Nativity Catholic Church
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Make-Over Mayhem Every time I turn around…something or someone is being “made over”! A kitchen, an entry way, a front yard, an upper lip, a chin or tummy—all candidates for the current remodeling mania that’s grabbing everyone’s attention. Used to be that only the well heeled could afford to have anything made over, but with the advent of HGTV and programs like “Design On A Dime”—remaking the appearance of one’s home, apartment, or curbside appeal is within reach. However, despite programs like “The Swan,” reconfiguring body parts still carries a hefty price tag. I enjoy reading home décor magazines and dreaming about all the fabulous things that can be done to enhance a room or garden. Most of what I see, while causing me to salivate over the pages, is clearly beyond anything I could ever afford to do. Funny how these great magazines give us so many wonderful ideas and pictures—and where to purchase all this nifty stuff—but rarely, if ever, slap a price tag on the make-over. I suppose this piece of information would ruin the fantasy! However, with a keen eye and lots of imagination, my own “design on a dime” juices start bubbling, and I occasionally pull off some nice work. While paging through yet another décor magazine the other day, something like Bungalow Blues 9-1-1, I was taken by the vision and creativity of a young guy from Southern California who transformed a rat-and-termite infested two-bedroom home in El Segundo into a sweet little place. With little remodeling experience, Mike Rizzuto plunged into his dream project—to which his friends apparently said, “You’re nuts!” (or something similar). Mike, however, responded to his befuddled pals with a great comeback: “But I saw past what it was to what it could be!” What a great way of looking at things—and not merely bungalows in desperate need of remodeling. In a sense, isn’t this what we are called to do for each other as followers of Christ? Isn’t this what the Lord himself did for the many people whose lives were transformed by meeting him? Too often, we get stuck in the trap of judging and assessing one another simply based on what we see upon first sight. But much of our “seeing,” especially when we do not take the time and effort to really look, is dictated more by who we are rather than by the true person we are encountering. Our own issues and prejudices and life-struggles are often projected out from ourselves and onto the people we meet. Jesus, however, at least as the Gospels seem to portray him, and indeed, how we most likely have experienced his living presence in our own lives, has a regular habit of meeting people where they happen to be situated and then “seeing past” that situation or state in their lives to whom they could be—with a converted heart and renewed lifestyle. Jesus was able to draw people to conversion not because he threatened them or showered them with guilt for their poor choices and broken lives, but because he gently met them in the middle of the mess they were in—and then offered them a new vision, a new way of living and loving. Perhaps, using today’s delirium with remodeling, we might say that Jesus is the ultimate “make-over specialist.” But the significant difference between what we seemingly want to make-over—things like bathrooms, kitchens, cheeks and wrinkles—and what Jesus intends to make-over is that our concerns are primarily cosmetic. Jesus always aims for the heart and soul—below the surface—and desires to help us see beyond the surface, our own or that of others, and into the depths where God makes God’s home within us. The other beauty of our relationship with Christ is that while the work still demands lots of spiritual, emotional, and behavioral sweat-equity, as it is with any remodel, the “price” is within all of our reach. After all, a Messiah who offered his sacred body and blood on the cross, and won for us a way to the Father has already paid the first installment. Jesus Christ has paid the price, and now simply seeks a willing people who desire a new and more abundant life. Thankfully, the Lord not only invites us to look past what we see in ourselves and others to what we could be—but more importantly, Jesus gives us the tools, the power and grace that flow from Word and Sacrament, to dig into our own remodeling projects and join his brand of make-over mania!
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