The Senior Sermon of Andrew McMullen, Class of 2006 from the Diocese of Western Missouri, given in Christ Chapel on November 1, 2005

Luke 6:20-37

Holy and gracious God, grant us the wisdom to strive to see ourselves as you see us and the courage to live in the path of your love for all creation, through Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

Before going forward with what I have to share with you today, allow me to take you on a brief tour of the ideas that went through my mind as I contemplated this sermon. It is All Saints' Day. We celebrate the communion of saints to which we are all called. It is a day in our tradition when we focus upon those who have gone before us in hope and faith and the saints that have distinguished themselves with their thoughts, words and deeds.

Also, it is my understanding that yesterday marks the 488 year anniversary of when tradition tells us that Martin Luther nailed his protest doctrine on the church door; the beginnings of the Reformation. And today is an important day for our community, because we remember Michael Athey, a graduate of our seminary who meant so much to so many. Although I regret that I did not know him, it is fitting that a portion of his ashes will be placed in the garden next to this chapel, a final resting place where the light of his faith was shaped and nourished; a light which lives on in all those he touched and who carry on his work in the world.

However, during my preparation, I had a constant, nagging question in my mind and heart, actually quite annoying in its persistence. But it is so broad and overwhelming that I tried to stuff it in the background so that I could focus and get back to work. No matter what I tried, the question would not let go of me. So, casting aside the study guides and commentaries, staring down my fears that it would not preach, I let the question have its way, to run its course. In the end, the question created a roller coaster ride that became my sermon. It is that ride that I want to share with you today. It is a question about God, Jesus and the meaning of sainthood. It is a search for the theme of love in our story. I am tempted to warn you to keep your hands and feet in the car at all times during the ride. The question, in its most simple and complex form, is "what if?"

What if God really and truly exists? And what if God is love, a love so powerful and abundant that it cannot be contained, that it spills over away from God and life is formed? In this vision, humankind is made in the image of God, not because we have some type of dominion over the earth or have the ability to make choices for ourselves or even because we play some role in creation. What if being made in the image of God is nothing more, and nothing less, than the ability to love and be loved? What if everything else, and I mean everything, is the stuff that we have created for ourselves? We are created to love God, each other and even ourselves, and somewhere in those relationships lies the meaning of our lives rather than in our self-image, possessions, achievements and everything else we cling to so that we have the illusion of control over our lives. And that's the rub, because what if they are not our lives but gifts from our Creator so that we may experience a glimpse of the love that is the essence of God?

As history unfolded, humankind made a mess of God's gift, filling the world with violence, pain and destruction. God tried to make his voice known to the world, but we could not be shaken from our destructive path. What if God just seemed too distant and we developed an image of God as somehow choosing to be separate from humankind? And what if, and here our imaginations need to really stretch, what if God entered our history to meet us where we are, to take on human form and walk the earth? And, to prove a point, what if God came to earth, not as a king or prince, but as a peasant, as if to show by earthly appearance alone that the power, prestige and possessions which we seek and covet are contrary to our intended nature, that those things get in the way of our ability to love God and neighbor?

So, what if our Sunday school stories are true, that Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, was born of a virgin in a small, obscure town in the corner of the world that few alive at the time cared about? And what if Jesus walked on the earth, teaching, preaching, healing and praying, using every effort of his life to show the people what divine love looks like and feels like. I believe our ride has arrived at the underlying foundation for our gospel reading for today. Regardless how we view the sermon on the plain and this list of blessings and woes, and they have been interpreted in hundreds of ways, it is a picture of the love of God. Jesus is turning the power and justice structures of the world upside down. It is a vision where the poor, hungry, despondent and oppressed are blessed because they have been forced outside the power structure that distorts the love of God. In their lacking and suffering, there is room for God in their hearts. The woes belong to the privileged who have used the powers of the world to stuff their hearts full with earthly riches at the expense of the oppressed; they cannot see beyond themselves and there is no room for God or their neighbor.

Later in the sermon, Jesus continues to turn the world upside down with extraordinary examples of selflessness that characterize divine love: turning the other cheek, not withholding the shirt on our backs, freely giving of ourselves with no expectation of a return. These are not acts of submission; they are instead acts of revolution, a refusal to follow the expectations of the world. This concludes with the great equalizer: do to others as you would have them do to you. We are all the same creation. We are responsible for one another on this planet. Everyone. No exceptions.

In the end, the same powers and passions, which so distorted the love intended by the Creator from the beginning, attacked Jesus and turned the people, especially those with the most to lose by his vision, against him. And I suppose on the eve of his execution Jesus could have turned his back on the people, perhaps making a getaway in the dark of night, but that is not the way of love. Instead, he was nailed to a cross and placed for all to see, suffering the most intense pain and humiliation possible, in order to show us what divine love looks like. And in the midst of all this suffering and hatred, what if Jesus did a remarkable thing? What if he, on behalf of all humankind, you and me, asked God to forgive us? What if the vision of God we had created throughout our history, a God who chose to be distant, is not altogether true? What if it is not God with an outstretched hand, somehow keeping us apart; rather, it is our hand, raised against God?

God's love is always there; God's blessings are always there. We have stretched out our hand to keep God at a distance so that we might live our lives on our own terms, even to the point of crucifying Christ. "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." And what if God's answer to this prayer and Jesus' faithfulness on the cross, to this plea for every human soul that had lived and was to live, was to raise Jesus from the dead, to be with us and show the whole creation that love, selfless love, conquers all, even death? And what if a handful of Jesus' friends, men and women who had been with him during his journeys, saw him after his death, ate and drank with him, and believed? And what if this small group of people, risking their lives, changed the world?

What if this story spread to the corners of the earth, that during the next 2 thousand years, the stories were told and written down and translated into dozens of languages? What if people built buildings, altars and established rituals to help them remember and believe? And what if in the midst of all this, our humanness frequently got in the way, that the old demons that placed Christ on the cross threatened the resurrected Christ? What if the corporate, political and even some religious forces in the world attempted to crucify Christ over and over again with their emphasis upon individualism and wealth at any cost, even the price of life itself? Even so, the light of the message and love is there for all to see, if we would only put down our hand.

Our ride is reaching the end; we are approaching what sainthood is all about. This is the path followed by the saints which we remember today. Sainthood, for you and I, is about finding that same path where we view the world without ourselves at the center. It is about stripping away the gifts we assume we have received from God from the true gift: that we love and can be loved. It is a vision where we dare to live in a world turned upside down and where we allow our love to care for each other without exception.

What if we had the courage to look beyond the image we have created for ourselves to see what is truly being asked of us by our Creator? What if we replaced our competition with collaboration? What if we replaced our egos with vulnerability and trust? What if we treasured our relationships with each other more than our ideas? What if we replaced our fear with faith? What if we had the courage to cancel our memberships in the Jesus Admiration Society, not because we should stop admiring Christ but to get on with the business of following, to discover that our lives are not our own, and that Jesus did not live and die and live again to make us feel better about our lives, but rather for us to freely give the gift that is our life to each other and to God? Turning our other cheek. Giving the shirt off our backs. What if we walked that walk, what would our faith and lives look like? What would the world look like tomorrow, next year, a hundred or a thousand years from today? What if?