Toto, We Aren't in Kansas Anymore

This past Sunday's Gospel has been on my heart and mind all week. It keeps coming up in conversation and on the blog as well as in real (non-virtual) life. When my brother and I accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior during the early days of the "Jesus Movement" we quickly alienated ourselves from friends and family through aggressive witnessing and a judgmental attitude in which I saw the world as "saved" and "unsaved." My older brother called us Jesus Freaks and sided with my parents against our new found expression of faith. My parents didn't understand our need to be saved, since they thought we were good Catholic kids playing guitar in the folk Mass, going to CCD etc. We didn't tell them for many years the bad stuff we were into including the occult and illegal substances so they didn't see the need for conversion that we so obviously did. I now, with the wisdom of age, can't blame them for their reaction since we weren't honest with them regarding our errant morality that we kept hidden from them. We thought we were being "persecuted for righteousness sake" but I don't think this was what Jesus was talking about. I believe it was our arrogance of how we promoted what we thought was the Gospel that caused division, and not the Gospel itself, at least on most days. (If you're reading this my big West Coast Wally , I'm sorry for being a judgmental little Beave)

As the years went by the youthful zeal settled down quite a bit. I still talked openly about the Lord with patients in my medical practice but the degree of hostility and alienation I experienced as well as possibly self-engendered had definitely settled down. By now America had weathered the Carter years and many celebrities were claiming a born-again experience, even, Bob Dylan I might add. Evangelical Christianity had become a powerful force in politics and no longer is considered counter-cultural as it had at one time perhaps 30 years ago.

Upon returning to the Catholic Church, my wife and I have once again experienced some of that divisiveness that Jesus predicted would occur. The difference now is that I am no longer asking people "are they saved" but simply being open about what it means to believe in Jesus as a Catholic Christian, which seems to ruffle feathers to no small degree. It is odd that as a born-again Christian I pretty much no longer received grief from people but now being Catholic and sharing that fact with others really creates some heat. What is most odd is that the heat has come from fellow believers in the household of God, and not from the outside. Early after my reversion I was performing at a Christian Coffeehouse that I had played at before. At the end of the night I made a joke about needing to go to confession because I now was Catholic. Some folks from the small audience started asking some questions and I ended the show with a spontaneous Q&A about Catholicism. It appeared friendly to me and I went my way after selling a few CD's. Two days later I received an e-mail from the Christian promoter chastising me because "Not only are you Catholic now but you had the nerve to tell the audience about it! I need to cancel your upcoming performance scheduled for October. When you decide you want to live for Jesus, we will be glad to talk to you." And with that as the first of many other e mails and gig cancellations, I realized that we were no longer in Kansas anymore. Christianity practiced correctly will always and should always remain counter-cultural. Living out devout Catholic lives will continue to cause discomfort and division as Jesus predicted. Let's pray it's not from our own arrogance and judgmental attitudes.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”