Today as we allow Jesus to challenge us through the readings we just heard, I have two fairly different people on my mind–Bob Ross and Michael Jordan. I can remember many nights being mesmerized by the basketball feats of Michael Jordan as I watched him win championships with the Chicago Bulls. A different kind of awe struck me as I watched The Joy of Painting with my mom and listened to the soothing voice of Bob Ross come from our television screen as he painted beautiful landscapes. I would guess most of us who were around in the 80s and 90s are familiar with these two men. Both, as masters of their respective crafts, have certain things in common.
Consider Bob Ross for a minute. He came of age working in the Air Force, which brought him to the beautiful mountain vistas and clear streams and lakes of Fairbanks, Alaska. Surrounded by this natural beauty, Bob took up the study of painting through classes offered by the U.S.O. He continued to hone his skills through those classes until he encountered the painting technique of William Alexander, who popularized the wet-on-wet technique of oil painting that had been used previously by masters like Monet and Caravaggio. Bob Ross took an immediate liking to William Alexander, who had a painting show on public television from the mid 70s to the mid 80s. Bob became a student of Alexander and eventually perfected his technique. Bob Ross didn’t like the gruffness that the military instilled in people, so when he retired from the airforce and began his career as a painting instructor, he looked to bring a calming touch to his own painting instruction. His talent, along with his peaceable personality, caught the attention of Annette Kowalski, who helped Bob set up the promotional and business deal that led to his longtime PBS show, The Joy of Painting. Bob had learned at the feet of William Alexander and then worked together with a whole team of people to produce a show that millions came to love in the 80s and 90s. Behind the scenes, Bob was a stickler for the smallest details to make his show great–he even sanded his palette so that it wouldn’t give too much glare to the camera. Each episode actually involved three paintings, one that Bob already had painted which he used as a reference for himself during filming, the one he painted live on camera, and then a third which he spent time perfecting to have photographed and included in his books.
Now let’s look at the other master of a very different craft–Michael Jordan. Throughout his life as a basketball player, Michael Jordan showed an uncommon intensity and drive for perfection. This drove him to spend extra time practicing and was noticed by his coaches. When he was relegated to the Junior Varsity team at Laney High School, coach Pop Herring worked with him personally on drills every day. In addition, Michael found his early competitive drive playing against his older brother Larry on their driveway. Sometimes Michael’s mom, Delores, had to step in when things got too heated. But all this fueled Michael’s relentless drive for perfection, which eventually led to his legendary run with the Chicago Bulls. Along with teammates like Scottie Pippen, Tony Kukoc, Dennis Rodman and others, Michael Jordan won six NBA championships. When you saw Michael’s tongue start to roll out of his mouth in crucial moments in those championship runs, you knew you were about to witness something special. It was amazing to see how Michael put the team on his shoulders in crucial moments, but also how he relied on the skills and talents of the amazing athletes around him and the coaching skills of Phil Jackson to bring those teams to victory.
It’s easy for us to be inspired and even a bit awestruck at the skills of these two masters–Bob Ross and Michael Jordan. Each gave us glimpses of greatness. Today in the Gospel, the challenging words of Jesus call each of us to the profound adventure of the greatness of holiness. When listening to Jesus now, with the benefit of almost two thousand years of people looking to Jesus as Messiah, it’s easy to forget how jarring His words must have been to the original listeners, but Jesus was unafraid to boldly proclaim them. Over and over throughout His teaching today, Jesus uses the formula, “You have heard it said…but I say to you.” Here, Jesus does something seemingly crazy to His original listeners. He puts himself at the level of God.
Jesus quotes from the ten commandments: the fifth commandment forbidding killing and the sixth commandment against committing adultery, and then He adds new and deeper demands to these commandments, showing people that He Himself is a Divine Lawgiver. This would have been extremely hard for His listeners to accept, because as far as most of them could tell, Jesus was just the son of a carpenter who all of a sudden burst onto the scene and started doing incredible miracles and teaching as no other human teacher had done before. But as challenging as His teaching was, there was something about Him that moved their hearts, and many began to follow Him. We know that His teaching carries weight because we have the benefit of recognizing, with faith, that Jesus is our God and Savior, God made man who not only gives us the challenging call to have our hearts completely changed, but gives us the grace, His own power within us, to effect that change.
Ultimately, all of the challenges put forward to us by Jesus in today’s Gospel call us to that perfection of the love that God wants to grow within our hearts. They call us to the challenging adventure of growing in holiness, something that God desires for all of us. In God’s plan, we each have the grace available to us to become a saint, an ordinary person who lives an extraordinary life by God’s grace. When we look at the lives of the saints, we can see that they were masters of love in different ways. St. John Paul II, by his words and actions, beautifully taught people all over the world about God’s love and call to holiness. St. Maria Goretti was able to live out God’s call to holiness by resisting the young man who tried to violate her purity when she was just 11 years old. He hurt her so badly that she ended up dying, but not before she forgave him from her hospital bed. The man who attacked her, Allesandro Seranelli, eventually repented and lived a life of prayer after Maria Goretti appeared to him from Heaven in a dream.
These saints and many others were ordinary people like you and me. But they did extraordinary things because of God’s work in their lives. When we look at them, we can see comparisons with the masters of earthly talent that we considered before. I would argue that Michael Jordan, Bob Ross, and the saints achieved greatness by similar means. We can call them the three T’s: Teachers, Time, and a Team. Michael had wonderful teachers: his older brother and all of his coaches. He spent countless hours practicing and perfecting his skills. And finally, he had great teams that he could lean on and which helped him further develop. It was the same with Bob Ross. He learned from his teachers at the U.S.O. and from Willam Alexander. He spent years perfecting his painting before launching his T.V. show, continuing to devote countless hours to his craft when he was on T.V. And he relied on the skills and talents of his team as they together produced the show, The Joy of Painting. St. John Paul II had many great teachers, but above all he sat at the feet of Jesus the ultimate teacher. He spent a lot of time in prayer and study to become the great shepherd that he was as Pope. And St. John Paul II had great friends who helped him grow as a Christian. St. Maria Goretti also clearly knew the teaching of Jesus well. When the time came, she was able to forgive as Jesus did and to pray for her enemies. She must have spent a good amount of time, even as a child, praying and learning about her faith. And I’m sure that St. Maria benefitted from the example and teaching of her parents.
When we hear Jesus use extreme examples of plucking out eyes and chopping off hands to avoid sin, it should remind us of the seriousness of the challenge He is putting forth. Jesus’ call to holiness challenges each of us to a life not of mediocrity, but of greatness. Not a greatness based on ourselves, but on the greatness that God can build within us. When we lean on these three T’s in our own lives–Teachers, Time and Teams–I believe that we will start to see incredible things happening in and through us. I invite all of us to consider how well we are allowing our hearts to be formed by the Teacher: Jesus. Do we listen often to His words to us in Sacred Scripture to let them form our hearts and transform our worldview? Do we seek other teachers who can draw us closer to Him? Do we take Time for God in our lives: time for prayer, for listening to God and for service to others? Do we seek to be part of a community, a Team that will help us grow toward becoming the saints God knows we can be? Let’s pray that the challenge of Jesus’ words today will spur us on to engage in the adventure of holiness that He calls us to as members of His body, the Church.
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to save us from the error and harm of sin in our hearts. Lord Jesus, give us deeper trust in the power of Your grace within that can form us into saints. Holy Spirit, help us not to be afraid of the serious steps You invite us to take in order to more deeply live in Your holiness. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +