Sermon - September 1, 2002

Sermon, September 1, 2002
15 Pentecost; Proper 17, Year A
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Gospel – Matthew 16:21-27 ...take up their cross and follow me

I ran across an excerpt from a training book called The Worst Is Over: What to Say When Every Moment Counts. It’s a book about the power of words to promote – or hinder – healing in critical times. They’ve developed principles of Verbal First Aid that can come in handy whether you’re consoling a child with a cut finger or a serious emergency. Here’s the example they gave:

Imagine that you witness a hit-and-run accident. You call 911 and then run to the victim, who is lying by the side of the road, hurt and semiconscious. What do you say?

(A) "Don’t die, please don’t die."

(B) "Just relax, everything’s gonna be all right."

If you answer (A), "Don’t die," you will simply scare the victim. Select (B) "Relax, everything’s gonna be all right," the victim will not trust you because everything is clearly not all right. If you choose (C), you’re beginning to administer Verbal First Aid, and you could help save a life. (Reported in "Spirituality & Health, fall, 2002)

Jesus began to look at the storm clouds his message and ministry was creating. He could see that he was running head-on into the vested powers of religion and state in a volatile time. He realized that if he kept saying and doing what he knew he must, they couldn’t let him live.

"God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you," cried Peter. "Don’t die, please don’t die. Just relax, everything’s gonna be all right."

That’s not a bit of help, Peter. The one who last week was called the rock on whom the church would be built, this week is called a stumbling block. If you want to help, let go. Let go of your attachment to success. Let go of your attachment to having things go your way. Let go of your attachment even to life. Carry with courage the reality of the cross of the present moment.

It takes a change of attitude to let go. We don’t like to accept the rotten stuff, the big and little crosses. And it’s the little things that will drive you crazy, the little frequent crosses sometimes are the hard ones to carry. Lately a lot of the energy in our household has been dog-centered. Without getting permission, several months ago I brought home a third dog, one too old to house-train. And now, our daughter is out of the country for a few months, and we have her dog, too – represented to us as fully house-trained.

I don’t know if it is the change of environment, the lack of a doting mother, or just separation anxiety, but Cotton, my daughter’s dog, has not picked up on the local rhythms. We’ve been busy in our house. And this week, on my day off, before breakfast – I had taken three or four steps before I realized what both feet had trod upon. I did not handle it gracefully. After all, Kathy had seen the offending item earlier and not acted with dispatch. So, I added blame and huffiness to my heavy-breathing process of cleaning things up. I milked it for all of the self-righteous, resentful suffering I could muster.

Someone has said that there are upteen moments each day when you either accept a small crucifixion or you crucify someone else. Jesus is pretty clear about which way brings life. I was something of a life killer that morning.

Accepting crosses and living with faithful courage brings life. It happens in the small things. It happens in the large things.

As we near the anniversary of September 11, we’re hearing more stories of cross bearers. Like the stories coming out of another St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the one next to the World Trade Center. Stories from people like Joseph Bradley, a crane operator in New York. Joe was playing golf at a Police Benevolent Association outing when the towers were hit. Within a few hours he had gone to the union hall and registered to volunteer. That night he received a call with his assignment, and headed immediately for the city. After some panic scares and chaos, he got where he was assigned.

"...I walked up West [Street] and saw my crane and the guy who dispatched me out. No orders. No money. No services. Nothing. Just volunteers trying to help. I ran into a fire chief who said he’d like to clear a debris field three feet deep with heavy iron on top. I turned around. There were four or five ironworkers. They asked if I had a crane and I said yes. So they said they’d like to work with me. So I had a machine and a crew. Like a miracle, 25 firefighters showed up right then with tanks and torches. Then we had a mission. So we went to work. No supervision. No foreman. We worked as smooth as you can imagine.

"Everything went perfectly, but we were soaking wet, working in 18 inches of water straight through the night. And all night long they blew the whistle thinking Liberty Plaza was coming down. That happened four or five times, and I thought to myself, Joe, you came here to die.

"I prayed for darkness because I couldn’t handle what I was seeing. The first body was a lady in a business suit. Middle-aged. It was remarkable. She wasn’t even dirty. We laid her down on the stretcher and fixed her eyes and her lapels. I remember the firefighter on the back of the stretcher fell, but he lifted his arms up over his head as he went down so the body wouldn’t hit the ground.

"After that I was sitting on the curb with my head in my hands. It was the middle of the night. That’s when the Salvation Army kids appeared in their sneakers with their pink hair and their belly buttons showing and bandannas tied around their faces. One was a little girl pushing a shopping cart full of eyewash through the muck. They came with water and cold towels and took my boots off and put dry socks on my feet. And we kept going all night on the 12^th and the morning of the 13^th and were relieved in the afternoon. I’ve never seen so many people pull together. One unit. One thought. We were going to rescue a survivor. But that wasn’t to be.

"When I was finally relieved and started to walk out, I thought to myself, you did pretty good. You did your part. You can go home and get back to normal. Then my mind flashed to the hostages coming home from Iran, and the ticker-tape parade when the Yankees won the World Series. I had always thought that’s what New York’s about. Those kinds of heroes. But it was the little girl with the pink hair that became my hero that night, not Tino Martinez.

"When I got to Houston Street, a bunch more of these kids, all pierced and tattooed with multicolored hair, had made a little makeshift stage. And they started to cheer as we came out, and that was it for me. I never identified with those people before, but I started crying and I cried for four blocks.

"I’ve been a construction worker my whole life and I’ve always felt I was viewed by the public as a pest. As rude. And now I was so vulnerable. Yep. I was taken totally off guard. I got home and saw my wife, who asked, ‘Joe, are you okay?’ ‘Sure!’ I said. You know, the bravado came back. But she said, ‘Are you sure? Go look in the mirror.’ There I was with my filthy, dirty face, and just two clean lines down from my eyes. You become like a child after you get banged around a bit. She cried with me. Gave me something to eat. Drew a bath. I don’t take baths. She put me to bed for six or seven hours. I told her I wasn’t [going back there].

"Now it’s December 3^rd and I haven’t missed a day at [Ground Zero]. I never knew anything about Episcopalians or Presbyterians, or gays, or people with nuts and bolts through their cheeks, or those Broadway people, but now I know them all. We’re not the heroes. They are the heroes. They’ve cried and prayed out loud for me. I never thought I’d have a family like this one." (From "Spirituality & Health, fall, 2002)

Accepting crosses and living with faithful courage brings life; creates community. Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

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