Pentecost 14, Proper 18, 2004:

Have you ever noticed that there are some folks who are never satisfied? No matter what, some people can only see the negative. Kind of like the man in a small town who always ate his breakfast every day in the same little restaurant and always complained about how the food was prepared. He had all kinds of requests about how he wanted his food cooked and nothing ever pleased him. One morning he ordered two eggs, one sunny-side-up and the other scrambled. The always patient waitress gave the order to the cook, and brought the man his breakfast very quickly. He stared at the eggs for a long time and said, "Madam, tell the dumb cook that he scrambled the wrong one!"

Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, the late constitutional scholar and lawmaker, also love to tell jokes and stories. He told one about the man down his way that did not agree with anybody about anything. The man found out that cabbage didn’t agree with him, and thereafter he wouldn’t eat anything but cabbage. I suppose that’s one way to live but not a very good one, in my opinion.

I’ve shared with you before about my Aunt Lil. She was the wife of my younger uncle, who is now the last remaining member of his generation. Aunt Lil valued education, loved good music, appreciated cultural things, and imparted that to those of us who would be influenced by her. She was very precise in her speech and made us put "ings" on our words that should have them. She was not ashamed to be living in a rural, farming community. She would just remind us that we had to compete with our peers from all around the country and proper speech would be a necessity. Anytime Aunt Lil heard us saying, "ain’t", she would point to a bar of lye soap kept on the windowsill. She was not pretentious, but had an appreciation for some of what were called the "finer things in life." She was in many ways a favorite aunt.

It was while serving as rector of St. James, Roanoke, that we received word that Aunt Lil was not well. We went down, as quickly as possible, to visit. She underwent surgery to remove a cancerous abdominal tumor, but the prognosis was not too promising. Sometime later the word came that she was in the little community hospital in the last stages of her life. We went down again to visit. I went into the ICU to see her. We talked a bit and I held her hand and said a prayer. Before leaving, I asked her, "Is there anything you need?"

"Yes," she said, "Could you get me a grape Popsicle?"

At some point, for all of us, life is reduced to a grape Popsicle. All those things we have pursued, all those things we thought were so important and would assure us a happy life, pale to insignificance in the face of the one thing that makes us all equal---death.

At first reading, the Gospel for today would seem to portray Jesus as a negative person. The teaching seems harsh and overly demanding. Digging beneath the surface again reveals that the teaching is not intended to be harsh or negative. It is, however, very demanding and that is perhaps why Jesus chose to say that if anything comes before discipleship and the carrying of our voluntary cross, we may not understand the cost. In essence, the teaching is about being truly alive in this world while preparing for life in the next. Jesus wants those who would be his followers to understand and accept, as the item of first importance, that there is a crucial difference between existing and genuine living.

In order to be genuinely alive we can’t play it safe. If we approach life by attempting to find security, ease, and comfort we may exist but we will not be truly alive. If we seek isolation from the randomness of creation, if every decision is made by the standards of the world, if we measure our success or failure by comparing where we are with our neighbors, we run the risk of losing all that makes life worthwhile. Life can become a soft and flabby thing when it is intended to be an adventure. Life can be a selfish thing when it could be measured by service to God in Christ. Life can be strictly an earthbound experience, focused mostly on each individual, or it could be lived focused on reaching for the stars, focused mostly on God’s will. We have been created in the image and likeness of God who did not put safety first, but love first. We must do likewise if we are to live genuine lives.

In order to be a disciple of Jesus the Christ we must be willing to risk taking the road less traveled. It is a simple lesson from history that those who followed the footsteps of Christ have left safety and security behind and marched off into history. The greatest contributions to the advancement of God’s Kingdom have been made by those who took the greatest risks in championing the outcast, the downtrodden, the dispossessed, and those considered by some as less than full citizens, not those by those who espoused a political agenda of the right or left. It is those who are willing to bet their very lives that all that Jesus did, said, taught, and commanded are true who end up finding genuine life. The life that is free from risk is the life that is dead. Perhaps saddest of all, that is called by the world the good life.

In order to be genuinely alive we must remember that we will not take it with us. That means the best stewardship decisions are those we make while we’re still alive. Sadly, it is a decision that many well-meaning Christian people put off until it is too late.

It is quite possible for a person to gain all the material things their hearts have been set on and then awaken one day to find that they have missed the most important things of all. We know deep down, when we are honest with ourselves, that the things of this world cannot mend a broken heart or cheer a lonely soul. We know deep down, when we are honest with ourselves, that if we gain material things in an unethical or illegal way or if we have violated our own moral code that the day will come when conscience will speak (or, more precisely, when God speaks to our consciences) and we will know hell on this side of the grave.

It is possible for a person to try to give their money to God in Christ and withhold their lives. It is possible to give lip service to God in Christ and withhold our will. God will allow neither. The only possible gift to God in Christ is our whole life; all that we are and all that we have and all that we may be. Nothing less than that will do, because nothing less will be accepted.

We pray that this parish will be true to the call of God to be filled with people living genuine lives. We pray that we will be filled with people who know that playing it safe means we lose, that risking all for Jesus the Christ means life, and that we can’t take any of it with us.

That may well mean we can stop worrying about which egg gets scrambled. Amen.