Yeah but no but yeah but no...

Homily preached at Eltham College, 29th January 2009.

Why is it that all the nice foods
are supposed to be bad for us?

You don’t see people
coming out of the BP garage
with a bag of celery,
a regular cabbage shake
and a bucket of pop-corn style
Brussels sprouts, do you?

Sales of Krispy Kreme doughnuts
made with lentils and chickpea sprinkles
would not raise a great deal of money
for the charities supported by the school.


Or should the question really be:
why is it that we prefer food that tastes nice,
to the food that we know is good for us?

If we are truly intelligent human beings,
then we ought to be going with what we know
rather than what our stomach tells us.

We tend to contradict ourselves.


But this isn’t the only area of our lives
in which we live in contradiction.


Why are we the owners
of a vast number of entertainment systems,
video games,
DVD players, et c.

and yet still find ourselves
the most bored people on the planet,
while Iraqi children have hours
of genuine amusement
playing together with a few stones?


What are the other ways
in which we contradict ourselves?


[PAUSE]

Bill and Sid are at a party
and a Rachel Stevens look-a-like walks past,
causing Bill and Sid’s eyes to pop out
like organ stops.

Bill turns to Sid,
and, after the usual comments
about her appearance,
Sid intimates that he would not mind
going out with her.

Bill asks “well, blud,
you gonna aks her out?”

Of course Sid replies,
“no, bro, I wanna be cool.”

“So you ain’t gonna aks her out?”

“No!”

“So how’s she gonna become your woman,
bro, if you don’t aks her out?”

“Is ’cos I’s cool.”

“Yeah but no but yeah but no but
if she tinks you’s cool,
then she’s like
he’s got a woman already, man.”

“Yeah but I ain’t got no woman.”

“But she don know that, bro.

You gotta aks her out.”

“yeah, but then she’ll know I ain’t cool,
and she’s like
no way, you ain’t comin near me.

You see man?”

“Yeah,” says Bill, “skeen!”

[PAUSE]

In case you’re not street,
like me,
Sid finds that he can’t ask the lady out
because that would show that he isn’t cool.

However,
cool guys have already got girlfriends
so she will never know that
Sid wants to go out with her unless
he asks her.

Got it?


With attitudes like that,
it’s hard to understand how any adolescent male
attracts a member of the opposite sex.

It’s a contradiction
that perhaps many of you will have wrestled with,
not that you’d admit it.


Our experience is full of contradictions.

Our language contradicts itself:
why is it that our legs are the only things
with a bottom at the top?

Our politics contradicts itself:
we have to spend more money
in order to save money.

Christianity contradicts itself:
God is Three and God is One,
perfect Trinity in perfect Unity.

Even the Bible contradicts itself.

The second book of Samuel,
chapter 24 verse 1 states:

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel,
and He incited David against them,
saying,
"Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."

Compare that with
the very same event described
in the twenty-first chapter
of the first book of Chronicles.

“Satan rose up against Israel
and incited David to take a census of Israel.”

So who put the idea of a census
into King David’s head?

God or Satan?

How are we to cope
with the contradictions all around us?

[PAUSE]

Well, contradictions don’t usually hurt us.

You don’t make a mathematician’s head explode
just by saying
“This statement is false.”

Admittedly,
contradictions do confuse us,
make us feel uncomfortable,
cause us to lose sleep.

However,
a good contradiction provides human beings
with an opportunity to see a deeper truth
or to accept a challenge into finding out
what’s really happening.


A mathematical contradiction
tells us a great deal about our assumptions
and our methods of reasoning,
but there is usually some form of resolution
achieved by thinking carefully
about what is really meant



For Sid,
he must look at his situation more carefully.

Why does he need
to be cool in the first place?

Isn’t his idea of what is cool
an obstacle to going out
with the woman of his dreams?

Or perhaps,
he is using the idea of cool
to hide the fact that deep down
he is actually terrified of rejection.

If that’s the case,
then he should ask himself,
(or aks himself)
what he will honestly lose if she says no?


If a leg has the bottom at the top,
then doesn’t this motivate us to ask
why our posterior is called a bottom
in the first place?


The fact that God is both
Trinity and a Unity
points to God’s uniqueness in Reality.




The fact that the Bible contradicts itself
points to contradictions
that lie within every single human being.

Many Christians believe that the Bible is true
in what it intends to teach us, and it is this intention that we have to work out.

We can deepen our Faith
by entering into the Mystery
of what we truly believe in.

[PAUSE]

Contradictions provide that opening,
and confusion becomes the sign
that we are beginning to understand,
if we put in the effort.


Resolving a contradiction takes patience,
effort and the ability to live contentedly
with confusion
until the clouds that obscure our view
are lifted.



Of course,
there are ways of tackling a contradiction
that are foolish, and deeply damaging.

We only have to look at the situation in Gaza
to see an obscene contradiction:
that of trying to build peace through war.

How many other human beings
have made the same mistake?

[PAUSE]

There are times in which,
as St Paul himself says,
we don’t do the good things we want to do,
but instead do the evil things we don’t want to do.

For Christians,
we have to trust God to bring about
the transformation of our actions.

Contradictions will always
be with each one of us,
and it is in looking at them
that we find out more about ourselves
and the people we are growing to be?

If we are trying to be understood by others,
then we must first try to understand ourselves,
so that our contradiction doesn’t become
another’s confusion.


Where are the contradictions in the way
that you live your life?

How are you going to use them?