What Is Worth Boasting About?
Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR
Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year A
St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN
Sunday, January 29, 2023
When you look around you and listen to people talk, what do you hear? A lot of boasting and bragging! In one on one conversation, people brag and boast. In a live television interview, they boast. In the work environment, they boast. In meetings, conferences, conventions, retreats, and even in religious gatherings, they boast and brag. In bars, on dates, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media, they brag and pump their chests. Bragging has become part of our daily life just as brushing your teeth, taking a shower and dressing up. We boast about the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and even boast about our ability not to boast while we are boasting and bragging. While we can talk about certain things about us for informational and educational purposes, many other things we boast about should be talked about a little less. What are the things we brag about? Some men brag about how much alcohol they can drink. They boast about the number of bottles of beer they can consume in one sitting. Men, listen to me! Do you know the point you are making when you brag about how much you can drink? You are basically saying, “I can destroy my body way faster than anybody and the best part is that I will barely remember doing it.” People also brag about restaurants they have eaten at. Who cares! I can make my own meal, a healthy meal and at least know what I am putting in it. Some young men boast about their athletic prowess. Hear this now: if you are not a professional sports player, your athletic prowess has little value. Maybe, some girls and ladies may admire you and want you, but generally speaking, it does not add more worth to your existence. And by the way, in a few years from now, all those six or nine packs will disappear and you will be struggling to keep your belly flat. Some people, worldly people boast about how many sexual partners they have had. Men and women who engage in this kind of boasting are simply telling their listeners that they are loose street dogs who are unable to control their sexual appetites. What they are communicating to their listeners is, “Hey guys, I don’t have self-control,” which is a very vital virtue and quality to possess. They are saying that they are not in control of their lives. They are saying that they are not reliable and trustworthy. We also have some people who boast about how much worse off their exes are now without them. Really? If your former girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife is not doing well in life, if the men or women they later married are less accomplished than you, who said you are not partly responsible for what they have become? People boast about how much they know. They brag about the school they attended. Great! It is good to know and to be a nerd. But do you have integrity? Are you a virtuous person? Does all your knowledge lead you to the Logos of God? Does it lead you to the Truth, Jesus Christ the Lord? Does everything you know take you to the direction of God who is the Source of all knowledge? If it does not, then you haven’t known what exceedingly matters the most. All true and reliable knowledge must lead us to the indispensable God, the creator of all things.
What other things do we boast about? Oh! We love to boast about fights we have won. That’s good! From time to time, we fight for what we believe. We fight for our values. We fight to protect our existence. We fight for our family. We fight for the nation. We fight to retain our jobs and be promoted. And the more we fight and win, the more our ego is inflated and the more we are tempted to brag about it. But brothers and sisters, don’t spend a minute bragging about fights you won. Don’t forget that the most important fight is not physical. It is not carnal. It is spiritual. In 2 Corinthians 10:3-4, St. Paul says, “Although we are in the flesh, do not battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our battle are not of flesh, but enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses.” People also brag about their personal success in life and the successes of their family members. I always maintain that it is good to be successful. Be successful in your job, in your career, in your businesses, in your family etc. But don’t forget that the greater success, the most important success is making heaven. We also brag about the success of our favorite sports team; we brag about being successful parents, about our nation or ethnicity. We brag about our jobs, our wealth, and the power we wield. A lot of women brag about their looks, how beautiful they are, the number of men making advances at them, the length of their hair, their designer clothes, shoes, jewelries and where they buy them.
Sisters and brothers, you might be thinking, “well, if no one notices me, if no one commends me, if no one celebrates me, I will do it myself.” But when you do that, you become the proverbial lizard that fell from a tree, and upon realizing that no one was praising him, decides to praise himself. As people of faith, does it mean that we should not boast at all? What does the Bible say about boasting? In our today’s second reading (1 Cor. 1:26-31), St. Paul says, “Whoever wants to boast, should boast in the Lord.” Christianity, I continue to maintain, turns the values of this world upside down. What we consider very significant may not be so for God. What we think is the greatest value, the greatest treasure, before God might be utter rubbish. Our boast should not be based on the amount of wealth, power, honor and pleasure that we have. Our boast is in the Lord. Do you want to boast? Boast in the Lord! Boasting about the things of this world is meaningless and foolish. How come? Because they don’t last, and we don’t take them to eternity. It is not surprising that at the very heart of each of the beatitudes is the virtue of humility. Humility is seeing God as the only true and indispensable good and treasure. It also involves seeing others as your equal and treating them as God would treat them. How does God treat us? He treats us with love! Be humble, everybody! In today’s first reading (Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13), we are told that it is the humble that takes refuge in the Lord. No one can find true, lasting and reliable refuge outside the true and living God. So, if God is your only true and indispensable value and treasure in life, you are a candidate for heaven.
