Homily on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost
As some of you may know I have been working in the waste industry since January this year, operating domestic garbage trucks or in other words; collecting the wheelie bins! It is an honest job and I like talking to people as I empty their bins and watching the children lose their little minds with excitement as I take the rubbish.
Most people are extremely friendly, some even bring out cans of Coca-Cola or even beer to say thank you. A while back this little boy greeted me with his mum to give me a bag of lollies with a sticky note that read - “Thank you for doing the bins. Happy and safe lockdown”.
It gives me so much hope in humanity when you come across such kindness amongst people - it is truly a wonderful experience.
Unfortunately, where there is good there is also bad. On Friday one of my co-workers was going about her work when a car came speeding past and stopped in front of her truck. A lady came out of the car in an aggressive manner and began to yell at my co-worker.
The lady said - “hey you! You must come back to my house I have more rubbish for you to take!” To which my co-worker replied - “I'm sorry but the council only allow us to take one bin and that’s it, if you have more you must contact them.”
The lady kept on insisting that my co-worker go back to her house to collect the rubbish saying - “now you listen here. I demand you come to my house and collect the rubbish that is your job or I will call the council and they will make you come back!” So, my co-worker said - “well go ahead, call the council they will tell you the same thing!”
Therefore, what this sneaky lady did was, she told the council that my co-worker spilled rubbish all over the nature strip and road. As we all know in all businesses “The customer is always right” so they made my co-worker go back to pick up the extra rubbish.
Thus, it wasn’t about the extra rubbish or having to go back to the house that is the issue here. It is how my co-worker was treated and spoken to because she collects rubbish for a living; like garbage collectors are scumbags!
In addition, about a month ago I was confronted by this old lady - again in an aggressive manner, she came to my window and said - “hey man, last week you forgot to take my bin. This is not acceptable, now you make sure this never happens again do you understand me, because next time there will be trouble!”
Now may I say if this old lady had seen me at Church, dressed as a priest conducting myself as a priest does, I can tell you 150,000% this lady would have been all over me like a fly around you know what!
It is not right that people are judged by others by what their occupation is, how they dress, what they look like, what their inclinations are and so forth! At the end of the day, we are all children of the Almighty or we are not! We are all equal in the eyes of God no matter who we are; king what's his name or jobless what's his face!
Thus, you would think after the year we have all had, people would come out the other end much kinder to their fellow neighbour; apparently not! Lockdown has made some worse than before. Going back to that old lady - she’s probably so bitter because her family doesn't go to see her; but then who would want to visit such a bitter person anyway!
Unfortunately, that’s the reason why some of the older generations have been forgotten, they resent others because the younger generations are doing all the things they wished they could have done in their youth. Therefore, that causes them to become bitter and resent others using them as their personal punching bag so to speak.
Furthermore, with such people who are set in their own ways, there is no convincing them otherwise, so the best thing to do is walk away. It sounds harsh and crude but sometimes the battle isn't worth fighting despite what the over religious bigots and pious people may say!
The only thing that we can do is to ask God to deal with such people and perhaps pray for them. Sometimes praying for a person who has treated you badly is extremely hard: believe me I’m a priest and it's very hard for me at times for example!
There is a certain family that I know that hurt me and my family many years ago and for a long time I couldn't bring myself to pray for them or to hope good for them; I just cancelled them out and forgot they even existed.
However, once you begin to let go of past hurts and live in All-Holy-Trinity you can begin to pray for such people wholeheartedly. That is exactly what happened with me, one night after my ordination to the priesthood I offered the Liturgy of the Proscomidia (preparation service/bread and wine) before the Divine Liturgy and without even thinking about it I broke portions of bread for that family that hurt me all those years ago; and did it spontaneously without premeditation.
Therefore, I believe that in order for healing to take place we need ample time to deal with the hurt, we need to live out our faith in Christ daily without becoming over religious and partake of the Lord’s supper as often as possible. For it is only through the Divine Mysteries/Holy Communion that our hearts of stone may soften and align themselves with the heart of God in order for the love to shine through us onto others.
Through the prayers of the Holy Theotokos and Her spouse Joseph, Lord Jesus Christ our God have mercy on us and save us!
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