Sermon Archive #1: Senior Sermon

Readings: Zechariah 8:20-23, Psalm 87 Luke 9:51-56

What is it about Jesus' disciples that they always seem to either miss the point or know just the wrong thing to say?

In the preceding text of Luke, Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. Peter wants to stay on the mountaintop and build dwelling places for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. They come down from the mountain to find that some of the other disciples have been unable to cast out a demon after Jesus gave them authority to do so. A few days later the disciples are fighting amongst themselves about which of them is the greatest… and now we have James and John – perhaps trying to show themselves to be the greatest, perhaps still thinking back to the mountain top and thinking about Elijah…

"Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

Gosh you two know me well… NO!

How often do we get it wrong? How often do we think we've got this whole thing down only to find that we've entirely missed the point?

Our reading from Zechariah today says that "Peoples shall yet come, the inhabitants of many cities; the inhabitants of one city shall go to another," and I'm struck by the images in the news last week of freeways out of Huston – both directions being used for North bound traffic as three-million people sped at 1 mph from the path of Hurricane Rita – what they thought was to be the next hurricane Katrina. The Federal Government worked mightily with state governments to provide and ready 32,000 national guard personnel with another 25,000 troops ready to come in if needed from the military. There were fifteen helicopters flying grid patters perfected in military strikes in Afghanistan to find stranded survivors. There were three amphibious ships bringing eighty doctors and nurses, supplies, and salvage and rescue equipment. There are seven to eight Navy mine countermeasure ships which by today have already arrived to assess damages to the oil rigs… Katrina by comparison had only 5,000 national guard troops and it took FEMA three days just to get another 7,000 military troops into the area with disorganized helicopter support.

Rita wasn't another Katrina. Yet what might have happened if it was? Reports from residents tell us that the evacuation left them stranded on jammed highways with empty gas tanks, left them stranded in Jasper – a town not flagged as an evacuation site because of it's history of being hit hard by hurricanes, and leave them frustrated and unsure now of how they will get back home again with supplies of gas depleted and roads blocked by debris. Those who ended up in Jasper remain in the dark where power won't likely be restored for two weeks, crowed into schools where the plumbing has failed and hot meals are nonexistent.

With all the efforts set in motion to clean up after the catastrophe, with all the personnel readied to help salvage the survivors after the death toll, it seems that at least some efforts might have been spared to help with the evacuation in the first place… If Rita had been another Katrina, the clean up crews would have made no more difference to those who didn't make it than the underwhelming response to Katrina had made.

Lord, do you want us to stand by and wait until the waters of the firmament drown them?

There are two people who I've spoken to recently about these tragedies who have had very different responses. One was a charismatic Christian, the other was a professed pagan.

The Christian was bitter about the whole thing, voicing general outrage that so much is being done for the people in New Orleans while so little is done on a daily basis for those in his home state who suffer from similar tragedies on a smaller scale. From his perspective, those who lose everything in a tornado have just as much right to help as any of the people in New Orleans. I listened patiently as he decried the fate of the poor who are being given checks for two thousand dollars each when as he put it "they probably haven't had that much money at one time in their whole lives." He refuses to contribute to the relief efforts… yet (as I plan to point out when he's feeling less belligerent) I don't see him rushing out to help the tornado victims. I don't see him raising public awareness and taking up contributions for those victims any more than he's helping those in New Orleans.

Given the same dilemma, my pagan friend signed up with Red Cross and will likely fly out to Louisiana sometime in the next few weeks.

Lord, do you want us to withhold our healing touch from the suffering until they perish?

I'm grateful for the disciples mistakes. We all make them.

Just two days ago I had an experience myself in which I missed the point. There was a man who was tired and begging for help after being lost in the Berkeley hills all night after the Jerry Garcia tribute on Saturday night. I had guests over the weekend and one went out on the porch to see what the weather was like when the man, sitting on a chair in the middle of the intersection at Virginia and Le Roy, accosted her for help. She closed the door, frightened, and we could hear the man yelling to no one in particular that he was not invisible, that he needed help and that he was upset. I called and asked the Berkeley police to send a car to drive past the neighborhood.

Given the same dilemma, a friend of mine went out into the street to talk to the man, offered him a ride to BART, and helped him carry his belongings to the sidewalk.

Lord, do you want us to call the police on those in need and have them removed from our conscience?

Jesus' response to James and John – and to the other disciples at the many moments in which they miss the point and get it wrong – is simply to rebuke them.

No James, no John, in fact, I don't want you to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them. Thanks for asking, but that's really not what we're about here. Now, shall we keep walking – maybe we can stay in the next village.

Christ models for us limitless compassion. He sees us in our human condition, fraught with good intentions combined with misdirection and bad decisions, and rather than convict us of our limitless ability to mess things up, he just simply forgives us and continues to love us.

I struggled for many days to find a message in today's gospel – something profound that might sound really cool… but perhaps the simple fact that we can continue to find forgiveness for screwing up and getting things wrong while trying to serve our best intentions, is a really good place to start. It teaches us to look at the world from a place of compassion rather than conviction. It teaches us that no matter who we are – students, clergy, teachers, disciples of Christ – we all get it wrong sometimes, but its never too late to change direction and get it right.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.