Baggage at the Narrow Gate

Noonday Eucharist, Chapel of the Apostles, Sewanee

Gen 13:2, 5-18

Ps 15

Mt 7:6, 12-14

The problem with the narrow gate is that we can’t get all of our baggage through. Think of traveling in the airport or in the subway, trying to complete a journey. You’re doing fine until you come to one of those narrow little turnstile-type gates. Perhaps you’re pushing a baby stroller; or you’re laden down by a backpack that covers you like a turtle shell; and you’re pulling a bulging suitcase so heavy that it keeps on tipping over behind you. And you’re trying to get all that stuff through as fast as you can before the bar closes back on you. It’s a real problem.

Think of the brave pioneers heading west to California, wide covered-wagons piled high with beds and dressers and their most treasured possessions. They did fine until the mountains of the Sierra Nevada closed in on them, and the twisting, turning path got narrow, and the rains turned the dust into mud that buried wheels, and the snows covered the trail. The narrow way became hard to find and harder to navigate. The only ones who made it through were the ones who shed all encumbrances by the wayside, quickly, before it was too late.

Think of Lot and Abram on their journey to the land that God has promised them. They’re doing fine until they stumble under the weight of their prosperity. Their baggage bursting with silver and gold, their flocks of animals filled to overflowing, their wealth overwhelms the narrow capacity of their arid land. Going their separate ways, Lot, of course, chooses the wide gate. Who can blame him? As I stood at Green’s View and looked down at the valley yesterday, I thought about poor Lot looking down on the Jordan plain. Like him, I would certainly have chosen the wide expanse of lush farmland, the fertile fields already under cultivation. I would have picked the easy descent into Egypt-like riches over, say, what I saw of the University Farm on the other side, a narrow strip of scraggly land painstakingly reclaimed with sweat and toil from a gravel parking lot.

Now, I’ll admit that Jesus’ warning about gates concerns more than just the bulk of our possessions. I might just be a bit influenced in my reading by our class this summer on money, land, and ecological justice in the bible. But I’m also taking the class on fourth century desert monasticism, and I’m the first to admit that our unwieldy baggage can be made up of other things than gold and silver. Sacks bulging with pride, lust, sloth, gluttony, and all spiritual ills can certainly burden us just as badly on the narrow path to Life in God.

What is clear, is that Jesus is telling us in no uncertain terms that the narrow way is the way to go. It is the only gate that leads to Life, even though it takes us down a path that winds straight through the demanding way of the Sermon on the Mount. Suitcases full of material gain won’t fit in a place where it is the poor, the meek, and the merciful who are blessed. We can’t haul bags full of piety through the shredding blades of the Antitheses. Heavy sacks of judgment will weigh us down. A precious life wrapped in layers of cotton and self-preserving plastic won’t fit through the turnstile.

How do we make it through, then? Like Abram, with eyes lowered in humility, spiritual burdens--and possessions--laid down at God’s feet. We make it through only by putting down our stuff and grasping hold of God’s abundant gifts. We make it through, by emptying our hands so that we can knock at the door, the door where God is waiting to fill our emptied hands with Life.

God's Table of Love

• Genesis 1:1-2:4a
• 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
• Matthew 28:16-20
• Psalm 8
• or Canticle 13

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Have you ever come into a room alone, only to find everyone else already gathered into private little clumps of friendship, backs to the world? Children, I’ll bet you might have experienced that lonely feeling in the school lunchroom. You stand there awkwardly with your tray and scan the room for a table where you might fit in. Teens, I’ll bet you might have experienced that painful awkwardness in the hallways at school. You come up behind happy classmates clustered by the lockers and stand there with your hands dangling by your sides, trying to find a way to join the closed conversation. Adults, I’ll bet that you might have experienced this kind of discomfort at big, crowded cocktail parties--and yes, even at church.

Long ago, as a newly divorced single mom, new in town and with young children in tow, I found my way to an Episcopal church. While I might have looked as if I fit in, there probably weren’t many parishioners more lost, lonely, and spiritually desolate than I was. With my toddler on one arm, balancing a cup of punch and a flurry of Sunday School coloring pages in the other hand, alternately prodding and luring my whining older children with bribes of doughnuts, I would head over to whatever fellowship opportunity was available after the service. I would peer through the doors of the fellowship hall and survey with wary eyes the groups clustered around the tables. Invariably, I would find happy families and friends huddled together-- laughing, sharing smiles, turned toward each other in closed circles of complicity. There was little room for me and my rowdy bunch to slip smoothly into any group. Almost as a kind of dare, I would plop down at a totally empty table and busy myself with my children, waiting to see if anyone would join us. They never did.

The good news for us today is that God offers the possibility of a different kind of table conversation ... in the doctrine of the Trinity! Take a look at the image of the Trinity on the front of your bulletin. This is a 15^th-century icon called The Visitation of Abraham by the Russian Orthodox painter Andrei Rublev. The story behind the icon is the Genesis account of God’s visit to Abraham and Sarah in the desert. One day, Abraham and Sarah welcome three strangers with open arms, bathing their feet and preparing a feast for them, and as the men leave, they promise the aging couple that Sarah will soon give birth to a son.  Interpreting the Old Testament allegorically, ancient Christians saw these three divine messengers as a manifestation of the Trinity.

Notice in this icon that these three figures are wearing gender-neutral robes and hair-styles. They are neither strictly male nor female.  The central figure, who represents Christ, is holding his hand over a golden chalice in blessing, as the other two look on. What is most interesting about this icon is that there is both an openness and a swirling movement to it. Christ is neither looking down nor out at the viewer. Instead, he cocks his head clearly toward the figure to his right. That figure, representing the Father, nods his head across the table to the Holy Spirit on his right, who, in turn, inclines his head back toward Christ. The wings and background objects bend as if caught in a gently turning, circular breeze.

Notice that the figures aren’t huddled around the table in the way that we huddle with our friends in the lunch room, either. Here, there is a clear break in the circle, a clear empty seat at the table, right at the front of the icon, right across from Christ and in front of the chalice. Anyone who looks at this icon automatically becomes the fourth person at the Table and is caught up in the circular fellowship of the other Three. There’s no looking on, waiting to get into the group. This Trinity excludes no one from its conversation. Even if we were all looking at one big copy of this icon at once, we would all have immediately joined the Trinity at the Table.

Today, more than ever, our world needs this open, welcoming, living image of God. Left to our own devices, we can now love and hate from a distance. When I’m waiting for a plane in the airport now, I no longer seek to connect with my fellow travelers. I no longer even look at them. Instead, I poke at my i-phone and check Facebook. And everyone else is doing the same thing. When I want to reach out to my grown children or to parishioners, I can send heartfelt greetings with a quick email or a text—but these greetings don’t open up to you my voice or my person or even the personal loops and squiggles of my unique penmanship. With technology, we can even kill and destroy from a distance now. We can use cruel words on social media that we would never utter in person. A sniper’s bullet or bombs from a computer-driven drone can make human hatred an impersonal and mechanical thing.

Not only do we feel far away from one another, God can seem far away in this kind of a world, as well. God can seem to be a solid, unchanging being that we have boxed up in our imaginations, a far-off Being who seems to watch the world ineffectually “from a distance.” With this kind of a God, we might as well go sit at a table by ourselves, busying ourselves with our human lives and daring God to join us.

The Doctrine of the Trinity that Rublev paints for us reminds us that God is not a changeless, distant object that we can view from afar. The Trinity shows us that God is Love. God is circling movement, constant reaching out for the Other, constant exchange, constant conversation and active relationship.  Love is constant invitation. Love both calls out and answers, “Here I am.” 
 What if the Triune God longs for our company, as much as the needy single mom peaking longingly into our fellowship hall? What is God is as desperate for our friendship as the child longing for an open seat at lunch? Imagine the Trinity sitting at the Table in the Divine Fellowship Hall in the sky, Christ with his hand raised in blessing over a cup of his own blood, whispering a loving “here I am,” to the Father, who whispers, “here I am” to the Spirit, who whispers, “here I am” back to the Son. They wait and wait for us to join them at the Table. They wait for us to take the cup. They wait for us to cry out “here I am” in response. They wait in love so that Love can flow into the distant, empty spaces of our world.

I got an advertisement this week for a new book called The Turquoise Table, by Kristin Schell. It tells the true story of a suburban housewife who got a big picnic table dumped on her front lawn by mistake. Feeling lonely in her world of carpools and malls and evenings spent in front of the computer and the TV set, she decided to keep the table where it was. She painted it bright turquoise and started sitting out there, inviting neighbors and friends to join her around the table. “’When you sit at the Turquoise Table,’” Schell advises, “’make sure all people feel welcome, no matter how young or old, no matter their mother tongue or attire, regardless of race or religion. Invite them to sit awhile.’”^[1] She might as well have called her table the “Triple T Trinitarian Turquoise Table.”

Schell said that the turquoise table changed her life, bringing her closer to God and to her fellow human beings. It has even inspired a whole “society of turquoise tables,” as other people have followed her lead across the country. What about us? Instead of daring others to love us, can we invite a stranger to sit awhile at our table? Instead of daring God to join us in our busyness, can we invite God to sit awhile in our hearts? Spend some time in conversation with Rublev’s Trinity this summer. Gaze on the image and sit down at God’s open table. See where the unstoppable movement of God’s love will take you. 

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[1] http://www.growchristians.org/2017/06/06/the-turquoise-table-review-excerpt-giveaway/#more-3868

Preparing a Place

Easter 5A 

 

• Acts 7:55-60
• 1 Peter 2:2-10
• John 14:1-14
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: 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; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In March, I rented a cabin at an inn in Eastern Kentucky for a short retreat. It was a gray, bone-chilling day, much too cold for the season, with whipping wind and spitting snow. Entering the cabin, my heart melted as quickly as the ice on my boots. There was a gas fire already burning in the fireplace, sending a warm glow around the homey room. In small vases on each table, there were tiny bouquets of spring flowers. In the kitchen, there was a fresh-baked loaf of banana bread and an assortment of teas, already set out, just for me. Magazines and books were spread around the room, beckoning. The décor was full of comfy cushions and warm, natural wood. Everything that I saw in that cabin was carefully prepared to offer immediate welcome—to say, “Come, rest here in my arms. You are cared for, just be.”

Now, I paid a hefty sum for my welcome on that winter day. But there are times, aren’t there, when we prepare a place for a loved one, just because we love them? I’m thinking of expectant parents, excitedly preparing the nursery for a new baby, picking out the safest crib, gently placing tiny outfits in dresser drawers, all for a child as yet unborn. I’m thinking of newlyweds, preparing their first apartment for the couple that they are still becoming, carefully blending “his” and “hers,” choosing just the right picture to hang over the bed. I’m thinking of children, preparing the house for their new puppy, still at the kennels. They pick out just the right chew toy at the pet store, set soft blankets in the crate, find the perfect spot for the food and water bowls near the family kitchen table. I’m thinking of adult children, preparing a parent’s final earthly home. They are entering into a new kind of relationship with mom or dad, uncertain, as they haul in mom’s favorite dresser or dad’s favorite chair. They choose and hang family photos, as they make a nursing room into a place that treasures what was, and prepares for what will be.

“I go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel. Speaking to his disciples right before he is taken away to be crucified, Jesus offers them the rather confusing words of comfort that we hear today. When we read this scripture, we often assume that it is a reference to life after death: Jesus ascends to the Father in Heaven and prepares a place for us there when we die. But Jesus isn’t emphasizing “where we go when we die.” We don’t have to wait to die in order to dwell with Jesus in the love of God.

For John, physical location is a symbol of relationship. Poor Thomas thinks that he needs Google Maps in order to find the place where Jesus is going. Instead, John tells us that it is the person of Jesus himself, not some far off place, that is God’s residence. That’s what, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” means. It doesn’t mean that God only cares about Christians. It means that we don’t set off on a journey to “find God” all by ourselves. God is here, with us. God dwells in Jesus of Nazareth: Jesus is the face of God on earth. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Jesus explains to the disciple Philip. The reason that the disciples should know the way to God’s place is that they have already been there—indeed, they are there—as they interact with Jesus himself. They know God as they watch Jesus welcome sinners and eat with them. They know God as they watch Jesus heal what is broken, as they watch him calm the storm and give sight to the blind.

The many “rooms” or “dwelling places” in God’s house are, in the Greek, “resting places.” They are “abiding places” where we can be in relationship with God, as closely as Jesus is in relationship with Him. Jesus brings us into the deep, life-changing relationship that he shares with the Father. In Jesus, we can be who we truly are, unafraid of rejection. In Jesus, forgiveness abounds, more than we could ever earn or deserve. In Jesus, deep joy wells up, and spills over to those around us. These abiding places are here, in us, in the love of this Jesus, in whose name we pray.

I immediately thought about the ways in which our young people describe their experiences at All Saints’ Camp. “We can be ourselves in that place,” they all say. “We matter.” “It’s OK to be silly and have fun.” “People from all different races and places and groups can dare to come together as one, to accept one another despite differences.” [Ask kids if they can add anything to this.] The children might tell us that All Saints’ is a magical place. But it’s not the piece of land in Leitchfield that is magical. It’s the amazing power that comes to us when we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and Christ is working through us, doing more than we can ask or imagine.

Indeed, I have an image of preparing a place that is perhaps better than the country inn that I visited, better than my description of family members caring for their own. One night, Episcopalians of all ages gathered in a quite dingy and bare apartment in south Louisville. They hauled in boxes and boxes of things that the whole parish had collected for a refugee family from the Congo, more than the family would probably really need. We hooked up a TV set; we vacuumed and swept; we set food items in the pantry that would remind the family of their old home in Africa; we set the table for a feast. We hung clothes in the closets and put pretty towels in the bathroom. Teens, who usually groaned about making up their own beds, grinned as they made up these beds, choosing toys and stuffed animals to spread around the children’s bedroom. Every detail was carefully and lovingly arranged in welcome. Although strangers--strangers who spoke a foreign tongue and whose ways we did not know-- this family was about to rest in this place here with us in the presence of Christ. We weren’t just preparing an apartment for KRM, we were abiding in the love of God, and we could feel the joy and rightness of it.

In Christ, in the relationships where he meets us, we will no longer roam as rootless refugees through the earth, hungry for home. Instead, we will become the stones brought together as God’s home, secured by Christ, our Cornerstone, and as tightly in relationship with one another as the stones in the home that our children have built for us today.*

Children, what will happen if you take away the big brick, the cornerstone, from underneath your home? (It will fall.) What will happen if you take out any of the stones from inside the walls? (It will fall.) We are the stones. Christ is the cornerstone. All are indispensable and intertwined—now, today. Abide in one another. Abide in the God who abides in you, always rearranging your furniture. Become the living place that Jesus prepares for the life of the world.

*Say to the children, before the readings. “Children, I have a job for you to do today. You are going to hear a lot about rocks and stones in today’s readings. Every time you hear the word “stone” or “rock,” I would like for you to pick up several stones from this box and collect them on the ground in front of you. Then during the sermon, I want for you to use all of the stones to build a wonderful home, right on this brick here. The brick is your cornerstone. It will hold your building together. Remember, use all the stones to build one home. No fair each building your own little thing. I need for all of you to work together to build ONE. It will help the grown-ups understand the sermon, so I’m counting on you. OK?

 Photo of cabin at Snug Hollow Bed and Breakfast, https://snughollow.com/