The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Isaiah, 45:21-25
Philippians, 2:5-11
John, 12:31-36a

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since I've returned from vacation, a number of people have asked me, "Are you well-rested?" Absolutely not. With a three year old, well-rested? But I feel tremendously renewed and refreshed, eagerly anticipating the autumn, all of the opportunities for ministry, all of the ways our corporate spiritual life is growing and strengthening, all of the new things God is teaching me.

I had a terrific couple of weeks, but Katrina's darkened the last couple of weeks for all of us. The storm and its aftermath have been profoundly upsetting: a world-class city has been upset, our sense of our country has been upset, our hearts and souls have been upset. Last Sunday, although I was at a beautiful, excellent parish, and to my happy surprise the mass was celebrated by an old friend, I really wanted to be here - with my parish family. I wanted to be at our parish family's table, the altar, and pray with you. We can't be Christians without each other, and when we're distressed, we need to be with our spiritual family.

The devastation wrought by Katrina can not be fathomed. A major American city has never been entirely cleared of its people, has never had so many of its basic institutions collapse: "the electric grid, the water system, the sewer system, the transportation system, the telephone system, the police force, the fire department, the hospitals, even the system for disposing of corpses." ⁽¹⁾ Every level of government failed; leadership absent, even crying. One reporter commented:

People who could find their way to institutional protection seemed almost worse than people individually trapped, subjected as they were to violence, disease, starvation, overcrowding, and lies. It was unbelievable that it could take so long to get supplies in and people out, and to restore public safety, and to fix the levees. Even to have a person who could project calm and hope, and who could offer useful, reliable counsel would have been a gift from above. . . ⁽²⁾

In the anarchy, people were uprooted, torn from homes, and more importantly from one another: unconsolable loneliness, separation even in the crush at the Superdome. The staggering loss was not of only of material things, but of civilization and of humanity.

Our hearts go out to all those who are suffering. The novelist Richard Ford put our feelings well.

Empathy is what we long for. . . And we want more than that, even at this painful long distance: we want to project our sympathies straight into the life of a woman standing waist-deep in a glistening toxic current with a whole city's possessions all floating about her, her own belongings in a white plastic bag, and who has no particular reason for hope, and so is just staring up. We would all give her hope. Comfort. A part of ourselves. Perform an act of renewal. ⁽³⁾

I think all of that is possible. That is the gospel. That is the cross - horror and desolation and despair and evil being transformed to the good, to love, to hope, to new life.

Those suffering and those providing relief - our own parishioner Chuck Bass - are in our prayers, and we must be big-hearted in giving to relief efforts. I know the great generosity of people here, that many people really make sacrifices to give. It's essential to our spiritual health. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also." (Mt 6:21) Our hearts are with the people throughout the Gulf. Christian responsibility is to help those in need. What we do with money is among the most profound statements we make about our character. The way we use money is a religious statement, a faith statement about how we trust God, how we obey him.

Just about everyone can provide some kind of material assistance. I know that we hear of the Wal-Mart heirs giving $12 million, and we are grateful for it. We may think that our response would be paltry in comparison. It's not. Not at all. Remember the widow's mite. Jesus watched all of the rich people giving money to the Temple and then also a poor widow, and Jesus said of the poor widow, she "has put in more than all of them; for they contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had." (Lk 21:3-4) I know people, probably many people, who have given a greater portion of their wealth than the Waltons. Giving to those in need is essential for the health of our hearts, our souls.

I suspect that many people have been put off by the looting and violence in New Orleans. It's appalling, but we shouldn't allow lawlessness to harden our hearts. One reporter interviewed a heavily armed couple on their front porch, sleeplessly keeping looters at bay. As they spoke,

a tall, thin man came loping along the median (on the street in front of the house), his biceps gleaming against his sleeveless white T-shirt. He was carrying an empty trash basket toward the Rite Aid. "That's the leader [of the gang of looters," one of the home-dwellers explained, fearing for her property]. A few minutes later, [the tall, thin man was walking back from the Rite Aid.] "I got bread!" he called to the people on the porch. "Y'all need bread? I got bread." ⁽⁴⁾

It's probably a serious mistake to condemn some of the looting. The only place to get food and water were untended stores. I think of Jesus reminding the Pharisees that even King David, when he was hungry, entered the Temple and ate the bread of the Presence, the bread of Presence - not all that unlike our Blessed Sacrament. King David and his followers acted against the law. (Mt 12:1-4) The more horrendous acts, firing on rescue workers and preying on victims, strain comprehension and fill us with outrage. But even these criminals should receive care. Jesus loved those who denied him, even those who killed him. He died for every one of us. We can't let the looting harden our hearts.

We can also get bogged down in finding blame. The finger pointing is just warming up, and it's almost certain that the politics will obfuscate and confuse the matter. That's not our primary concern. Let's also keep in mind that to some extent we're all guilty. Just as on Good Friday we remember that we all bear guilt for our Lord's suffering, that we all bear guilt for his death, so each of us is part of the whole, the whole that allowed the misery of so many in New Orleans, a misery laid bare and intensified by Katrina. Our society has neglected and overlooked the poor, the vulnerable, the unpopular, the different. We've become more callous about poverty and too often embrace a gospel of success and prosperity, that God helps those who help themselves, that we can wink at the institutionalized greed of our culture. The storm has exposed not just the sins of New Orleans, but our own sins, our own complacency. Let's resolve not to close our eyes and hearts to the millions everywhere, millions who are as weak and vulnerable. It requires more than writing a check.

Who were the early Christians? Who were the disciples? Who were the Philippians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians? S. Paul tells us: "Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. . . . ." (1 Cor 1:26-27) The early Christians were the poor, the lame, the weak, the forgotten, the unwashed, the unfashionable. These were the people who first followed Christ, the people to whom he mostly ministered. We now have another opportunity, a divine invitation, for renewal of the way we treat the impoverished, a moment to slip further out of greed's shackles, to become more Christ-like. This is a moment for us to grow, to be renewed.

Again and again and again in the gospel, Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me." We can't be Christians, we can't love, without suffering. All of us know of some kind of disaster, misfortune, suffering in our personal lives. How do we respond? Bad times can lead us to become hard, bitter, angry with God. Writing in the "bleak shadows" of World War I - 'the war to end all wars,' Somerset Maugham said, "It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive." ⁽⁵⁾ Alas, Maugham sees a part of the truth - but only the dark side. Suffering can turn us inward and make us small, embittered. Many people savor bitterness, count their sufferings, and embezzle sympathy, but that is not the way of Jesus, that is not the cross.

Suffering can open our hearts and makes us more tender, more compassionate, more sacrificing. Suffering can forge heroes. Think of the doctors in New Orleans hand-bag ventilating patients for hours and feeding themselves intravenously because there's no food. Think of police and firemen, working around the clock despite losing their homes and sometimes even loved ones. Think of people all over our country sacrificing to reach out with support and care. Suffering can help us grow in trust and commitment; it can strengthen our faith. God does not want us to suffer, and he does not will it for us, but you can bet we can use it for good. So much of our lives become dedicated to avoiding pain and loss, to insulating ourselves, to building ourselves up, but that is not the way of the cross.

Being a Christian is not a way to avoid suffering; it's not the good news of prosperity, success, and victory. The Rev. Peter Gomes reminds us that Jesus does not save us from suffering. He saves us in suffering, through suffering. Gomes writes, "It is hard to remember that truth when the cross becomes an empty object of bronze situated between two candlesticks and often obscured by flowers, but we forget it at our peril." ⁽⁶⁾ That's why today we process with the cross and venerate the cross. It can't be forgotten. It's the heart of our religion.

God made himself known to us in Jesus. Often that is not the way we want it - our God in pain and torment and agony hanging on the cross and calling us to share it. We want him on a throne, a mighty king who swoops down to rescue us from the messes we make of life. We want a God who will pull us out of the mire and problems of life and makes them go away, but Jesus shows us that God is in our messes and suffering with us. Our immature prayer is a cry for miraculous relief, making everything clean and neat and painless, and the mature prayer is for God's grace and strength to endure and to prevail over evil, to be transformed by the experience.

For the ancient Jews, water represented chaos. God created by calling forth light and order and form from the dark waters. In the time of Noah, God renewed his creation, destroying everything with water. Two weeks ago, again the sea rose up and wrought all kinds of destruction, reversing God's creativity. We now pray that as the sickly, onyx waters slowly recede, this will be another moment of renewal, that these will be waters of baptism, bringing forth new life and transformation. Disasters, whether they be great floods and winds of nature or the challenges we meet in our day to day lives, get our attention. They're opportunities for growth - not something to escape or explain away or ignore. We pray for courage to take up this cross and bear it nobly.

1.   Nicholas Lehman, 'In the Ruins,' Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, 12 September 2005, p. 34.

2.   Ibid.

3.   Richard Ford, 'A City Beyond the Reach of Empathy,' The New York Times,' 4 September 2005.

4.   Dan Baum, 'Report from Carrollton: Porch Duty,' The New Yorker, 12 September 2005, p. 38.

5.   Quoted by Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book, William Morrow & Co. (1996), p. 226.

6.   Gomes, p. 229.