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Several years ago the Gazette reported the story of a man named Greg Winthrow whose life was saved by love. Winthrow was a member of the White Aryan Resistance, a group like the Ku Klux Klan that preaches hatred and the extermination of all non-white people. But Winthrow left the group in 1987 because he was given something better. He met a young woman, a waitress named Ann,who loved Winthrow and changed his life. Winthrow was drawn to Ann and away from the hatred he formerly preached by Ann's love for him. Because he was loved, he found a better way, the way of loving those he had earlier hated and feared. Because of this change in his life, Winthrow was asked by a group of Japanese-Americans to share his story with them. "Intellectually, it's a waste of time to debate a Nazi," he told them, because rational argument, reason, is not the issue with Nazis. For those who hate, deep seated emotions and fear are the issues, and only love has the compelling power to change that, "as it did in my own life," Winthrow said. The power to change hatred, or even indifference, to love is what Holy Cross Day is all about. It's what the faith of Jesus is all about. It's about the compelling nature of love, about the compelling nature of the One who, because of his love for us, gave his life on the Cross. The promise of the Gospel is that because we are loved - because of the Cross and the One who died on it because of his love for us - our lives can be different, changed, made new. "And when I am lifted up from the earth," says Jesus, "I will draw all people to myself." "Agape," the New Testament word for the love that Jesus lives, is an active word. Agape does not speak of emotion. It does not describe an affection someone has for another. It is not about emotion or affection. Agape describes action. Love in the New Testament is not about "being in love," but about doing love. "God so loved the world" that he did something. He sent his Son into the world to do love for the world, so that the world, too, might be able to do love. "We love," says St. John, "because God first loved us. If anyone says he loves God, but does not do love to his brother, he is a liar," insists John, because, you see, to say that you love but not to act accordingly is a contradiction. To love God is to do love to your brother. St. James echoes John: "If someone is hungry and cold because he has nothing to wear, and you say to him, 'Friend, I sure hope you find something to eat and wear soon,' but you yourself do not give him something to eat and wear, what good is that? Faith, without works, is quite dead." This connection between faith and works, this connection between what one believes or trusts and how he actually lives, is what Jesus has in mind as well when he says that if we would be his disciples, we must count the cost of it and then pick up our belief, pick up our trust and our love, and follow Jesus to the Cross. Several years ago Father Dunn told us that he has found that, for himself, if he wants to do something bad enough and he is willing to pay the price, he can usually do it. Isn't that true for all of us? I recall a time not too long ago when some jerk, an arsonist, spent a night going through Amish territory in Pennsylvania burning down barns. Dozens of barns were destroyed, along with hundreds of head of cattle and horses and an untold amount of grain and equipment. If something like that were to happen to us, many of us, I imagine, would look to the insurance companies to pay up, or to the government for relief. Not the Amish. One week later there was a picture in the paper of a huge barn being rebuilt, almost completed, not by the government or the insurance company, but by dozens of Amish men swarming all over it rebuilding their neighbor's barn. That's what Amish do! When there is a need in the community, they drop other things they want to do and that are important to them, and they pull together to meet the need. That is agape, love in action. Every month, the Chapel of Our Saviour sends between $8,000 to $10,000 to do the ministry of Christ outside our parish. We send it to help provide relief for victims of hurricanes and victims of AIDS, to help start new parishes in the diocese and to support smaller parishes that are struggling. We send it to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity and to help to feed and clothe some of our poorest brothers and sisters in distant areas of God's world. This outreach ministry amounts to twenty per cent of our parish budget. Some might say, "We wouldn't have to pledge so much to the church to pay our bills here at Our Saviour Parish if we didn't give so much away. Why do we have to do so much for others outside our own walls?" The answer to that question is simple: We don't have to. Christians don't have to do anything for anyone. The real questions for a Christian are: Are we drawn to him who was lifted up from the earth in such a way that we want to be like him? As Greg Winthrow was drawn to the love of Ann. What do we want to do? And are we willing to pay the price? What do we want to do for others because of the love that Jesus, on the Cross, has shown for us? Do we want to do love for others as Jesus has done love for us, sacrificially? If so, and if we are willing to pay the price, we can. And there is a price to pay. Christians are called to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless, to do love to those who are not loved by others, because that is who we are. Love like that is what Christians do. The Amish do not have a monopoly on doing love. All Christians are people who give up things that they would like to do in order to respond to the need of their brothers and sisters. If we say in church on Sundays, "Lord, we love you and we praise you," but do not go out from here to do the love of Christ for our brothers and sisters that our Lord has shown us how to do, what good is that? It is a faith that is quite dead, says James. "Come, you who are blessed by my Father," says that King of heaven when he comes into his glory, and all the angels with him. "Come, take your inheritance, the kingdom of heaven prepared for you since the creation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and your clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.... I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these little ones of mine, you did for me." Sheltering the homeless in Florida in the wake of hurricanes, providing food for the hungry in Sudan in the wake of famine, providing a home and guidance for unwed mothers in Denver who are abandoned by unwed fathers, is feeding and clothing and caring for Jesus himself. It is the working love of Christians. And it has a price. Right now, however - as you will see when you attend one of the teas with the vestry you will be invited to attend later this fall - we are doing many of these things on credit. There is a lien against us, a lien against things such as bulletins for Sunday worship, a lien against things like a strong music program, a thoughtful and energetic ministry to our children and youth, a housekeeper who cleans up after us, and a sexton who keeps our buildings and grounds in repair, all of which, together with our other ministries, costs much more than all our current giving to Our Saviour Parish can pay for. Or, to turn it around, in order for us to have Sunday bulletins, a strong youth and children's and music ministry, a sexton and a housekeeper and clean buildings in good repair, we are able to provide all these things for ourselves only through a mortgage. We are able to serve the homeless and the hungry to the extent we do only because we have been blessed. All of it together - all our bulletins and our ministry to children and youth and our music and our outreach to those outside our parish - all of it together costs much more than what we in the parish today currently give to Our Saviour Parish, and we have been able to do it because we have been blessed by the generous acts of love of that cloud of witnesses that has gone before us: by Mrs. Rodgers and Mrs. Franklin and others who gave generously to create an endowment, which continues to give to us in order to help us do the love we are called to do. The question of Holy Cross Day, the question of every day for the Christian, is this: How much love do we want to do in response to the love of the One we call Lord, in response to the One who died on the Cross because of his love for us and for the world? And the answer is: We must decide. Crises help people decide. A crisis, as we know, presents both a danger and an opportunity. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Now is the judgment of this world." "Judgment," from "krisis," the Greek word for judgment. Now is the crisis of the world, said Jesus. That's what the Cross was for Jesus - a crisis, a judgment, a danger and an opportunity. Several years ago four or five men hijacked a bus in Israel and tried to take the bus and all its passengers to Egypt by force. But just short of the Egyptian border, Israeli soldiers stopped the bus by shooting out its tires. After several days of tense negotiations, Israeli soldiers raided the bus in a surprise move at dawn, and they killed all the hijackers and released - redeemed - all the passengers. There was only one Israeli casualty, a soldier, a 19-year-old young woman named Rachel, who was killed in the gunfire. A reporter said of the event that "statistically, it was a small price to pay" for the redemption of the bus and its passengers. Yes, statistically, it was a small price. But "statistically" is not the theological view. The way of the world is to calculate its giving and its costs statistically, to do arithmetic. But the way of God is not. The Cross does not do arithmetic, nor can the Cross be understood, or Jesus followed, statistically. God does not calculate his giving and his costs. God simply gives, and chooses to pay the price because he loves those he gives to. Because of that love, no price is too high for God. The death of that young soldier was a huge price to pay to redeem those held hostage on an enemy-occupied bus. Imagine the cost to that young woman's mother and father. Statistically, one could say to her mother and father, just as one could say to God: "Don't grieve. It was a small price to pay. You can always have another daughter, and statistically you will come out even." But love does not look at it that way. For love, for Rachel's parents and for God, the sacrifice was enormous - the very life of Rachel, the very life of Jesus, beloved child of God. Being redeemed to count the cost that way is what St. Paul means when he calls us to "have the same mind or attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." Rachel's was, perhaps, a necessary price. No doubt hers was a willing price as well. But it was a huge price nonetheless, a priceless offering, the death of a beloved child of God. And the price was sufficient. So it is with the sacrifice of Jesus for you and me. It was a huge price, a priceless offering, the willing suffering and humiliation and death of a child of God, the cost of redeeming you and me, so that we might come to know and choose Christ's own life of sacrifice and love for ourselves. A necessary price, a willing price, a sufficient price. Not because the numbers who died were great, but because the love which lay behind the sacrifice was priceless, as great as the love of God himself. I want to end with a story that illustrates as well as anything I know the cost of our redemption. It's a parable found in a short film entitled, "The Bridge." There are three characters in the film, a young mother and father and their small son. The three are ecstatically happy. Life is wonderful for them, and it is clear that mother and father love each other and that their small son is the light of their life. It is also clear that the little boy loves his mother and father, that he likes to be with his father, and that he wants more than anything in the world to be like him. The father is the operator of the switch that controls a drawbridge for a rail line that runs over a river. The rail line carries people from their homes to a popular vacation center. Most of the time the bridge is open, allowing the considerable river traffic to sail through without hindrance. But when a train does come, the bridge must be closed, of course, to allow the train to travel across the river. One day the father goes to work as usual to close the bridge for the train. But on this day, unbeknownst to his mother, the little boy slips away from home. He has decided that he will go find his father and visit him at work. So in the film we watch the little boy walking along the railroad tracks, picking flowers for his father, as he makes his way toward his father's post at the switch in the tower, which is out above the river at the end of the section of the bridge nearest the shore. And we watch the little boy continue along the tracks out onto that section of the bridge as the train speeds toward the bridge from the far side of the river. And it's just at that moment, too, that we see that his father has spotted his son coming toward him on the tracks on the near side. Simultaneously, the father hears the whistle of the approaching train, signaling him to close the bridge. And for several seconds we watch the agony on the father's face as the horror of his situation sinks into him. For if he closes the bridge, his son will die; but if he does not, the train and all its passengers will perish. Then we watch as the father, in agony, pulls the lever and locks the switch in place, closing the bridge and we watch the train speed safely across the bridge, full of people playing cards and drinking their martinis and singing on their way to their vacations, all of them utterly unaware of the great price that has been paid for their lives. It is a good parable. But there are two things in the parable that are different from the real-life story. In the parable, the little boy does not realize that he is going to die. He just loves his father and wants to be with his father. In the real-life story, Jesus shared with his Father his willingness to give sacrificially. Jesus was willing even to die for us and for the world because he loves us the way his Father loves us, and because he wants to be like his Father. Also, in the parable, the people on the train are not aware of the great act of love that has been done for them. But we are! In the parable, the people on the train are not aware of the great price that has been paid for their lives. But in the real-life story, we are aware of it. Millions of people in the world are not, but we are. So the question of Holy Cross Day is this: Knowing that price, what do we do now? In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |