what is this gospel thing, and where do I get one?

     "You're missing the point."
     That's what I should have said.  But I was caught off guard by the question and my mind raced in defense, rather than in patience. And therefore I missed the point as well. 
     He came out swinging.  I'll call him Phil.  It was at Bible Study--the morning session, so the median age was 75.  The small room filled with silver haired saints still trying to feed themselves on the Word.
     We were doing the Rich Young Man.  Eye of the needle and whatnot.  We read the story and Bob Barron said his piece, and then it was time for discussion.  
     Phil came out swinging.  "I just don't get this.  How can a millionaire give millions away to the poor if he never made the millions because he was always giving it away?  People need to get rich to give riches away.  You can't condemn a good person for having money!"  
     Agreement ran around the circle.  And we hemmed and hawed and did our best to explain what it means to have a spirit of unattachment and simplicity and thirty minutes later we hopefully made a point or two.  But Phil wasn't satisfied; you could tell.  
     And he should have been confused.  We didn't do him justice.  How?  By trying to answer his question.  

     Last week, a bunch of nuns had us over for dinner. 
     It was awful, in the not-nice definition of the term. 
     They live across the street from the parish but you hardly ever see them.  I know who they are because they're the ones that change the "Father" to "Lord" and the "Him" to "God" during Mass.  (Ok, so I'm totes for certain types of gender correcting in Catholic liturgy.  I don't think it's completely necessary, because when I see that "God came to save man" I know that it means mankind.  But if our language could be more hospitable, then that's fine.  But taking license to change the words yourself?  That I am NOT ok with.  Let people who know what they're talking about argue with other people who know what they're talking about to determine the meaning of that Greek word; don't think for a moment that you, the average Joe/Jo, should feel comfortable reinterpreting scripture so it sounds better in your ears.  And as far as not liking the term "Father": deal with it.  I understand that God is infinite and probably transcends the assignment of gender, but we are most definitely NOT infinite, so Christ instructed us to call him Father.  Regardless of whether or not God transcends gender, he chose to reveal himself as Father and Son and Spirit to us, so get over yourself and refer to him by the name he used to introduce himself!) 
     We had dinner with them.  Bunch of seminarians sitting around a table of pant suits and butch haircuts.  
     They asked us why we receive communion on the tongue.   And thus began their rant.  Not at us, but in general.  
     There came a point when Sister To My Left said, "Well, the God I'm looking at doesn't care if you believe [insert church tradition or Canon here]."  
     You know Sister, we have a name for the God you're looking at.  We call him Baal. Legion. Beelzebub.
     Satan.
     Death hung in the air around the dinner table.  Her words were death.  
     I desperately wanted to flee.  To run.  Out of the room and across the threshold and down the steps and across the street and into the arms of The Church.  I certainly didn't find The Church there in the convent.  
     Sure, there was a church, but not The Church. 

     I know where we went wrong at Bible study: we did what we were trained to do.  I've just spent 4 years studying philosophy in the classroom and at the dinner table.  A bunch of people sitting around asking questions with no real practical application and giving answers with even less regard for the practical.  
     I've been trained to stick my head in the clouds to solve a problem.  The sight of a homeless man sends me into a spiral up and out of the room until my head is in the clouds and safely removed from the man before me.  Only then, far away from the poor, can I wrestle with the troubles of poverty.  
     I start coming up with theories and ideas to solve the problem of poverty.  But the problem is, I've done nothing for the man in front of me.  
     Sure, if he asks I might accept the challenge to communicate to him the intellectual conclusions I've made about how he got where he is and how I plan to lift him and all his brethren out of their unfortunate situation.  
     Philosophy didn't teach me how to solve a problem, it taught me how to create a Platform.  A homeless man in front of me can't be solved with an outlook on life.  The only way I can do anything for him is if I forget that nonsense, bow down to him, and serve him.  He can't feed or clothe himself on my ideas. 
     The Gospel's first manifestation in our lives isn't supposed to launch us into a debate about grand life questions. Good news isn't the sterile object of a thought-experiment.  It's personal and life-changing.  
     Life-changing.  Good news means change.  Something is changing, for the better. 
     I should have told Phil he's missing the point.  He was asking the wrong question.  The passage made him uncomfortable, and he turned that discomfort into a thought-experiment dealing with the moralty of an unnamed "rich man" acquiring wealth.  And rather than bring it back to his own life, giving him the opportunity to deal with the change this Good News required of him, I swung into a philosophical defense.  I tried to make the story palatable, rather than true. 
     I should (yes, I meant to say "should") have pushed him.  "Well Phil, rather than discussing a hypothetical rich man, look at it this way.  If Christ's challenge to give everything you have to the poor makes you uncomfortable, then why?  Look at your life and identify what it is that makes that challenge so difficult.  Don't try and accuse Christ of failing to understand philanthropy;  look at your own life and find out what this passage requires of you.  What does it change?  Get your head out of the clouds, start looking at the ground in front of you, and figure out what you need to do with that ground in order to address the discomfort."  

     The problem with Sister To My Left is that she's spent so much time with her head in the clouds contemplating the general philosophical questions of the faith that she's lost touch with the word Gospel.  She sees the world through the lens of grand philosophies, and those lenses have begun to obstruct her vision.       She no longer sees reality; just thought experiments.  She no longer hears the cry of the actual poor, but rather the ones she's created in her own mind.  
     And so she starts telling me about this god that "she's looking at", and it bears no resemblance to the actual God.  Because she's no longer actually looking. 
     She has eyes but she cannot see; ears but she cannot hear.