Two Paths

March 28, 2004 (Fifth Sunday in Lent)

By The Rev. Jerry Kolb

- Isaiah 43:16-21
- Psalm 126
- Philippians 3:8-14
- Luke 20:9-19

(From The Lectionary Page)

It is somewhat dangerous these days to be a ‘guest preacher.’ The reason is that you may well prepare your sermon based on one text and find the church using a different text. You see, we have the Episcopal Lectionary as well as the Revised Common Lectionary — which some churches use to be in sequence with other ecumenical bodies around the world.  (Revised Common Lectionary readings for today:  http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/divinity/lectionary/CLent/cLent5.htm)

Anyway, as I prepared for this sermon, I was somewhat fascinated by the two different texts appointed to be read on this fifth Sunday in Lent. The Revised Common Lectionary calls for the Reading of John 12: 1-8: the story of Mary anointing Jesus feet with a costly ointment and wiping his feet with her hair. I believe that most everyone is familiar with this very touching and moving story. The Episcopal Lectionary appoints the reading of the parable of the Vineyard and the Wicked Tenants that we heard read this morning. Now the two readings seemed to be so different yet I believe that there is a way to see coherence between the two.

Both, I believe, prepare us to enter into the impending Paschal event which we have been preparing for. They call us into a somber, reflective mood — near to disquietude — as we move inexorably to the cross. They prepare us for the central event of Christian believing: the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

Both stories conspire to confront us not only as to how we will approach the Passion, but also on how we will respond to the Gospel of Jesus on a day-to-day basis. The anointing of Jesus at Bethany and the Parable of the Wicked Tenants illustrate two types of response to God in Christ. They form two paths of answerability that we need to be reminded of.

One is concerned with acceptance and passionate response. The other is about indifference that leads to hostility.

Mary’s way is about a tender reciprocation of love; the Wicked Tenant’s way is about resentment and violence. One is a living enactment of what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; the other depicts what it means to resist God with equal fervor, with all one’s faculties.

One is about being a servant to the Servant of all: the other about self-exaltation above all else. One is about glorifying God by honoring human dignity; the other is about personal gain and self-glorification through human domination.

In his masterful work “Experiencing God: Theology as Spirituality,” Kenneth Leech reflects on two paths similar to those depicted in the Gospel reading for today, which he calls the “crucified mind” versus the “crusading mind.” The “crucified mind” is marked by self-denial, by loving service, by brokenness, and by a gentle but fierce love. The “crusading mind,” on the other hand, is rooted in intolerance, and its ultimate end is the destruction of its opposition.  The “crucified mind” is rooted in understanding, unmerited love that grows deeper through pain, and seeks the transformation of its opposition. The “crusading mind,” to the contrary, emerges out of a need to conquer and prevail through power, and is rooted in “heroic rightness.”

(Now, if you think about it, I don’t have to point it out to you how that applies to some of the current issues in the church, not just our church — but our entire society! But that is another sermon for another time.)

Leech points out that this “crucified mind,” for our times, is most powerfully expressed through the life and speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He cites an excerpt from King’s letter of May 1963 after the Children’s March. King wrote:

“We must say to our white brothers all over the South who try to keep us down: We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. “We will not hate you. And yet we cannot in all good conscience obey your evil laws. Do to us what you will. Threaten our children and we will still love you...

“Say that we’re too low, that we are too degraded, yet we will still love you. Bomb our homes and go to our churches early in the morning and bomb them if you please, and we will still love you. We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.

“In winning the victory we will not only win our freedom. We will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process.”

The “two paths” pictured in the Gospel readings can be further illustrated by the following story.

There once was a devoted priest who wished to have a vision of both heaven and hell, and God gave way to his pleading. The priest found himself before a door that bore no name. He trembled as he saw that it opened into a large room where all was prepared for a feast.

There was a table, and at its center, a great dish of steaming food was set. The smell and the aroma tantalized the appetite. Diners sat around the table with great spoons in their hands, yet, to the priest’s great surprise, they were miserable — gaunt with hunger.

They tried desperately to feed themselves, but gave up — cursing God — for the spoons that God had provided were so long that they could not reach their mouths.

So these pitiful self-feeders starved while a feast lay before them. The Priest had seen enough, so the door to this room closed before his eyes.

Next, the priest found himself standing before anther door that appeared the same as the previous one. He began to despair, as the pain from viewing the first room was overwhelming, and he did not want to see that scenario again.

Again, the door opened, and it led to a room just like the first. Nothing had changed. There was a table at the center of the room covered with a cornucopia of steaming, delicious food. Around it were the same people. But there were no cries of anguish, and no one appeared gaunt and starving, even though they, too, had the same elongated spoons.

Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed. With the same long spoons these people reached to each other’s mouths, and fed one another. And their joy was overflowing.

As William Law has written:

“Religion is not ours till we live by it, till it is the Religion of our thoughts, words, and actions, till it goes with us into every place, sits uppermost on every occasion, and forms and governs our hopes and fears, our cares and pleasures.”

May this kind of self-giving, and intentional, helping love become truly a way of life for us as we walk with Jesus these last paces to the Cross, and complete our own Lenten journey into joy.

Amen.