Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)
A mile or so from where I live in Rome is a street called Via dei Condotti; there you can find the stores of Armani, Tiffany’s, Gucci—the highest high-end designers. Sometimes I like to amuse myself by looking in the windows at the prices—a thousand dollars for a sweater, twelve hundred dollars for a necktie, twenty thousand dollars for a watch. Of course, many of the stores don’t list prices because if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. I’ve never gone inside any of these stores because they are usually guarded by a man with a shaved head, six inches taller than I am, with a black suit and a mouth that never smiles. In fact, I think they’ve had the facial muscles that allow you to smile surgically removed.
The owners of these stores would not be happy to read today’s Letter of St. James. James says: don’t favor a person with gold rings over a person in shabby clothes. Of course, sometimes shabby clothes are fashionable and expensive; having torn jeans means that you’re one of the cool kids. What’s in fashion always changes because it’s not based on anything real. A thousand dollar sweater won’t keep you any warmer than a thirty dollar sweater; a twenty thousand dollar Rollex tells the same time as my twenty dollar Timex. Fashions based on wealth, prestige, and the most up-to-date style are like the leaves that you see on the trees this September day; next month they’ll be a different color; a month after that, they’ll be gone.
Even though fashion and prestige aren’t based on anything true and lasting, they can be used to hurt people in some very real ways. I think of how hard it is for someone not to be one of the “cool kids” in middle school or high school. Adults are sometimes just as bad; I can remember from my time here on the reservation that sometimes people are looked down on for being “too Native”; other times they may be looked down on for “not being Native enough.” In either case, sometimes people can be treated quite unfairly.
Continue reading “Faithfully unfashionable: homily for the twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time”
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 