Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord.
When John the Baptist heard of the works of the Christ, he sent his disciples with this are you the one to come, or should we look for another?
Jesus said to them in reply, go and tell John what you hear and see.
The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised.
And the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.
As they were going off, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John.
What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind.
Then what did you go out to see?
Someone dressed in fine clothing.
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out to see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet, this is the one about whom it is written.
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you.
He will prepare your way before you.
Amen. I say to you, among those born of women, there has been none greater than John the Baptist.
Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the meals I enjoy the most, one that I eagerly look forward to, is a venison neck roast.
And here is how I prepare it.
I take the neck roast, salt and pepper, and a little bit of Lawry seasoned salt.
I dust it in flour, brown it on all sides.
Then I put it in a crock pot with the bottom covered with onion and carrot and celery.
Then add a little bit of beef stock, cover it up, put it on medium, and let it slowly cook for a minimum of eight, but even better, 10 hours.
And what happens when you do that is all of those connective tissues and things that are in a deer's neck, they melt, they break down, and all they do is add a ton of flavor to the meat and it comes out tender and juicy.
It comes out so tender, in fact, that if you needed to, you could pop your dentures out and still enjoy it. Fully contrast that with anything you have ever made in your life in a microwave oven.
Nothing, I repeat, nothing, ever comes out of a microwave tasting remotely good.
It is either piping hot on the inside and cold on the outside or dried out on the outside and raw on the inside.
About the only good use of a microwave, in my opinion, is to melt cheese.
And even that is about a 20 second success rate in between.
Yet I maybe do one, at the most, two venison necros every year, and I use the microwave oven probably six or seven times every week.
What that tells me is that we as human beings have a tendency to be, how should I say this? A bit impatient with things.
So we want instant results.
Now, we all know that those slow cooked meals are always better, they're always full of more flavor.
But we don't want to wait that long.
So we use the microwave well in our scriptures today, both in the gospel and how it lets us know that John the Baptist was truly proclaimed in the Old Testament, preparing the way of the Lord, something that took thousands of years to manifest, and in the Letter of James, where we recognize that the people were chomping at the bit for the Lord to return in glory a mere 50 years after his death.
Oftentimes, what we want, what we look for, is never as good as what we can get.
We want God to act immediately when we pray. We want instant results. And if we don't get them, the second we ask, we think God's not listening or God doesn't care.
But the reality of it is things that happen in God's time, eternal time, are always so much better than what we're looking for.
And perhaps that life lesson of the microwave versus the slow cooker or the crock pot would be pretty good at informing our lives in all kinds of ways, including our life of faith, to simply trust that when things happen in God's time, they are always better, they're always more powerful, they're always more full of grace.
And our ideas of a timeline usually aren't going to give us exactly what we're looking for.
