sorts of ways. “Jesus, is it lawful to miss Mass on Sunday?” Well, if you’re sick, obviously you’re not obligated to go to Mass – well, how sick – if it’s the flu – you shouldn’t go… what if it’s bronchitis. You’re on an antibiotic so you’re not contagious? What if it’s just I’m physically exhausted from the week? -or – “Jesus, is it permissible for me to talk about that person who really annoys me?” Uhm no… “what if it’s just venting to one friend so that I can get it off my chest to someone I trust?” “Jesus, how drunk is too drunk?” “Jesus, is it really cheating if everybody is doing it?”
Whatever the situation is, as human beings who are very much aware of our brokenness and weakness – especially as we’re living in a world that is hell-bent (literally and figuratively) on trying to remove God, His word, His law, His commands out of even consideration for people, let alone trying to help one another to remain responsive to the high calls of being Jesus disciple – we’re surrounded by modern-day Pharisees who are constantly looking for loopholes and proposing them as “good enough.” When we’ve accepted that as our premise, we’ve allowed the devil to continue to sow doubt, encouraging us to “lighten up” and “just do the best you can,” rather than pushing ourselves to strive for holiness.
Striving for holiness is difficult, and every one of us will encounter failure along the way. That’s why this second part of the Gospel, which initially seems disconnected from the first, is so important. It seems disjointed to go from this debate over divorce to a scene where the disciples get annoyed with children they think are a distraction to Jesus and this important discussion that’s taking place. But they’re coupled together like this because it allows Jesus to highlight the importance of the roots of the debate and get us to go back to basics. Where He talks about the importance of being “child like.”
One of the reasons Jesus is constantly highlighting the importance of children is not because children are sinless – most parents can explain how they’re not. But children are more transparent and more willing to ask for help – they’re more willing to admit that they’ve messed up. Children are (for good and bad) very attentive to what their parents say about them and allow their lives to be defined by that, try to live in response to that.
With that in mind, as His Children, it’s good to remember some of what God say about us: That He knows everything about us – including the number of hairs we have on our head (as dwindling for some of us as those may be) (ps 139 & Matthew 10: 29-31); That every good gift we have comes from His hand (James 1:17) That we are His cherished possession (Exodus 19: 5) That He knit us within our mother’s womb (ps 139); That if we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him (Deuteronomy 4: 29). Those are all verses from the Old and New Testament and are only scratching the surface of what our Loving, Heavenly Father says to us… to you.
In light of that, this Gospel is more than about Jesus rejecting divorce and raising the dignity of children. Jesus is asking us to focus on something of far greater importance: How are our hearts? How responsive are we to this call to holiness? The Pharisees, consumed by legalism and a hardened spirit, missed the beauty of God’s design and the importance of supporting one another in achieving it. Likewise, we can fall into the trap of thinking holiness is limited to people in stained glass windows or marbled statues and imagine them as unachievable. That’s why those stories of very human figures like Thomas Edison and Sylvester Stallone stood out to me. Here were two men who encountered setbacks, self-doubt, who had people harshly dismissing them as failures. Yet they refused to accept those realities as the final word. Instead seeing these obstacles as stepping stones. Like them, so often, we are our own harshest critics. Allowing negative narratives to cloud our visions to what is possible. That has to begin with our refusal to settle for mediocrity, or yielding to despair.
That’s what Jesus is challenging each of us with this Gospel today. Not to settle or be comfortable with where we are right now… but to hear His invitation to open our hearts, acknowledge our limitations and keep striving for true greatness – which is holiness.
Many people like to quote Oscar Wilde saying, “Every Saint has a past, every sinner has a future,” but I think it almost breeds indifference in our day and age. It’s like the garbage quote, “I’m okay, you’re okay…” I’m not okay, you’re not okay, and that’s not okay – that’s why we’re here.
St. John Chrysostom said something that I find a bit more helpful and accurate – “Sin is followed by shame, repentance is followed by boldness.” That’s so spot on. Sin if we just remain in it, if we resist going to confession and being freed from them, it keeps numbing our consciences, becomes this vicious cycle where we get more and more lukewarm, than cold and then hardening of our hearts. Repentance is what’s being treated as the negative word, when in reality it’s a natural reaction to have an authentic encounter with Jesus. When that happens we hear Jesus calling us to reject the limitations of a hardened heart and embrace our identity as beloved Children of God. Then we recognize that call to strive for holiness, not as a burden but as a joyful response to the love that God has for us. Then we see the urgency in supporting one another, encouraging friends and family to rise above self-doubt and reach for the extraordinary lives God has designed for us. Then, the eyes of our hearts become fixed on the beauty of God’s plan, fostering a community where love flourishes, failures are met with compassion, and every individual is uplifted to discover their unique calling.