The 2005 Commencement sermon by the Rev. Dr. William Seth Adams, Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies, presented on May 17 at St. Matthew's Church, Austin

Matthew 16.24

Blessed be the Name of God

Annie Proulx has written two collections of short stories about life in Wyoming. The prize winning author of The Shipping News, That Old Ace in the Hole and Accordion Crimes entitled the second volume Bad Dirt. In a story in this second volume, she reports the following scene:
In Sheridan Wyoming, Gilbert Wolfscale was taking his mother home from a doctor's visit. The reason she had to see the doctor was that she had sat so long at the breakfast table at home that her left leg had fallen asleep and when she got up to move across the room, she fell and broke her hip. Her doctor's visits had been rather frequent but that was about to change. As she rode next to her son in his truck, going home, she said, "I don't have to go back there but a few more times, looks like, and thank heaven. Some a the strangest people settin in that waitin room. These two women got talkin about their Bible class. Sounded pretty modern, you know, tryin to link the Bible to nowadays. But this Bible class they went to was tryin a guess how it would be if Jesus showed up in Sheridan. That got them all excited and there they set, what would he do for work. They both said he could easy find a job workin construction. Would he have his own house and would it be like a trailer or a regular house or a apartment? Then they got at the furniture, what kind of furniture would Jesus pick for his place. And you know how you get thinking about things you overhear? Wasn't none of my business but there I set, crazy as they was, wonderin if he'd pick out a maple rockin chair or a sofa with Scotchgard fabric or what." [76]

Laid in a manger or majestically risen or healing the sick or playing hide and seek with demons, or buying a Lazy-Boy at the furniture store in Sheridan Wyoming, or working illegally in the Rio Grande valley, or playing the tambourine with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, this is the one to whom we have pledged ourselves -- Mary's boy, Jesus, hijo de Maria, Jesus…Chuy. It's a curious piece of business, really, perfectly sensible people like us, regular people, working people, pledged to Jesus. Strange, isn't it? Wonderful, perhaps, but strange-given what he asks of us.

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." [Mt 16.24] It's sayings like that that make this whole deal…strange. Couple this sort of admonition with those about money and possessions -- "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." [Lk 12.15] "You cannot serve God and wealth." [Mt 6.24b] And what about the directive to the rich young man that he give away all that he has, so as to follow [Mk 10.21].

Deny yourself. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Give away all you have. Sigh…!

Several years ago, my wife and I sought the advice of a financial advisor about retirement planning. We assembled our information, as she requested, and sat with her on several occasions, hoping to get a clear picture of what we might expect when retirement came, and how, even at that late date, to enhance our holdings. As we talked, and she asked more and more probing questions, she began to get a fix on me and my attitude toward money. She told me that I had been sprinkled with 'Depression dust.' That is, even tho' I was not born in the 30's and cannot rightly claim to be a child of the depression, nonetheless I was still covered with the fright and anxiety about money that the Great Depression bred into a generation of my forbears, my father and mother being my closest contacts.

I had to admit the truth of what she said, whether I liked the idea or not. What I said to her, perhaps in an effort to defend or explain myself, was that I did not want a lot, I just wanted enough. The aim was not abundance. It was sufficiency. But here, of course, she had me. The 'Depression dust' put in me, a fright and an anxiety that caused 'sufficiency' to be an insufficient idea. The sufficient protection of 'enough' was very slippery and hard to find. When I go to the dust of my grave, I will likely take this 'Depression dust' with me. I doubt that I'll ever shake it.

Sufficiency, enough….is it greed? Could be. Doesn't speak well of denying myself, does it?

This sort of talk about denying oneself and greed-holding money, acquiring things-this is tiring stuff to talk about. In our society, in our system, greed, acquisition, having more than enough or wanting more than enough -- that's what makes us tick, whether God likes it or not. And frankly, I suspect that talk about it-my talk, anybody's talk-this kind of talk really isn't going to cut it. It's not going to get hold of us the way Jesus hopes we'll be got hold of!! My guilt about what I have or want is not blunted by this kind of talk-even when I speak it to myself.

I am not in this way dislodged from my greed. I'm not startled or awakened into denying myself.
Thomas Lynch has written recently,

That less-is-more, minimalist, eco-friendly, paradigm-shifting, salt-free Zen blather about stopping to smell the roses and quality time might be good for the shrink's office or the downsized employees of the structured buyout, but if the age of merger and acquisition has taught us anything, it is that less is unacceptable, bigger is better, more than anything we want more.

Bodies in Motion and at Rest, 232.

In the end, what Jesus is concerned about here, and in other places like it, is not really or only material things. It is not about matter as if it were evil. The creation story itself reports to us that creation, all creation, is, in the eyes of God, good. It's not matter or things that concern Jesus. It's not 'stuff' per se. What concerns Jesus, truly, in these hard sayings, is the loss of God. Holding on, owning, possessing, having so tightly, with such force and persuasion, that God is lost, holding so fiercely that God cannot be held. Hence, the admonition to let go.

If we had a quiet moment together, one in which we could settle our hearts; one in which we could talk about things that matter most, I would ask you to think about whatever there is in your life that is underneath all the other things. What supports everything else? When 'eventually' comes, what do you want to have, who do you want to have? It's to this level that Jesus wants us to get. The 'underneath,' 'before everything else,' 'eventually' stage-and then he wants to talk to us about the loss of God.

Amy and I live in a lower middle class neighborhood in north central Austin. We have a racially diverse group of neighbors, gay folks and straight, some folks older than we are, more younger. Kids, skateboards, dogs. No curbs and only recently street lights. The city is putting in sewers but most people are still on septic systems. In our backyard, we have a garden of raised beds of flowers, vegetables, herbs and grasses. A feeder and a bath where countless birds eat and wash. A wonderful screened back porch where we can take our breakfast and entertain friends when it's not too hot.

We have collected wonderful art that we display very well and to our great delight. We care for our house with zeal and tenderness. It's a place for us and for all our friends-the people we love to feed and whose love we need so much.

Jesus wants to talk to me about my house and holding on -- about the loss of God.

Several summers ago, Amy and I were in a shopping district here in Austin one Saturday morning. As we walked past the shop of one of our dear friends [and one of Austin's finest photographers, Nancy Whitworth], we saw a sign hung over the studio door. It read 'Hat Days.' In the courtyard of the shop, there were several racks of hats -- all sorts and kinds -- and there were children working their way through the collection. When they found the right one, they'd put it on and Nancy, the photographer, would take a set of photos of the child. What a treasure!!

Amy, as if somehow drawn magically and magnetically by the hat rack itself, began to work her way through the hats, playfully trying on this one and that. When Nancy finished the last child for the morning, she called to Amy, "Come here, let me take your picture."

Embarrassed and sputtering 'I don't have on any make-up," Amy sat herself down and Nancy proceeded to take what proved to be the most wonderful and dear photos I have ever seen of my wonderful and dear wife. More than virtually anything else I have, those pictures are at the heart of things.

Jesus wants to talk to me about those pictures -- and the loss of God.

This July, Fiona Josephine Adams will be three years old. In August, her big sister, Violet Isabel will be five. They are our granddaughters. Born to my son Mike and his wife, Amy, Violet and Fiona and her parents live about 15 minutes north of us. These girls are all the things that grandparents claim their grandchildren to be -- tho' in our case those things are true. When they were younger, they found my beard intriguing and my glasses pure delight. We became friends from the very beginning. Amy and I were in the room next door when Violet was born, and I stayed with her the night that her parents were away, birthing her sister. We make up stories, build stuff, do art, cook together. Amy makes clothes for them. In the structure of the whole world, they are entirely precious -- and to us, I simply cannot tell you.

Jesus wants to talk to me, and to my Beloved, about Violet and Fiona -- and the loss of God.

You see, it's not about cold and principled things that Jesus wants to talk to us. No, he wants our attention about the things that matter no matter what. And he reminds us that God matters more.
Whatever we hold most dear in this life, this life of things and love and deepest meaning, whatever we hold most dear, Jesus wants us to hold God more dearly; to know and to admit that everything in life has a past tense. Every good house, every lover, every grandchild, every 'thing,' every life -- they all come to an end. So, hard as it is to say, they must all be held very lightly, very lightly indeed. Everything in life has a past tense, except God. And finally and at the end, our future is with God.

Dear Ones, virtually all of you have, in your own way, blessed my life and my work. Some of you have even anointed my hands for the future that awaits. I'm very grateful to you all. Please know this: In whatever place you find yourselves, in whatever circumstance, whatever bliss, whatever turmoil, God will attend you. It is God's nature. Don't ever forget.

Blessed may you be.

Blessed be the Name of God

wsa