Podcast: 

homily20100221.mp3

In her classic children’s story, “The Veleveteen Rabbit,
 Margaret Williams tells the story of a stuffed rabbit
and the boy who received it as a Christmas gift.
It is a wonderful story that shares 
our common experiences of our own human life.
At first, the simple toy was snubbed by all the other, 
more expensive and sophisticated mechanical toys.
They flaunted their complexity and regarded themselves as real.
When the rabbit asked if being real means
having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle, 
the wise old toy, the Skin Horse replied.
“Real isn’t how you are made.  
It is something that happens to you.  
When a child loves you for a long, long time, 
not just play with you but really loves you 
then you become real.” 

 “Does it hurt?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit.  
“Sometimes” said the skin horse 
for he was always honest and truthful with his answers.  
“When you are real,” he said, 
“you don’t mind being hurt because you are loved.” 

“Does it happen all at once like being wound up” 
asked the Rabbit, “or does it happen bit by bit.”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the skin horse, 
“You become.  
It takes a long time.  
That is why it doesn’t happen to those 
who break easily, or who have sharp edges, 
or who have to be kept carefully.  
It doesn’t happen to those who are so fragile.  
Generally, by the time, you are real, 
most of your hair has been loved off 
and your eyes drop out 
and you get loose in your joints 
and all shabby and wobbly.
But these things don’t matter at all 
because once you are real, 
you cannot be ugly 
except to those people who don’t understand.  
And it doesn’t matter to the one who loves you.  
That is when you know you are real,” said the skin horse.

It is a beautiful story that shares 
a lot of common themes with our own lives.  
Each year, we set aside 40 days 
in a season that we call Lent.  
A season, if you would, that we get real with our own lives, 
to realize that the God who created us, 
the God who made us real in the flesh 
loves us through and through.  
It is a time for us to pause and reflect 
upon the true message of God
and to not be distracted by 
so many other mechanical and more complex things of our lives.
A time to remember the simple gift that God offers us is 
that he loves us through and through.

This season of Lent is an opportunity for us 
to choose to love others as Christ has chosen to love us, 
as God has proven in Christ to love us.  
In the first reading, we hear from Deuteronomy 
Moses is at the Jordan River and 
he will not enter the Promised Land 
but he gives instructions to his people, the Israelites,
to choose between life and death 
and he pleads with them to choose life, 
to choose to be faithful to God in all they do.  
You and I have that same choice here today.  
You and I have the choice to choose life 
and we choose life by loving others.  
We bring life to others by loving them.  
That is our role as Christians; 
that is our goal for Lent.  
That is our goal for a lifetime but we renew it in Lent.  
We promise to love as God has loved us. 

John of the Cross once said that 
“In the evening of our lives, 
we will be judged not by how well we have lived 
but by how well we have loved.”
This is the focus for our reflection for our Lenten journey, 
that we are called to reflect on how can we love better; 
how well do I love my spouse?  
How well do I love my children?  
How well do I love my siblings, 
my friends, my strangers and maybe even my enemies?  
And how would they know that I love them? 

I don’t want to say for a moment that it is easy to love.  
It is not.  It can be very, very difficult and it does hurt.  
And the Skin Horse is very right
—it does hurt, but we don’t mind hurting 
when we are loved and when we love others.  
Our goal this day as we hear in the gospel today 
is to avoid the temptations that Jesus avoided.
We, too, must avoid the temptations that we are given.  
They may be slightly different in nature; 
they may be slightly different from making stone into bread 
or some other mighty things Jesus did, but simple things:  
“Oh, don’t come to church on Sundays, just sleep in!”  
That is the voice of temptation we hear.  
“Oh, don’t do anything good for somebody else, 
just look after yourself first.”  
These are the temptations we hear.  
“Oh, don’t bother praying.  
That’s just a waste of time to a God you cannot see.” 

Instead as people of faith, we say, “No.”  
We choose life. 
We choose to believe in a God we cannot see.  
We choose to know and believe in our hearts 
we are loved by the one who created us and made us real.
So, we are called to recognize the love that God has for us
is the thing that makes us real
and we are called to pass that love onto others and make them real.  
So this first Sunday of Lent 
as we gather at this Eucharistic table here, 
we come to renew ourselves in Christ’s love for us. 
To renew ourselves in God’s love for us in Christ
by loving one another and 
by loving one another into new life.
By forgiving them when they hurt us,
by willing to serve them in their time of need.

Maybe it is a parent who is now sick in their old age,
maybe it is a sibling who is in need,
maybe it is our children who are still young
and we come to serve them in their neediness.
We come to love others
and very importantly, to allow them to love us
so that we can experience the same love and life that is real.
Yes, the story of The Velveteen Rabbit has a powerful message, 
a message echoed by the scripture readings today,
that God loves us into being real
and loves us no matter what.
We are real because we are loved by God.
His command to us is simple:
To love one another as he has loved us.
Today may we get real as we love one another.

1 - Inspired by illustration given by Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, “Celebration: An Ecumenical Worship Resource,” (Kansas City, Missouri: National Catholic Reporter Company, Inc., February 21, 2010).