Michael Banks is faced with a dilemma. His father George wants him to invest his tu’ppence
in the Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbes Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. Michael just wants to use his tu’ppence to
feed the birds. His father and the bank
directors assure him that that if he invests his tu’ppence in the bank, he’ll “achieve
that sense of conquest as his affluence expands.”[1] But just the night before, Mary Poppins had sung
the words of the Bird Woman who sells bread crumbs on the steps of Saint Paul’s: “Come feed the little birds, show them you
care and you’ll be glad if you do.”[2] Michael’s dilemma boils down to one
thing. It’s all about love, and that’s the
message of today’s readings.
Our readings this
morning call us to give special attention to the poor and powerless among us. They call us to love. In our first reading and in our Gospel, we’re
introduced to the selfless widows who generously share all they have for the
benefit of others. And our second
reading from Hebrews reminds us of God’s ultimate act of love: Christ’s self-sacrifice on the cross to take
away our sins once for all. These
readings are all about love, and they challenge us to ask ourselves, “Whom do
we love more, God or ourselves?”
The answer to that question
turns on our deepest convictions, on what we truly believe. Our psalm this morning defines “God’s love “in
terms of ‘justice for the oppressed’ . . ., ‘food for the hungry’ and ‘setting
captives free.’”[3] So believing in God isn’t so much an intellectual
pursuit as it is moral action. “When a man
once asked the English Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins what he must do in order
to believe, Hopkins replied, ‘Give alms.’”[4] So if we want to abide in God’s love, we have
to attune ourselves to the needs of others.
If we truly love God, we have to truly, selflessly love our neighbor.
It’s not always easy to
focus our attention on the needs of others. We “dream of walking with giants, to carve our
niche in the edifice of time.”[5] Like the scribes, we tend to “gravitate
toward anything that makes [us] the center.”[6]
Then, like the Banks family we get so caught
up in ourselves and our own happiness and security that we give little thought to
the needs of others. We do this out of insecurity,
fear and a lack of trust. To give
selflessly, we really have to trust
that God will keep his promise of eternal happiness and that true happiness is
found in loving God and neighbor. Many
of us, myself included, aren’t quite there yet. So we spend our lives looking out for number
one, guarding our financial and social status and worrying about what may lie
ahead. Sure, we donate to charity, we
participate in charitable activities, but when we do these things, do we really
put our self-interest aside and act solely for the benefit of others? Do we selflessly love God and neighbor?
Sadly, there’s almost always something we hold back. It’s sad because “if we put all that we have
and are at [God’s] disposal, he can do things with it and with us that are
beyond our imaginings.”[7]
He can make us truly happy now and for
all eternity. Only one word can describe
the joy we’ll experience if we give ourselves fully to God and neighbor – the biggest
word you’ve ever heard and this is how it goes:
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
So how do we get there? Complete self-giving sounds like a pretty
tall order. Well, “[l]ike the widow,
Christ is our model of faith, trust and complete giving of self for others.”[8] And Jesus taught us that “his yoke is easy
and his burden is light.” (Matthew
11:30) He might even say that “with
every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and *snap* the job’s a game.”[9] That’s because following Christ isn’t a
matter of suffering grand gestures; we don’t have to bankrupt ourselves, donate
everything to the poor and live a mendicant life in the streets to love God and
neighbor. As a certain “practically
perfect in every way” nanny once said, “Sometimes a little thing can be quite
important.”[10]
† We love God and neighbor selflessly when we lace our
advice and direction with a spoonful of sugar instead of brimstone and treacle;
† We love God and
neighbor selflessly when we achieve a sense of conquest by investing our time,
talent and treasure in the well-being of others;
† We love God and neighbor selflessly when we take a
moment from our busy day to teach a little child how to fly a kite;
† And yes, we love God
and neighbor selflessly, when we give our tu’ppence to the little old Bird
Woman and feed the birds.
Trust me, you’ll be glad if you do because in the end, it’s all about
love.
Now, if you want to find out what happens with Michael Banks’ tu’ppence, you’ll have to come see today’s performance of Mary Poppins at 1:30 in the Immaculate Conception School Multi-Purpose Room. But I will share with you a story told by Robert Sherman. While he and his brother Richard were composing the music and lyrics for the 1964 motion picture Mary Poppins, they spent a lot of time pouring over the Mary Poppins books written by P.L. Travers. As they read through a chapter in the first book called “The Bird Woman,” they realized that this chapter was the metaphor for why Mary came to 17 Cherry Tree Lane in the first place – to teach the Banks family the value of charity; to teach them how to love. After they wrote “Feed the Birds,” they took it up to Walt Disney’s office and sang it for him. “[Disney] leaned back in his chair, looking out the window, and he said: ‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what this is all about.’”[11] It’s all about love.
[1]
“Fidelity Fiduciary Bank,” Mary Poppins,
Robert Stevenson, dir., Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 2004.
[2]
“Feed the Birds,” Mary Poppins.
[3]
Biagio Mazza, “Authentic Discipleship,” National
Catholic Reporter, vol. 52, no. 11 (October 23-November 5, 2015) at 27.
[4]
Robert Barron, “Lent Day 1 – Judged According to Love,” Lent Reflections with Fr. Robert Barron (March 5, 2015).
[5]
“A Man has Dreams,” Mary Poppins.
[6]
John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the
Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers:
Eating with the Bridegroom, Mark Year B (Collegeville, Liturgical
Press, 2005) at 265.
[7]
William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark
(Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) at 353.
[8]
Mazza at 27.
[9]
“A Spoonful of Sugar,” Mary Poppins.
[10]
Mary Poppins.
[11]
Tony Brown, “Finding ‘Mary Poppins’ from Book to Movie to Stage: Follow ‘Feed
the Birds,’” The Plain Dealer (July
11, 2009), http://www.cleveland.com/onstage/index.ssf/2009/07/finding_mary_poppins_from_book.html.
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