Sixth Easter - May 21, 2006

People are very creative with the messages they place on their telephone answering machines.  Frank West comes to mind; I know he wouldn’t be terribly disturbed if you called in the middle of the night just to hear his recorded message.

I read about a fellow who recorded his message by saying, “Hi, I’m probably at home.  I’m just avoiding someone I don’t like.  Leave me a message, and if I don’t call back, it’s you.”

Another message said, “Hi!  Frank’s answering machine is broken.  This is his refrigerator.  Please speak very slowly, and I’ll stick your message to myself with one of these magnets.”

His name was Fleming and he was a hardworking Scottish farmer.  One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog.  He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.  There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself.  Thinking and acting quickly, Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings.  An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Fleming had saved.  “I want to repay you,” said the nobleman.  “You saved my son’s life.”

“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the farmer replied, waving off the offer. 

At that moment, the farmer’s son came to the door of the family house.  “Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.

“Yes,” the farmer said proudly.

“I’ll make you a deal.  Let me take him and give him a good education.  If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll grow to a man of whom you can be proud.”

And that is what he did.  In time, Farmer Fleming’s son graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discover of penicillin.

Years afterward, the nobleman’s son was stricken with pneumonia.  What saved him?  Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman?  Lord Randolph Churchill.  His son’s name?  Winston Churchill. 

You never know the extent of the ripples from an act of kindness or a deed done for another in need.  I do know that the world is in need of such acts of kindness and good deeds done for those in need.  God’s knows we have enough acts being done that are intended to kill and destroy. 

Have you ever watched a group of children on a playground, especially if no adult is present to organize some activity?  They will agree on a certain game and then choose sides.  Usually, the two largest children or the two who are recognized as the best at whatever game to be played will serve as captains and will choose the players for their team.

Most times, the better players are chosen first, on down to line, to the worst.  But, all the children are eventually picked to play.  It is nice to be chosen and playing the game is the only way to improve.  If we had fewer adults around, parents and coaches and others who probably never played the game, making their evaluations about who is talented and a “natural” we might have a great many more young people getting exercise and have less of a problem with childhood obesity.  But, like many things you hear from me, that’s just an opinion.

The Good News this day is that every one of us has been chosen.  A Galilean itinerant preacher, in whose name we gather, has chosen us for his team.  It is both our glory and our burden that we are allowed to decide whether we wish to play or not.  So, if we decide to play, for what are we chosen?  What are we chosen to do?  Who will help us learn to play the game?

First, we are chosen to live a new ethic of love in a world where hatred, alienation, estrangement, strife, discord, prejudice, and ethnic cleansing seem to rule the day.  If we join this team a new ethic is required of us.  To keep his rules we must accept his love and love him in return.  “Abide in my love,” he said.  But, there is more here.  Abiding in his love and keeping his rules means that we will also love one another.  This is a primary prerequisite for receiving all the benefits of playing on his team.  Our relationship to the captain of our team is based on love.  Apart from receiving his love and returning it by means of love for the rest of members of the team we cannot understand the game or how it is best played.  Without that radical commitment to love we may be tempted to make up our own rules, decide who can really be a member of the team, set our own standards of competence, and guard our borders with diligence and power.  It should be no surprise that doing things that way means that most players on the team look, act, talk, and believe like us.  That approach is terribly sad and tears holes in the God-given soul.

The second reality of deciding to accept his invitation to be a member of his team is that we will know the absolute joy that comes from that membership.  By deciding to be an active player and striving to love the captain and others, we discover a new and perhaps strange excitement in our daily lives.  Smiling for no apparent reason is one of the symptoms.  Lending a helping hand to a stranger is another.  Inviting others to join the team is a third.  There are many other causes for joy from being on his team.

This feeling has nothing to do with wealth, status, success, national origin, race, color, orientation or any other external measure the world may wish to attach as the measure of success. 

Look at the captain.  There he was, near the end of his life, and what did he have to show for that life?  What had he accomplished, using the human definition of accomplishment?  Just twelve had stayed with him.  One of them would betray him, either by the use of his own free will or because of some Gnostic prodding.  One of them would deny even knowing him; not once, but three times.  The rest would run away and abandon him; except for the youngest named John.  He was about to die in pain and public shame, yet he radiated peace and joy.  That’s the joy the world cannot give nor take away.  Pleasure is fleeting, it entertains and then dies.  Joy is enduring; it reproduces itself in others and lives on.

Last of all, we are chosen to have the new status of being called friends.  Servants are kept in a subordinate role.  Friendship sets aside differences in rank and status.  As players on his team, as his disciples, we are now accepted as friends.  The one is whose name we gather has overcome the barriers we sometimes erect between ourselves and others.  A new community, marked by his love and joy, has been created.  In the community of his fellowship a new experience of friendship is possible.  Even now, years later, the transformation of this community of faith can be seen in every Eucharist.  We say, “The peace of the Lord be always with you.”  The response is, “And also with you.”  That transforms us into a community of mutual friends.

This is not fantasy.  It is the Gospel of the Risen Lord!  Can you believe you are loved and accepted by the One who has chosen you to be his teammate?  It is as we grow in believing that truth that we see ourselves living the new ethic of love, filled with joy, surrounded by caring friends.  Pray that the ripples of that truth may continue to disturb the calm waters of the status quo in the world about us.  Amen.