how do you handle rejection?

 Homily

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

AMDG +JMJ +m

Rejection stings. Right up there with betrayal!  I want people to like me gosh darn it!  Why doesn't everybody like me?  Why am I not everyone's favorite?

I was made to be chosen.  It stings badly when I'm not.

How do I handle rejection?

I've toughened up a little over the years.  I don't care what people think as much as I used to.  I'm not nearly as afraid of conflict, or of being disliked.  Jesus says woe to you when everyone thinks well of you . . it's a sign that you have no spine!

Still I want everyone to admire Fr. Mitchel - it's part of why I became a priest - to be admired.

Yet rejection is something we can't avoid, and even perhaps, something we are to prefer

God handles a ton of rejection, and so must I.  Rejection is all over today's Scriptures.  Rejection hurts God.  His own Son gets killed by my rejection!  In today's parable, God does everything possible to be accepted - He shares everything in this beautiful vineyard, even His own Son.

But I don't want to share.  I want it all.  I want it all for me.

Out of sheer greed the tenants are willing to kill.  That's weak sauce my friends!  Because I won't share, I will kill.  Me me me me mine mine mine mine leads to violence!

Sound familiar?  It describes precisely our culture of death.  My body.  My choice.  My rights. My reality.  My truth.  My way.  And I demand not just tolerance for my obsession with privacy, I demand affirmation, even and as I kill another.  Me me me me mine mine mine mine - results in the culture of death.

All because I won't share.  All because I say mine instead of ours.

Listen to these same words spoken by the Son from the cross as He is rejected by the culture of death.  My body.  My choice.  My right.  My reality.  My truth.  My way.

In response to rejection based on selfishness, He shares all of Himself.  When rejected, He becomes pure gift.

This stone that the culture of death has rejected is the cornerstone for the culture of life. By the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes!

Will I flip the culture of death into the culture of life as Jesus' disciple?  If I fail, this awesome responsibility to live life to the full will be taken from me and given to someone else. To someone who will cherish the gift of life, who will defend it in its most vulnerable forms, who will multiply and share it, who will teach it to grow into the likeness of God.

What is my choice?

It's a good time to choose.  The signs of the times leave life and death hanging in the balance.  What a year 2020 is!

If I do not choose life, God will let the culture of death play out and give me what I choose - a wretched death.

If you courageously choose the path of life, there will be rejection.  The cost of reversing the culture of death is right above and before us as we worship at Holy Mass today.

Rejection hurts.  But it can be flipped by faith into new life.

How do I handle rejection?