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March 4, 2007
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18, Luke 13:31-35
“March Madness: Discerning the Distance, Embracing
the Emptiness”
Let the “March Madness” begin! Only for us it’s not just a following of
Wolf Pack basketball through the tournaments. For us it’s the following of
Jesus to Jerusalem. It’s a long road along which so much of our “foundness”
slips into “lostness” – our certainty into uncertainty – whether or not this journey
is for us!
Did I ever tell you my favorite story of getting lost? Looking for a little
town along back roads by the Ohio River? I asked a man how to get there.
He said I had to go “three sees” down the road. I asked what he meant by “three
sees.” He said, “Go down the road as far as you can see. When you get
there go down the road as far as you can see again. When you do that three
times you’ll be there.” Jesus is on his first “see” down the road to Jerusalem
here. Already Jerusalem’s breaking his heart. Already he’s counting
the cost of his calling there.
The very name of Jerusalem means “city of peace.” Yet it is a place of
danger and death for those who would seek to bring peace and justice to it.
In this season of “lost and found,” Jesus’ heart goes out to Jerusalem like the
heart of a mother protecting her children. Last week we met the “deliverer”
and “resister” side of God – boldly intervening in history and taking on the competition!
Here is God’s softer, more intimate side. God responds gently to Abraham’s
impatience for a promised heir. As adoptive parents Julie and I know how when
we then birthed a child, many expressed to us how glad they were we now “had one
of our own!” But all of our children are in this life together with
us – those we are given to care for ourselves in whatever ways and relations – and
as many as stars in the sky as well! God is prodigally patient with
our prodigal impatience.
Jesus here also sounds like a prodigal parent counting the cost of loving our
children to the end -- no matter what! Commentator Joyce Hollyday writes,
“This God desires that we see her face. She takes Abraham by the hand and
shows him the stars, promising him countless descendants. She is like a mother
hen, who desires to gather her brood protectively under her wings.” These
images in light of our “prodigal living, prodigal loving” theme for this season,
invite us to find ourselves in these children who insist on their ways of getting
“lost” to us – of wandering far from their origins and our controls -- of
testing themselves against their own demons. We also find ourselves in such
parents as never give up the hope of “finding” their children again. We pray
our children – all our children! – be protected long enough – for the chance to
“come home” to themselves!
Personally I find my passions for public witness and action for social justice
to be motivated largely by my hopes for the children, my conviction that we owe
them as much “protection” as possible from deadly dangers we make and tolerate in
this world. That’s where “Jerusalem” figures in Jesus’ life. It is what
we call the preeminent “holy city” of this world – the city of so much established
tradition and invested hope by so many peoples of faith. Our faith that God
is uniquely present and powerful in and through Jerusalem makes us susceptible and
vulnerable to those who would abuse its religious role for their political ends.
Herod is king of the Jews. But he serves at the pleasure of Roman invaders
and occupiers. We are not unfamiliar with the ways “outside interests” (did
I say “oil?”) control the internal affairs especially of smaller, weaker nations.
Herod in his insecurity is fatally fixated on stopping Jesus before he leads
masses of people into Jerusalem for the Passover festival – festival of liberation
from bondage and dominance! Herod is no less preoccupied with “national security.”
The Pharisees live with their own fears of Jesus – who questions their
religious law and order. Yet even they warn him to avoid Herod But
in the spirit of “March Madness,” Jesus has his “marching orders.” Two
weeks ago God confirmed Jesus’ baptism – his identity and his vocation – on the
Mount of Transfiguration. As Moses and Elijah witnessed to him, there can be no
turning back from Jerusalem. It is where our orders always take us – like
chickens marching into the fox’s den! We could say we are stuck between “a
fox and a hard place!”
Makes us think of coach Mark Fox of Wolf Pack men’s basketball. The preeminent
sign in their locker room is, “Prepare for the Moments of Truth!” That is
our “March Madness” – leading us to confront all the “truths” of our lives – including
the “Truth” we have to proclaim to Pilate – who rejects any “truth” at all.
Little wonder Mary Lou Kownacki, author of the “Prayer for the Decade of Nonviolence
for Children,” quotes Parker Palmer defining “truth” – “an eternal conversation
about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline.” That is
our Lenten search, our March madness. Mary Lou Kownacki goes on to say, “So
far as I can tell, seeking truth has something to do with surprise, openness, letting
go and walking into the jaws of a tiger!” Are we ready? . . .
We wonder how Jesus can win for losing – the odds seem so stacked against him,
and his only weapon is what he calls “truth.” But Jesus is not about “winning”
in any conventional and competitive sense. Jesus knows only too well what
awaits him in Jerusalem. Jesus knows how “prodigally” he has lived -- questioning
all assumptions, challenging all limitations, seeming to undermine all traditions
and weaken all dominations of people by powers of both “church and state.”
Do we as individual followers of him and as congregations let ourselves become too
intimidated by such powers? Such powers as Jesus faced down in the wilderness
just last week? Do we not trust enough in our own “truth?” Do we let
those in power keep us from speaking out? From acting out? For our truth
and for the truth of our children?
Jesus clearly does not expect to be “safe” or “secure” or “successful” in
what he does – so much as he prays to be “faithful” to the end. If he’s
going to go down, he’s going to go down “fighting” for what he believes is right
with the one he calls “God,” “Daddy!” – and for what he believes can be
made right with all the world. In the spirit of the first Rocky Balboa,
Jesus just “wants to go the distance!”
In the poem of our Words for Meditation this morning, the prodigal father
broods upon “distance” and “emptiness” -- as he feels them so deeply through the
“lostness” of his child. All his “defenses” are down. All his usual
“protections” and “weapons” fail him now. He has met his “moment of
truth!” He keeps going through motions of daily living. But
something is so deeply missing. The poet puts it for us – “There is no
distance / between himself now and emptiness; he has followed / the departing
image of a son beyond / distance into emptiness.” Beyond distance into
emptiness! How “lost” is that? How dangerous a truth about life?
How do we help one another “discern the distance” we are called to go in our
lives and our works – for God and Jesus? For ourselves and our children?
How do we “embrace the emptiness” we find and face on the way?
Our “marching orders” for this month of “March Madness” lead us to Jerusalem.
In fact, we march in with Jesus on “April Fools Day!” “Marching orders” in
our tradition are “sacraments.” In Protestant tradition the sacraments are
baptism and communion. All the rest – confirmation, marriage, ordination,
unction, and burial – are “covenants” such as God makes with Abraham here – to
be faithful to the end no matter what. God’s covenant as our God and our
covenant as God’s people both are “prodigal” in the spirit of knowing no limits,
no endings. God promises always to be “there” for us, as we promise always
to be “here” for God.
The word “sacrament” means our “oath” of costly loyalty and allegiance to the
one from whom we take our “marching orders.” The one whose “truth” we seek
to witness with our own. The word comes from the practice of Roman
military inductees swearing themselves into ultimate service of the emperor.
Our willingness to follow Jesus into the “Jerusalems” of our lives demands as
much courage and obedience, as much trust and risk from us as we ask soldiers in
our names to give all the time.
We know how we will be subject to charges of “madness” for following,
marching after this prodigal Jesus! This one who keeps “wasting” such
powers and such opportunities as he has to “lord” himself over others.
This one who keeps squandering love and respect, attention and care, deliverance
and liberation, connection and community, forgiving and restoring, healing and
wholeness, justice and joy -- on such “losers” as us and all others who fail him
– abandon, betray and deny him – again and again.
I know at the end of the world’s “March Madness” there can only be one “winner.”
But as for now, the field is wide open. Everyone stands a chance! Yet
we only “win” by “losing.” We get lost in order to find ourselves. We
depart in order to enter ourselves. We cry in order to laugh at ourselves.
We fall in order to pick ourselves up. We despair in order to hope in
ourselves. We even die to ourselves in order to live with ourselves.
At the end of our “March Madness” lies the vision of that Special Olympics race.
As the runners neared the end, one of them fell. The others stopped running,
went back and got the fallen one – so they might all cross the line, go the distance,
as ”winners” together! Amen.
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