Does God View You as Gross?
Ask any kid at Stella Maris Academy’s St. James campus what Father Rich’s least favorite word is and they will all know: awesome. I cannot stand that word, pretty much because it is used way too often. I am sorry, but that ice cream cone you had yesterday was not awesome, that football game was not awesome and your kid’s violin playing is not awesome. If everything is awesome then nothing is awesome. In my experience, the people who are most guilty of overusing that word are youth ministers. Next time you listen to a youth minister give a talk, count how many times they use that dreadful word.
Ask any kid at Stella Maris Academy’s St. James campus what Father Rich’s least favorite word is and they will all know: awesome. I cannot stand that word, pretty much because it is used way too often. I am sorry, but that ice cream cone you had yesterday was not awesome, that football game was not awesome and your kid’s violin playing is not awesome. If everything is awesome then nothing is awesome. In my experience, the people who are most guilty of overusing that word are youth ministers. Next time you listen to a youth minister give a talk, count how many times they use that dreadful word.
God is awesome; Johnny Cash is awesome but not much else is, so please stop using that word so much. Another word that is overused, which I am guilty of, is the word “gross.” I suppose the reason is that there are so many gross and disgusting things in the world. For example, imagine going to a stranger’s house and cleaning the plug of their bathroom sink with your bare hands, or cleaning between their toes with your own finger; that would be pretty gross too. There are a lot of gross things out there.
Believe it or not, Jesus calls many people gross in the Gospel of Matthew; specifically their hearts, but he is quoting the prophet Isaiah when he says, “Gross is the heart of this people …” (Mt 13:15) But gross here is not exactly the way we use it today; Isaiah was written in ancient biblical Hebrew and the root meaning of the word “gross” in biblical Hebrew actually means fat. Fat not in the obese sense of the word, but thick; thick-skulled. And not only thick-skulled but willfully thick-skulled, like “willful, culpable ignorance,” something Archbishop Schnurr used to say to me often when it came to my cooking.
In the context in which Jesus calls the people’s hearts gross, He is talking about their willful ignorance of God’s word and message. Here is more of the quote used by Jesus but originally in Isaiah, “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes …” (Mt 13:15)
We all have people in our lives we know and love who do not give a rat’s rear about God, His word or His Church and don’t even want anything to do with God. Those are the people the prophet Isaiah was talking about. Those people are literally gross, maybe even in more than one way… But do not take offense at my saying that, because Christ said it too.
Do not ever be willfully, culpably ignorant when it comes to God and His word; don’t ever be gross in the eyes of God. That would be a terrible thing. Do not stop praying for your loved ones who appear gross in God’s eyes.
Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. James and St. Elizabeth in Duluth.
