Hint: This homily is not about hummus

Homily for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily

“You’re grounded!”

Now there’s something no one wants to hear.

“Grounded!  Confined to quarters!  Go. To. Your. Room.

It’s the Time-Out Chair for you!”

On the other hand, if someone says,

“You know, I can see that you’re really a well-grounded person.”

Now that’s an altogether a different kind of “grounded.”

Strange, isn’t it? 

“Grounded!” can mean you’re punished  

- while “well-grounded” means you’re present to the moment,

at peace with things around you,            

you’re focused, centered, connected and balanced.   

None of us wants to be grounded

but all of us would love to be well-grounded.

Both uses refer to the ground:

 “Grounded” means you’re gonna stay right here, on this spot,

on this ground - until you’re free to go again.

 “Well-grounded” means you’ve got your two feet firmly planted,

steady and strong - right on the ground where they belong.

And actually, Jesus is talking about this in today’s gospel when he says,

 “Those of you who exalt yourselves, who pump yourselves up,

who pretend to be more than you are - you will be humbled.

And those of you who humble yourselves,

who accept yourselves for who you are, you will be exalted.”

And you might be wondering, where’s the “ground” in Jesus’ words?

Well, I’ll tell you!

Our word “humble” comes from the Latin root:  H-U-M-U-S.

Now that’s not HUMMUS, the tasty dip or spread

made from chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic.

No, H-U-M-U-S is pronounced: ˈhyü-məs

- and it’s the Latin word for SOIL, for the earth, the ground we walk on.

It might be helpful at this point to remember where we came from.

In the simplest of unscientific terms,

the creation story in the Book of Genesis tells us:

the LORD God formed humanity out of the dust of the ground

and blew into our nostrils the breath of life,

and we became living beings.  (Genesis 2:7)

So, to be grounded can mean being confined to one place on the ground,

not free to move about,

while to be well-grounded means

to know and accept your place - on the ground -

to be at home with where you are and who you are.

Those who exalt themselves: those who brag beyond their own reality,

who inflate the truth of who they are,

who build social and emotional platforms

to lift themselves above others,

these will be humbled, says Jesus, these will be “grounded,”

their fantasy deflated

and their standing among others - lowered.

Our beginnings were humble,

in the ancient imagination God created us

from the dust of the earth, from the ground, the soil: humus.

A humble beginning, indeed.

Our word humble comes from humus, the soil of the earth

and so does our word human.

What Jesus teaches us in the gospel today is this:

Don’t forget who you are - and who made you.

Don’t forget that you’re the creature, not the Creator.

Don’t forget where you came from.

Those who exalt themselves, then,

will be grounded, will be humbled

while those who understand and accept themselves

as belonging to God, these will finally be exalted, lifted up,

into arms and peace of God forever.

Understanding and accepting ourselves as God’s servants

is a good definition for humility.

(And now we have humble, human and humility,

all three rooted in the soil of humus.)

In other words,

those who exalt themselves now - will, in the end, be grounded

while those who ground their lives well in faith now

will be lifted up by God’s grace

and find the peace we all seek.

To put a practical edge on all of this, each of us might ask:

do I lead a life such that God might need to tell me,

“You’re grounded!”

- or am I seeking to be “well-grounded,”

present to the Lord in the moment;

working at being at peace

 (with him, with my circumstances and with those around me)

and learning to focus on, connect to and be balanced by

the grace of God in my life?

Jesus grounded himself in our human existence

by taking our flesh and blood and becoming one like us

in all things- except sin.

He humbled himself by being lifted up on the Cross

and accepting death,

so that we might be exalted, lifted up with him,

to life that has no end.

Jesus offers us at his table here what appears to be a humble meal:

a morsel of bread, the gift of his Body,

a sip from the cup, the gift of his Blood.

Pray with me that this humble meal

will ground us in God’s grace,

leaving us well-grounded in our lives of faith, exalting us,

lifting us up, even now, to the peace that Christ has won for us.

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