"Wake Up, Wake Up for Jesus," the Senior Sermon of Torey Lightcap, Class of 2004 from the Diocese of Colorado, given in Christ Chapel on April 14, 2004

Luke 24:13-35

In Saint Joseph, Missouri, there is a modern-day confectioner to rival Willy Wonka.

The Chase Candy Company is headquartered in Saint Joseph,

  And it is the maker of many candies you’ve probably never heard of,

  To include the Hawaiian Haystack, the Coconut Bon-Bon, and the Peco Flake.

But for 86 years, Chase’s has also been making the most mouthwatering concoction

  Known to the Midwestern United States.

I’m speaking, of course, of the Cherry Mash.

The Cherry Mash at heart is a nougat of crushed cherries about half the size of a closed fist.

This nougat center is covered with a double layer of thinly chopped peanuts and chocolate.

The final product – not so much a bar as a lump – is packaged in a red and white bag

  Featuring a junior Keystone Cop who somehow helps to extol the virtues of the product.

My taste buds and I can assure you that the product requires no such assistance.

Now, as a kid, I worked my way through a litany of candies,

  From Zero bars to Chick-O-Sticks, from grape Bubblelicious gum to Smarties.

(Children understand that different kinds of occasions call for different sorts of sweets anyway.)

But always at the end of my roaming, beckoning me home, there was the constancy of the Cherry Mash:

  … At the end of a long afternoon of summertime swimming;

  … Just before fishing trips, if possible being paired with a Big Red soda;

  … During halftime at the concession stand during sporting events;

  … And after – and, I’m ashamed to say, sometimes even during! – Church.

Those times were many dental visits ago,

  And yet I continue my sugary, on-again-off-again affair with the Cherry Mash to this day.

Except that, like a lover who has left nothing but a toothbrush and a vague note,

  The Cherry Mash has mostly managed to elude my wandering eye and my sweet tooth.

Well-meaning convenience-store merchants all over Austin seem to lack the refined palate

  – Or, perhaps, the genetic predisposition –

  Necessary to recognize the simple genius of this candy.

Alas, I know this better than I ought to, and Jacquie can testify

  To the alarming frequency with which I have visited gas station candy aisles

  In the hopes of finding a supplier, some Fellow Traveler, Someone Who Gets It.

Like any spurned ex, I have turned to a life of creative fulfillment, adapting to whatever’s handiest.

It has even been a seductively simple process, hearing all these sacred texts day after day in chapel,

  To gradually allow the Cherry Mash into the theater of my religious imagination.

Manna has taken on new meaning;

  These days I can be clear that it fell to earth in little red-and-white parcels,

  And that the camp of the Israelites smelled of maraschino and cocoa powder.

It isn’t such a stretch to envision, not fruit hanging from a tree in a certain Garden,

  But rather clusters of miniature Mashes.

And on and on I go.

What in the world happened?

Whoever said that something I loved as a child

  Had to run my life as an adult, even in a small way?

When did the One Thing become the Only Thing?

Well, I don’t know the answer to those questions.

And chasing after reliable answers might be just as useless

  As stopping at a gas station late at night,

    Looking for a lump of candy that nobody sells.

The more mature response to the problems of idolatry and objectification

  Is to simply start asking, “When did I stop paying attention?”

When I say Attention,

  I mean the simple act of giving quiet awareness to What Is.

I mean the commitment to simply remain open to Sacred Mystery.

To the open and attentive heart, God’s presence is palpable,

  And the truth of Jesus’ teaching is accessible and inexplicable all at the same time.

Perhaps the disciples in today’s Gospel could have used

  A story Eckhart Tolle tells about himself and his own lack of awareness:

  “ A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for over thirty years.

     One day a stranger walked by.

     ‘Spare some change?’ mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap.

     ‘I have nothing to give you,’ said the stranger.

     Then he asked, ‘What’s that you are sitting on?’

     ‘Nothing,’ replied the beggar. ‘Just an old box.

        ‘I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.’

     ‘Ever looked inside?’ asked the stranger.

     ‘No,’ said the beggar. ‘What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.’

     ‘Have a look inside,’ insisted the stranger.

     The beggar managed to pry open the lid.

     With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold. ”

We’re told that of the many possible places that could have been Emmaus,

  One of the most likely sites was, for all practical purposes, a resort spa.

It’s notable that the Risen Jesus chooses to show himself to his disciples

  Not at the end of their journey, where they are perhaps headed to soak their sorrows inattentively,

  But On The Easter Road –

    The dangerous and dirty road populated only by crows,

    That road that becomes an impromptu classroom where the subject is Salvation History.

There Jesus opens their minds by interpreting the Scriptures in relation to himself.

We cannot say what he tells them,

  But we can say that these, his own disciples, do not yet know him in full.

Their awareness is piqued by his teachings,

  But their ability to judge what is in front of them is still fogged.

When, through grace and with the passage of time,

  These disciples can say that they know Jesus in the breaking of the bread,

  And that their minds have been opened to understand,

  Then there is for them the lifting of a fog and the settling-in of a new light,

    As though that box had finally been pried open.

In this instant, one more tiny section of Ego is chipped away,

  And Something Else, Something More Than, takes its place.

They now know themselves profoundly and urgently

  To be human agents of the Kingdom.

Simple, Abiding Awareness of What Is.

The bracing attentiveness to God’s Presence.

If the church were about the teaching of all this,

  I wonder how the world might be transformed in the name of Jesus.

A few weeks ago, Jacquie and I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  (A film if ever there was about having one’s mind opened).

On the way to the theater I developed a craving for something sweet.

Perhaps, I thought, some peanut butter cups or ice cream,

  But I held back at the concession stand and instead dutifully ordered a small bag of popcorn.

And I somehow convinced myself that this was not simply nutritionally smart,

  This was not merely a nod to Jacquie’s low-sugar pregnancy –

  No, I convinced myself that I had done something downright Heroic.

And I settled into my seat, unsatisfied with my popcorn.

The inner litany began:

  Why must I be the victim of someone else’s requirements for living?

  Why should I not get the things I want when I’ve done my share of sacrificing already?

The absurd monologue reached a fever pitch after about ninety seconds,

  When Jacquie came into the theater from the restroom,

  A small, red-and-white polypropylene package in her hand.

It bore the likeness of a Keystone Cop.

She said, “Here, I thought you might want this.”

“It was sitting on the fire extinguisher when I went into the bathroom,

  And it was still there when I came out.”

The spurned lover, ever on the lookout for some sign of life from the old flame,

  Had walked right by his ultimate sweet prize.

For just a minute, I woke up and I thought about not complaining so much.

One more tiny section of Ego was chipped away,

  And Something Else, Something More Than, took its place.

I found myself in awe of Sacred Mystery, desiring deeply to remain aware of its Presence.

And in the end,

    Even though I wanted to take it home and enshrine it,

    I ate the manna from St. Joseph, Missouri.