Lectionary Readings: Year A, Proper 13 I’d like to tell you a story about a young seminarian. Many seminaries around the country require a hospital chaplaincy to graduate. The hospital this seminarian ended up at was a large urban hospital – a Level 1 trauma center. It was the hospital that dealt with major accidents,…
The Jesuit mystic, Anthony de Mello said, “If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are the perfect images of the kingdom. For them live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and the anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living.”
As I was preparing for today, one of the first things that jumped out at me was the words in the Collect of the Day: “Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life.”
That word “follow” sticks out. When we think of the word “follow” we can see it as no more important than “I follow the news.” “I keep up with, pay attention to, the news.” Maybe we even think that having the news on 24/7 on the television – even if in the background – means that we are “followers” of the news.
Have you ever gone to watch a motivational speaker? Someone who has in mind to help you bring out the very best of yourself, to help you achieve more than you are now, and to bring you up to your full potential? That was really more of a thing back a few decades ago, but if you went to a seminar like this, at the end of the seminar you probably found yourself excited about life, about the possibilities of what you could accomplish, or about how your life could improve.
I went to one of these seminars over twenty years ago, and during that time several of us overcame our fears – long held irrational fears – and we began to create new visions of our future, and answer the age old mysteries. In fact, at that seminar, I understood the answer to the mysterious question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It was a moment of grand dreams and visions of an exciting future, filled with plans that would improve my life.
Years ago, I was working with a youth group up in Washington, and there was one evening where I couldn’t attend the gathering. On that particular evening, one of the high school girls, who played volleyball, had hurt her knee quite badly. It was swollen, and she was limping around. At one point during the evening, I’m told, the pastor and the kids surrounded her and prayed for her. The youth pastor told me, “It was amazing. As we were praying, you could see the swelling go down, and afterward, she was able to walk without a limp. I’m still just shocked. It’s a miracle!”
And in response, I said, “That is amazing. That’s awesome.” And then I paused, and added, “I really wish I could have been there to see it for myself.” Translation: “Hmmm. Is this really true?” I’ll admit, I questioned that story a bit. Because, after all, “Seeing is believing,” as the saying goes. And in this case, I would really have liked to see it, rather than just taking people’s word for it.
Every single one of us has heard the story – some of us probably hundreds of times. We know what’s going to happen by the end of the story, so we don’t think about it much anymore. The mystery has faded, and the excitement at the mystery of the incarnation – the death and resurrection – seems to have dried up as well.
Because of this, it’s hard to put ourselves into the minds of these women in the Gospel – the two Marys.
And so, back to today’s passage: Jesus is standing here with Moses and Elijah. A cloud comes down from heaven, and this cloud overshadows them and a voice from the cloud says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” And the disciples got scared and fell to the ground. Three terrified men on a mountain. When they finally looked up, Moses and Elijah were gone. Only Jesus remained.
The first thing that popped into my head when I was preparing this sermon was a scene from the old classic Princess Bride. The hero of the story has been killed, and Fezzik the Giant and Inigo Montoya take him to Miracle Max, a man who sells miracles, and gives them a giant pill to…
Just the other day, I went shopping at IKEA, and in the self-serve area, I managed to grab a shopping cart that had one of those wheels that seemed to have a mind of its own. Every time I hit a little seam in the concrete, the cart would dramatically swerve off in the direction of the rut. It ended up being more of a workout than a shopping experience.
Now, I suppose that I could have kicked that wheel repeatedly until it fell off, since it was causing my cart to stumble, but in the end, I just kept pulling the cart back into alignment. It was more work, but I was able to keep the cart in one piece that way.
Where Would You Rather Be?
Lectionary Readings: Year A – Proper 14 In the movie Jaws, there’s a scene where Martin Brody, the sheriff in town is sitting on the back of the boat, throwing out chum into the water, hoping that they’ll be able to attract the shark that they are hunting. He’s absent-mindedly talking to the ship’s captain…
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