Familiarity Breeds Contempt

A prophet is not without honor,

except in his own native place among his own kin.

I am sure you have heard of Jane Goodall.

She was the renowned primatologist and anthropologist,

and she became famous for her work among chimpanzees.

But earlier in her life, she always had a fascination and love

for animals in their native environment

and loved to spend time in that environment.

She went on this experimental trip to Tanzania

and lived among the chimpanzees,

observed them and noted their every movement.

It was, at that time, rather revolutionary.

The methodology was not highly thought of.

In fact, back in her homeland, she was nobody;

no one thought she was anybody.

Her methodology was unorthodox and unapproved.

And she had no formal credentials, no formal training.

So all the people in the system rejected her initial findings.

But Jane Goodall persisted in her vision of observation

in the native environment of the chimpanzees.

And indeed then from there, the anthropologies of humans;

she went on to be world famous.

There were even movies made about her work.

It is a stunning movie about Jane Goodall.

It was well acted by Siguorney Weaver; it was beautiful movie.

The point is that she was rejected by her own kin.

It sounds so familiar to what we hear in today's gospel

when Jesus returned to his own land.

Remember, here is Jesus,

who has now for several years been wandering around Galilee

healing people and preaching people

and working miracles that have astounded people.

Then he comes to his hometown of Nazareth and they reject him.

They do not recognize them.

This brings me to that phrase that you have often heard.

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”

We become so familiar with somebody

that we think nothing can be any good there.

I do not think it is only in Jane Goodall's time

or in Jesus' time that this happens.

This happens in our own world

as we too tend to get familiar with our own surroundings,

and we take things for granted.

We may not have contempt in the open sense,

but we certainly become complacent

and we take for granted the gifts that are around us.  

Like inside our own household, for example.

We can  forget how wonderful our spouse can be.

After all they put up with us!

We may not think we are that difficult,

but we might want to ask a few people.

We do take things for granted.

It is not that we are necessarily difficult per se,

but we could definitely be a challenge.

But more importantly, when you are the spouse,

just the ordinary day to day is one thing,

but when something else goes wrong

and you are in need of help,  

if you get sick, that that takes you to another level.

It is usually only at those moments

we tend to appreciate how much they do for us

because we are not able to do it for ourselves.

But why wait until we are sick

to appreciate the very gift around us?

This is also true for our parents.

For the young people among us,

we tend to take our parents for granted.

I know I did when I was a teenager

and it was only later on I realized how much that they had put out,

how much they had sacrificed for me

and how much they were really being witness,

being disciples in my own life.

It is important for us to not let familiarity dull our senses

so that we do not see well.

And  that is what we are called to, in a sense,

to open the eyes of our heart once more

and to see with fresh eyes,

to see where we have blessings around us,

where we have people who are surrounding us or loving us,

who are showing us the way to be a disciple.

I do not think it is only in the family home.

It is in a wider community like this.

If we watch the television,

we would think there is no good news anywhere.

That is what they sell.

It is all bad news.

That is what sells, unfortunately.

Because that has what we call clickbait value.

They just want people to click on that

because that is what they will sell.

Advertisements will attract attention.

But our world is full of goodness.

And our community around here,

in particular, is full of extraordinary goodness.

It is ordinary goodness that makes it extraordinary

because of the fidelity with which we do it

and continuously do it.

There are many examples in entire community.

I can think of several that I am sure you could add to them.

But let me just mention a few.

There is one woman in our community who is retired

from “the ministry to the hospital ministry”,

but still goes down there.

She probably occasionally needs to go into the hospital herself,

but she is still serving and going there

and bringing communion to the many people in the hospital.

Along with a whole flurry of other volunteers

who faithfully bring back news of different patients

and saying they might need this or that.

And then we as priests go and add to that.

Faithfully doing it year after year.

Again, with no notoriety, just the ordinary presence of care

in our community to people in their time of need.

Or I think of the many St. Vincent de Paul people.

For example, Mike is always, getting those boxes

filled with lots of donations.

And somebody picks that stuff up,

somebody takes that it and brings it over to the shed.

And another group of people take it from there

and get it to the people in need.

All again, in the shadows.

Nobody sees who they are,

faithfully been doing it for years on end.

The challenge I worry about is

since they have been doing it so quietly,

we will need some younger people to take over

because they can not keep going.

Eventually we need to find some more people who are younger,

who will take over some of these ministries,

these quiet hidden ministries that are producing so much good.

This endless work that happens with Nancy and Patty

over at the rummage sale; we need to thank them

for how much they have been doing endlessly year after year.

Again, we need more volunteers to put on this rummage sale,

which is doing such great good for so many in the community.

You could add probably another 10 or more ministries.

Right now we have those down in Tijuana.

There are 25 from our Parish,

but there are 60 people who are down there

already working in the community.

Like Joan Mibach who has spent

weeks and months preparing for this.

Again, in the background.

Nobody ever knows what Joan does,

that is one of her great ministries.

She spends a whole lot of time down

there working in this heat.

What a great witness, what an ordinary task

that has been turned into the extraordinary

because of the faithfulness and the love

and the compassion with which they do this ministry.

It is important that we look around again

to see what is extraordinary around us.

What are the gifts that are here now

so that our familiarity does not breed contempt,

but in fact, we open our eyes and are grateful

for what is around you.

The prophet Ezekiel and Jesus

were experiencing that because of the familiarity,

they were not taken seriously.

They were not noticed.

Let us not fall into that.

Let us open our eyes and see what is among us

and see if we can participate.

At least recognize them for the gifts that are here,

that are the ordinary being turned into extraordinary.

That we can be grateful for the gift among us

and be part of it, maybe to be willing to step in

 and to help in some way.

Whether it be the Rummage sale,

St. Vincent de Paul, Tijuana, visiting the sick

or any of the other multitude of ministries that we have.

This is what we are called to.

This is what brings the gospel alive.

And what brings the Eucharist alive is

that we put into action what we hear.

A prophet is not without honor

in his own native place,

Among his own kin.

But let us not have our familiarity breed contempt,

but rather bring blessings and joy.

Let us look with fresh eyes and see again.

A prophet is not without honor,

except in his own native place among his own kin.