The 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 13, 2010
10 AM and 5:30 PM Liturgies
I once had a Grandfather who used to say with some
frequency:
face.”
“Some things in life are as plain as the nose on your
I always presumed it was an old Irish saying he brought
over with him from the old sod.
used to work here, might say.
your face.”
It’s something Frank Ford, who
“Father, it’s as plain as the nose on
I thought about both of them today.
Two of today’s readings are, indeed, as plain as your nose.
We often think of David only as the great king.
Or we think of him
slaying Goliath and being immortalized by Michelangelo in that
stunning block of marble in Firenze.
Or we sing David’s psalms
with him on a daily basis and remember him as a musician and
poet.
The great King David, the one from whom Jesus
descends--remember all the hymns at Christmastime?
Now read again this section from 2 Samuel.
“David did what
displeased the Lord…”
That’s blunt enough!
David, in reality,
was quite a schmuck!
He lusted after Bathsheba, had her lawful
husband led to the slaughter, and then married her—outside the
law.
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Finally Nathan, the prophet, accuses him before God and
only then does David repent.
But David can’t seem to really see
himself until Nathan points it out.
He just doesn’t see it–himself!
Then there is today’s gospel.
This is the infamous “woman
in the city” who is a sinner, Luke tells us.
she really did for a living?
Luke is just being polite.
known one at that!
What do you suppose
Everyone kind of agrees on this point;
She is a prostitute—and a rather well
A “woman of the night,” a card-carrying
member of “the world’s oldest profession.”
But what becomes so clear—dare I say as clear as your
nose—is that, along the way, she has also learned to love greatly.
Lots of mistakes it sounds like, but nonetheless, always moving in
the right direction.
Always reaching out for love., trying to love,
but looking in a lot of wrong places.
that others seem to miss.
She finally sees something
And Jesus says:
precisely because she
has sinned much, it just means there is that much more to be
forgiven.
him!
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And God loves to forgive!
But she does see it, sees
The point of both readings is rather plain.
Trying to be good
all the time, trying to be right all the time, doesn’t seem to carry
much weight with Jesus.
Trying to love, trying to be generous
with your affections and in your actions, and being able to say I’m
sorry, and see yourself honestly, seems to carry the day.
But there is a problem.
We humans have a hard time
sometimes even seeing the obvious, let alone trusting it.
There is
a marvelous social science experiment (now quite famous thanks
to the Internet).
It was first described as part of a doctoral
dissertation in cognitive psychology in 1999 (Chabris & Simmons).
The experiment is called “The Invisible Gorilla.”
There is a video tape of six people who are divided into two
teams passing basketballs (click here to watch the video.)
team wears white shirts; the other black.
The test is to count the
number of times the white team passes the ball.
tape plays for a little over a minute.
One
Simple.
The
Into the middle of the
basketball game walks a woman dressed from head-to-toe in a
gorilla outfit.
She slowly walks into the middle of the frame,
pounds her chest a bit, and walks off camera.
for about seven seconds.
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She is fully visible
Now come the experiment questions.
First, of course, the
subjects are asked how many passes the white team received.
The answer is actually 15, but the question is quite irrelevant.
Next the subjects are asked if they saw anything unusual in the
video.
About half of all people watching the video say no.
When
asked if they saw anyone unusual on the tape, again, about half say
no.
Fully half of all the people who watch, do not see the gorilla.
Literally do not see her.
The experiment is actually about brain
functioning; it illustrates the notion of selective attention or what
is sometimes called “in-attentional blindness.”
The experiment has now been run on groups of all ages, both
genders, on all continents, controlled for people with varying IQ
scores, visual acuity differentials, etc.
You get the idea:
this
experiment has been replicated scientifically thousands of times.
It says something very real about us all (or at least half of us all the
time).
We don’t see things we are not looking for.
We have David today who can’t seem to see even himself.
And we have two other people in today’s gospel story:
Pharisee, seems a good man.
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Simon, the
In fact, he spends perhaps too much
time trying to be a good man.
He is completely dis-edified by
harlots and various other sinners.
complicating his landscape.
There are no gorillas
Life is black and white and the game
of basketball is serious.
Then we have a nameless weeping woman whose attempts at
real love finally pay off big time.
gorilla.
For her, there is nothing but
She finally sees what everybody else has been looking at
all this time–and could not see.
And I hear my Grandfather’s voice again:
as plain as the nose on your face.”
It can be tricky.
the gospels.
you hear.
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“Some things are
But then there are the gorillas.
Be very careful about what you think you see in
And be very careful about the invitation you think
There are gorillas in the mist.