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Lenten Noonday Preaching Series Calvary Episcopal Church Memphis, Tennessee February 22, 2002
From Common
Sense To Spiritual Sense (This
sermon is also available in audio.) Probably
the most popular, well-known Psalm of the Psalter is the 23rd Psalm. We
all know it, or most of us do. Many of us learned it as children. It is
important to know the 23rd Psalm. It is one of the best. I have been
coming here for many, many years and have always been impressed that behind
the cross on the altar is a sheep. That's a symbol for us in the Christian
tradition. John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus, "The lamb of
God." In the Hebrew
tradition, they didn't use animals like the Greeks did. The Greek myths
had all sorts of animals, but the Jews didn't do that. So for this particular
Psalm we love so much, the 23rd, to talk so much about sheep, shepherd,
and so forth, and then to have John the Baptist call him "the lamb"
is a very important sort of twist to the way we think about our faith
and about God. Sheep can't
find the grass, we're told, and that is the reason they need a shepherd.
The author of the 23rd Psalm knows this and says, "He maketh me lie
down in green pastures." A sheep will not drink from a rushing stream,
so the 23rd Psalm says, "He leads me beside the still waters."
We also know that a sheep strays. A sheep puts his head down and nibbles
around and doesn't even look where he is going, and, suddenly, he is lost.
The 23rd Psalm says, "He leads me in the right paths." Finally,
it is known that a sheep will not put her or his head down into a bucket
when the water is low in the bucket, even if they are very thirsty, and
so the Psalm says, "My cup overfloweth." In New York
City everybody rides on the subway, or the train as we call it. When you
come as a visitor, you probably ride in a taxi, but if you are going to
go to work back and forth every day, you ride the train. Most people in
New York don't even own a car, so your transportation is the train, buses
and subways. The subway
during rush hour is crowded. I hadn't been in New York more than a week
or two before I was having all these new feelings. One of them went something
like this:
Pushing back
when somebody pushes you is not just for New Yorkers on the train. It's
for Memphians and all of us, because that is the way life is lived--"I
got my space and don't you try to take it." We call that "common
sense." It's just common sense to take a little protective action
to prevent somebody from stealing your space. After all, it's yours; you
got on there first. Common sense says, "Y'all get another train.
This is mine." The trouble
is it happens not just on the train. It happens in families, doesn't it?
Family members begin to push a little bit on you, and you just push a
little back. Pretty soon you push a little harder and they push a little
harder, until you've got a real conflict going, and you can't even imagine
where it started. "Why is she so mad at me? Every time I am with
her she tries to take me over, push into my space. Run my life. Tell me
what to do. She's not my mother." All that stuff goes on with all
of us all the time. It happens
at work. You go to work and there's this person that's trying to get your
space. You push back and pretty soon you both wind up in the Human Resources
Department. One of you is about to get fired, and all you were doing is
just protecting your space. Common sense, isn't it? Sure, it's common
sense. That's just what you do. That's the folkway of our world, isn't
it? It's the folkway of America. That's just being a good American. Protect
your space. Push back. A funny thing
about Jesus, he didn't do that. He really is quite an amazing character.
Jesus saw Zaccheus up in that tree. Everybody was pushing back as much
as they could against Zaccheusscoundrel, thief, betrayer. Why didn't
Jesus push him right away? Instead, he said, "I want to come into
your space, Zacc. Let's have dinner tonight." Remember
the woman at the well? She was a mess. But Jesus not only went to the
well, he talked to her. He shouldn't even have said hello. He should have
kept her far out of his space, because she was trash. He not only said
hello to her, he had a good time talking to her, and she enjoyed every
single minute. As a matter of fact, when it was over, she went back to
town and practically converted the whole town. She said, "I met the
most wonderful man. He doesn't push you out of his space. As a matter
of fact, he takes you right into his space. What an amazing man I've met
today!" Everybody
liked to be with Jesus. You could hardly get to him. Its the same
with you and me. Just meet somebody new some time who doesn't push on
you. As a matter of fact, doesn't push you a bit. And when you push on
them a little bit, they just say, "Come on. You can share it. You
can have some of this space. Sure. Come on. It's yours, too. I'll share."
You can hardly wait to get back to that person. You tell your friends,
"Oh, she's the sweetest thing. He's the nicest thing. I just love
being with him. Oh, are they going to be at the party tonight? He is wonderful!"
But what we are really saying is, he lets me into his space. He never
makes me feel guilty; never makes me shame-filled that I somehow encroached
upon something that is rightfully his, and I have no right to it all.
Gosh, what
a fun thing it is to live a life and have at least one friend who lets
you move into their space. When they do that, it's not common sense. No
common sense about it. Do you know what that is? It's spiritual sense.
Oh, that's not sense of this world. You don't pick that up on the street.
You don't get that from the folkways of our culture. You get that from
Holy Scripture. You get that from reading about Jesus and really getting
into those stories and saying, "Wow! I wonder if I could begin to
make my life in some little way like that." Maybe the
best story about Jesus that really represents space is when Simon had
Jesus over for a dinner party. In that time, the dinner party was not
a closed operation. When you and I have some people over for dinner, we
shut the front door and the neighbors know they are not invited. They
wouldn't dare come over. They're wondering what we're doing, but they
wouldn't dare come in. That wasn't true at Jesus' time. In Jesus
time the houses sort of surrounded an open inner patio. At Simons
dinner party they were probably sitting outside in that inner patio area.
They didnt have chairs, so they were kind of lying down on pillows
and their feet were stretched out. Because of this openness in the homes,
people could walk in, listen to the conversation for a few minutes, and
then walk out and continue with their business. It wasn't particularly
unusual that this one particular woman came in. This is not
in scripture, but this is the way I picture her: She was wearing spiked
heels and had on the shortest, tightest red dress you ever saw--skin-tight,
way above her knees--and she'd spent a little too much time with Max Factor.
The Bible doesn't quite say that, they left it up to preachers like me
to imply that. So here she
comes. She kneels down at Jesus' feet, and she begins to cry. Then she
takes her little vial of perfume that all Jewish women carried--precious,
precious stuff, you might keep it for years and years. Instead of taking
it and putting a drop of perfume on his feet, she poured the whole thing
over his feet. Imagine what it smelled like in the place! We have expressions
for those kinds of odors, don't we? The whole place began to smell. Then
she did the absolute most embarrassing, inappropriate thing a woman could
do. She began to pull the combs out of her hair, and her long, rich, black
hair began to fall down all over his feet. She began to wipe her tears
and the perfume with her long hair. In Jesus'
time, when a young girl got married, she put her hair up, and it never
came down again in public. As a matter of fact, many married men at the
time Jesus lived never saw their wives with their hair down. And here
she is, letting her hair down. Wouldn't you think Jesus would have enough
sense that he'd get up quickly and usher her out and say, "We'll
talk about this tomorrow. I don't have the time to do it now. This is
not the place." You and I would do that, wouldn't we? Jesus allowed
her into his space--not only allowed her into his space, he affirmed the
fact that she was an important person to him and should be to everybody
in the circle. He even said, "I've got a riddle for you, Simon."
(Thats the way they taught in those days. They kind of taught with
riddles. We left riddles in about, what, fourth grade?) Jesus gave Simon
the riddle about who would be forgiven the most, and it brought the woman
right into the center of the issue. Jesus didn't
have boundaries like you and I have. We love boundaries. Here's my lot,
and my lot line is here. The magnolia is on my property. Where is your
lot line? We live that way with our love also. But we can't live that
way with our love, can we? "These are the boundaries of my love.
I can't give my love away. Those people are on the other side of the boundaries.
If I give my love away to people like that, it'll probably run out. It'll
just disappear. I won't have enough for my kids and my husband."
The truth
is the more love you give away--the more people you allow into your space--the
more you've got to give. It always happens that way. The more you love,
the more love is there. God is not going to let you run out. But we live
by common sense and not by spiritual sense. Lent is the time to stop and
say, "Who are the people who are pushing me? Who are the people in
my life that I need to let share my space?" It's hard to do because
it's not common sense. We are a
country right now facing what's been widely attributed to be evil. I'm
not sure I know what evil really is, because the older I get and the more
honest I am about my soul, it's got its share of evil. So, when we begin
talking about evil, we've got to be very careful about being honest about
our own. One thing about evil is it tends to say, "I am right, and
you are wrong." There are lots of ways to handle evil. One is to
try to destroy it. One is ignore it. One is try to pacify it. The Jesus
way to deal with evil was to allow a little more space. I know it sounds
corny, but Jesus really meant, "Turn the other cheek," or else
it continues to escalate. Somebody has got to stop and say, "Okay,
you can come into my space." A funny thing
about those subways I ride on every day, they are very crowded and very
tight. You stand and you have to put your hand on the ceiling, because
there's not even a strap you can reach or find. After you are in the train
for a minute or two, you turn your head and notice that in the middle
of the train there is plenty of space, but nobody is going to move that
way and give up their space. Doesn't that sound like you and me? Doesn't that sound like the evil within us? Doesn't that sound like pride that we don't ever want to do anything that will jeopardize the common sense of looking out for number one or give an inch to anybody else? Spiritual
sense is the only way evil stops, or else escalation continues until we
are all destroyed. This particular
time in our land is a tough time for us. It's a tough time for people
who are as proud as you and I are. It's a tough time for people who have
so much as you and I have. It's a tough time for people who know they're
right, and the other folks are wrong. What would
Jesus be about with us today? It's a great challenge for Lent. It's a
great challenge for our souls. Can we move from common sense to spiritual
sense? Lord, God, help us to do so. Copyright 2002 The Rev. Dr. Daniel P. Matthews |
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