14 June 1998
One of my favorite Sufi stories is about a young lion cub who is separated from his parents, is lost and is adopted by a flock of sheep. As the lion cub grows up, he learns to eat grass and to baa. One day, as the flock is eating in the pasture, over in the distance there is a faint roar. The little lion cub who thinks he is a sheep looks up and thinks, "That is somehow vaguely familiar," as he trots off to find the source of the sound. When he arrives, there is this huge male lion with a great mane. The little lion cub trots up to him and says "Baa?" The lion says, "What did you say? Come here, boy." He takes the little cub over to the pool of water to see his reflection — he is beginning to grow a mane. Showing him he says, "Now see, that is you and this is me." The great lion roars and says, "You are one of us. Now, whenever you look into the water and see your reflection, you will know who you are and whose you are."
Today is the day of who we are, whose we are and who we are going to be. Today we have paraded before us a series of people who may or may not know who they are. There is King David, the great king; there is Simon, the host of Jesus; there is a woman who comes into Simon's house; and there is Honor, the little child over here, the candidate for baptism. Who we are, whose we are, and who we are going to be.
Who we are is simply a starting place. For so long in my youth, I heard people say, "God loves you where you are." Then they made that an excuse for never changing because, while it is true God loves us where we are and for who we are, God is the agent of change and He always calls us to be transformed, transfigured, and changed into His likeness. And so, who we are is simply a starting place. Whose we are — we are the children of God and it is the transforming grace that enables us to become who we shall be — the redeemed people of God — the restored family of God.
In today's lesson, we have a series of mirrors held up to our people. Nathan provides the mirror for David. He comes in and tells that story about the shepherd and the little ewe lamb. Of course, we know that he is talking about David and Uriah the Hittite and Uriah's wife, whom David had coveted and had lain with, then sending Uriah to his death in order to marry her. It is only at the end of the story when David pronounces judgment on what should happen that he is told by Nathan, "You are not looking at a hypothetical story about a shepherd and a larger shepherd. You are looking at yourself."
With Simon, Simon brings Jesus into his home. He fails to give him the hospitality that is dictated by Jewish practice and then complains (in his mind anyway) that a woman of the streets, as it were, would be allowed by Jesus to touch him, to bathe his feet. Jesus holds up a mirror to Simon and asks that story about who is more likely to be grateful — the person who is forgiven a lot or the person who is forgiven a little. And Simon, who one presumes thinks he is a very grateful son of Abraham, is faced with the mirror of ingratitude. The woman's mirror is simply her conscience. She knows that she is separated from God, she is doing things that are separating her from the grace of God, and she knows that the source of forgiveness is to be found in Jesus of Nazareth. She comes on her own, having reflected upon her life, to find grace — the transforming grace and the power to change her life.
Honour's mirror today is the water of baptism — not unlike the water that the lion saw, the water in which he saw his reflection in the story. For us as Christian people gathered here today, it is the promises of baptism which we have made for ourselves and which we will rehearse again this morning with Honour's parents. Reflect upon the promises and ask, do I see myself in the answers to these promises? Is my life modeled after the promises I made to Jesus in my baptism, in my confirmation, and that I make again and again whenever we baptize in this church, whenever we reaffirm our baptismal promises?
Who we are is whatever we are today and whatever we bring to Christ today. It is just a starting. No one of us has yet reached perfection. Whose we are is the important piece here and that is, we are indeed the daughters and sons of God and the heirs of the kingdom of God. Who we are going to be is also important because it points us into the future of the kingdom.
Who we are going to be is to be born today, afresh and anew. We are going to be, if we are not already, better at being a community of nurture, where we raise people to know and to love the Lord, at whatever age they may be — for many in our society come to the Lord late in life, many come in middle life, many come in their youth and many more come as little children. We are going to be a community that grows the body of Christ and the kingdom of God. We are going to be a community in which people's lives may be converted and changed into the likeness of Christ. We are going to be caregivers to one another. We are going to be people who assist each other to a graceful and honorable end of life.
Those things we are already, those things we are going to be — better. As we come each Sunday to this altar and each occasion to the font, we pledge ourselves and we are told again that we are the family of God. We are the body of Christ and Christ sends us forth at the end of each Eucharist, at the separation from each gathering, to go into the world to do his work.
AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
14 June 1998