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Fat Cats or Sheep?November 20, 2005 Reign of Christ There’s some irony in the air today. Or, if not irony, at least a sense of disjunction between hearing the news that we may be selling our air rights during a worship service whose gospel lesson concerns the final judgement. It’s church discipline that requires we announce the potential sale and the date of a member’s meeting for the purpose of voting on a resolution. If it were up to me, I would just send out a letter with all the pertinent information and leave it at that, thinking it best to keep worship focused on God. But, no, church law requires public notice during a regularly scheduled service at least ten days prior to a vote on the sale of church property. So, we heard our Trustee president speak about a potential deal that, if all goes according to plan, could reap Christ Church millions of dollars. I’m thinking this news prompts myriad questions that compete for our attention. I’m not going to begin to answer them now. I simply want to acknowledge these questions are in the room and that there’s a good chance they could overwhelm the regularly scheduled content, like the final judgement, for instance. Air rights, millions of dollars, or sheep and goats.... I’m thinking you might very well go home preoccupied by the strange zoning laws in New York that allow property owners to sell the empty space above their buildings, much the way landowners in every other part of the country might sell some excess acreage to a neighbor. If you’re from out of town and didn’t hear it from a minister standing in the pulpit, you might imagine this deal was akin to selling the Brooklyn Bridge. But no, I assure you this deal is bona fide, if just a bit peculiar to our specific location within New York City. You could say that we have a rather rarified address. We are blessed by the realities of the current real estate market and the unplanned confluence of interests of otherwise unrelated parties in a matter of mutual benefit. Location and timing have conspired in our favor– to our very great favor, even unprecendented favor, as you will learn in the days ahead. So this day began not unlike other days that start out benignly enough, only to offer up something quite different, unexpected, that sets us on a different course than we had planned. Sometimes the unexpected is bad news. But, occasionally, it’s very good news. In either case, the news messes up our routine, deprives us of our normal patterns. Surely that happened to the seven co-workers at Kaiser Permanente in California on Tuesday, who learned they had won the second largest, single-ticket lottery jackpot in U.S. history. They had remained sequestered until late in the week. “We wanted to stay out of the limelight so we could get our thoughts together,” one of them explained. Evidently, their routines had been scattered by their good fortune. They needed to gather them up again. We understand how that might happen. Of course, we also know that their routines will settle in again. We know that, despite their winning ticket, the content of their lives remains much as it did. That is, they still have to manage what they were managing last week. All of their same relationships remain. If they are in love, they still need to work things out with their lovers. If they have children, they still need to get them off to school and manage all of the homely parenting details. Broken, damaged relationships remain broken and damaged. They still need to answer the same questions they had been attempting to answer with the content of their lives before the jackpot came their way. They may believe they have materially changed, but that is true only in the most superficial, and quite frankly, least important way. For this same reason, I’m thinking that our announcement of potential good fortune has come on just the right day– the last Sunday of the Christian liturgical year, and the day we read that famous, astonishing story of the final judgement as Jesus would have it. Jarring, isn’t it? I hope you were able to hear it. That is, I hope you were listening as Richard read the great drama of the nations gathered before the Son of Man in all of his glory, attended by all of the angels seated upon his throne. Jesus is a wonderful storyteller; I wouldn’t want less important distractions to impede our hearing. Interesting, isn’t it, that we have a variation of that image depicted right before our eyes, up there in a golden nimbus– the enthroned judge with all of us gathered before him. And, interesting how, under his watchful gaze, we’ve been reminded of how shockingly blessed we are. How fortunate that, through no power of our own devising, we are the recipients of a great bounty! And then, isn’t it ironic that we hear a counterpoint story of the sheep and the goats who did not recognize this same exalted king in the faces of the least, the last, and the lost? It’s a bewildering morning in its way.... Are we fat cats or sheep, or something else altogether? A wonderful tension, don’t you think? An important tension with powerful lessons embedded within. Seems we are presented with a great responsibility as well as a great wonder and blessing. If we have the eyes to see, we may actually begin to glimpse God’s purposes on the corner of Park and 60th. This odd assortment of persons gathered here within marble and mosaic splendor, under the feet of our Lord of love, has a moment of astonishing clarity. We sense the extraordinary opportunity. Why, if I were a man of faith, I might almost believe the timing was inspired. But then, perhaps the inspiration is in the mind of the beholder. What do you think? And, what does this inspiration have to do with the phrase, “When you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me?” By least, Jesus references the hungry and thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. In other words, the poor, the dispossessed, and those who suffer, those who, in some significant way, have need of great blessing. It’s a very potent, even stunning, concept. It’s also disturbing, because, quite frankly, it’s hard to see the image of God in the persons sharing our pew, let alone all the others who fill the city streets, all the so-called neighbors in our mission statement. If I thought you’d actually do it, I would suggest you turn around and look into the faces of the persons seated around you, and I would ask, who do you see? But that would seem a bit contrived and awkward. Instead, I will ask you to participate in a sort of experiment. It will take a conscious act of will on your part to do it, and it won’t come easily or naturally. On your way home today, glance into the faces of some of the persons you pass on the sidewalk and consider today’s story. As you pass someone, whisper a small prayer like, “God bless you.” Not so they can hear you, but simply to confirm your intention. Say it for a stranger, say it for someone who seems hungry or thirsty, someone who may have been imprisoned at one time or another, or sick. Say it out of a recognition of the myriad and extraordinary blessings that have come and are coming your way. Think of our good news as a good reason to offer some good news yourselves– to participate in the good news making, as it were. You’ll have other things on your mind, I know. Important things, exciting things. Maybe things pertaining to the holiday coming up. Or, how air rights can alchemically transform into cash, lots of cash. But, if only for a moment, hold yourselves accountable to the larger purposes of God that can be found in the face of just one other person. The degree of mystical interconnectedness implied here is breathtaking. The implied sacredness of life is breathtaking. And see, we’re presented with this image on a day we learn a great gift is about to be placed into our hands. Surely you see how everything we need to accomplish God’s good purposes is being set before us. And, you can also see how our own generosity is multiplied again and again by the same God of bounty who is pleased to give us every good thing. God means to amplify our smallish gestures into an astonishing gift for the city. Can you see it? And, do you believe it? And, can you fathom your own place within it? Augustine said, "We imitate whom we adore.” If you doubt that, take stock of all the thirteen-year-old girls who dressed like Britney Spears not so long ago. The God we say we adore on the throne above is the one who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and then poured out his life in an act of compassionate generosity. Imagine a roomful of people who actually attempted to emulate this same compassion, not as a matter for approval, but simply as a matter of accepting the responsibility of loving relationships. It’s no good to be a taker only, or should I say, a goat. Thanksgiving week is a very good time to reflect on this. And, friends, when you get down to the actual thanking, remember that it’s not enough to simply be thankful for something. For instance, it’s not enough to simply say, “I’m thankful for sharing in a great feast. Lucky me. Lucky me, I have such great benefits.” Said like that, it becomes an odd moment of self-congratulation. It is more deeply appropriate to be thankful to something or someone. In our case, thankful to God, who is pleased to pour himself out for our sakes, and to place into our hands everything we need to amplify his compassion a thousandfold. Can you begin to imagine what might be possible if, in generous gratitude, you throw in with God’s purposes? I’m thinking you will want to be a part of what’s coming. It will change you for sure. Oddly enough, day by day, you will begin to look more and more like a sheep of all things.... Previous sermon: Tiger Enlightenment • Next sermon: Be Watchful All past sermons |
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