The Senior Sermon of Patrick Sanders, Class of 2006 from the Diocese of Mississippi, given in Christ Chapel on April 25, 2006

There is a story that I tell that becomes more fantastic the more I tell it. It's the story of my first Mardi Gras. I was nine and it wasn't Mardi Gras proper, it was the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans and our last night there the city hosted a magnificent, mach Mardi Gras parade that rivals in my mind any that I have witnessed since. I had never seen that degree of pageantry and what I perceived to be generosity before and my reaction to it I can only describe as my first encounter with real greed, the unquenchable thirst, the out-of-control and unceasing desire for more of whatever. (In this case it was cheap beads).

Strangers dressed like angels towered over me and showered down on me riches brighter than anything I had seen in all my nine years and no matter how freely they gave it, it was not enough. Every pocket and both socks were stuffed, and to this day, I walk a little hunched from the weight of the spray-painted pearls I draped around my neck as fast as I could catch them. (There were even some there who seemed to be more than willing to give the shirts off their backs in exchange for what was being given.) The wildness in my eyes, I think, scared my mother and it was all she could do to calm me and send me back to the Bourbon Orleans way too terrified to tell anyone what I had experienced and amazed, cause even there I was consumed by it.

Like Gollum holds the ring, I crouched in the corner and vowed to never let go of that which I had so diligently pursued and deservedly acquired. It wasn't long before the rest of my family returned with their overstuffed bags of goodies and I realized that they too had been affected by the nature of that place. I could hear my older, wiser cousins conspiring in the dark to add to their treasure what was mine. I would have none of that because I thought I loved it.

But it was only a few short hours into the trip home the next morning that the treasure in the trunk stopped being something we felt love for, though the need to hoard over it and protect it remained. Even that diminished over time as we fell back into the rhythm of life that awaited us when the pageantry was finished. To be true, it would all come flooding back because many Mardi Gras would follow, and that unquenchable thirst would rise in our throats year after year as we topped the hill and began our descent into the city.

Now, from my story to Mark's story.

Frederick Buechner says,"If death was to be truly defeated, it was only by dying himself that Jesus believed he could defeat it. If he was to reach the hearts of people, it was only by suffering his own heart to be broken on their behalf that he believed he could reach them. To heal the sick and restore sight to the blind; to preach good news to the poor and liberty to the captives; to wear himself out with his endless teaching and traveling the whole length and breadth of the land -- it had not worked because it was not enough."

The earliest versions of Mark's gospel don't end like our story ends today. They end like this. "So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."

Well, that just won't do. It cannot end like that. We do not have the capacity to sit in fear and amazement. Indeed, even death will not suffice. Like our pockets and socks, the tomb cannot stay empty. It is simply not our nature to be satisfied. We want him back. We want proof that his life and death were of God and from God. On top of all that, today, it's ascension we want, verification that he even dwells with God. Better yet, we want to dwell with God. We want the power to heal the sick. We want the strength to manhandle the devil. We want to utter the wisdom that shakes the foundations of the earth. We want to be the bearers of Glory. Ooh, just sayin' it makes me feel like a nine-year-old all over again.

But as exhilarating as it is, I can't escape the notion that it feels a lot like greed. But it can't be. Greed breeds greed. It's a hunger for something that just cannot fill. This is a desire to be with God, to be like God. There are worse things to wish for. I don't think it's greed. I think it's passion, a type of greed, certainly, but one that can be reciprocated so perfectly that it makes us want to want better. Now, like greed, passion too must be measured against the gift itself lest it becomes greed. But proper passion inspires rather than consumes.

The question then becomes what does it inspire. Well, Mark's passion inspires us to finish the story. It is the gift that orders our giving. It is the preaching that demands we preach. It is the life that motivates us to live, the love that teaches us how to love, the death to die. You get the picture. Passion begs like a nine-year-old boy, not at the feet of strangers shoveling plastic from a barrel, but at the feet of the stranger that gives to us for our asking that which inspired the desire in the first place, passion and all that comes with it; life, love, death, anticipation, resurrection, fear, amazement, ascension, and yes, even signs and wonders from time to time.

Amen for that.