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since publishing on 9/25/2003.
Installation Homily - Exaltation of the Holy Cross 9-14-03
Two years ago Hollywood made a movie entitled "Life as a House." It stars Kevin Kline as a middle-aged architect who is hit with a double-barrel dose of bad news. First, he loses his job and then finds out he has terminal cancer. At the time he lives in a run down shack on a Cul du Sac bordered by upscale homes with a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean. Instead of having a pity party he decides to reconnect with his angry, rebellious teenage son, played by Hayden Christensen. The two of them move into the one car garage while they tear down the old shack and build a new house. The house becomes a metaphor for rebuilding their father-son relationship.
Early into the movie there is a touching scene between the two of them. Kevin Kline shares a tender moment with his angry son. He tells him that his own father use to play a game with him. The object of the game was to make him look smaller than his father. Consequently, he grew up hating his father. Then Kevin Kline says to Hayden Christensen, "I don't want you to grow up feeling smaller than me. I want you to be happy."
That line sums up the meaning of the scripture lessons for this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. In the reading from the Book of Numbers the Chosen People had become small worshipping a lesser God than Yahweh. That lesser God stirred them to complain and grumble making their situation all about them. The fruit of their choice is that the God of Israel, who rescued them from slavery in Egypt, sent snakes to bite them. The biting was more than painful or deadly. It awakened them to their mistake. Once again they became contrite. And with that attitude the snakes that afflicted them became the sign for their healing. It was not the snake that changed, but the Chosen People. By looking up at the bronze serpent with a contrite heart they stood tall again as the People of the Living God and reclaimed the happiness lost by complaining.
Paul teaches a similar lesson to the Philippians. In healing the world's hurt and forgiving sinners, Jesus demonstrated clearly that God was not on the side of suffering and evil but was eager to remove it from our lives. God's first word on the subject of the world was "good," and that's what God still wants for us. The cross is the proof that God will go to any lengths to turn our sorrow into joy.
That is Jesus' challenge to Nicodemus in the gospel reading from John. Here is a religious leader, an influential member of the Sanhedrin, whose curiosity with Jesus stirs him to want to know more about his identity and his mission. Jesus lets Nicodemus know that as a faithful Jew he reverences the religious tradition of Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert. Then he adds a new tradition, Jesus will be lifted up to reverse death with eternal life. Jesus' mission is not to condemn the world, but to save it from lesser gods, who turn us into smaller people robbing us of hope and a destiny beyond this life. That destiny will be won by Jesus being lifted up on the cross. In the New Testament it is not a snake who saves us, but the only Son of a loving God. The cross replaces a pole and an obedient son replaces the converted hearts of a sorrowful nation.
The cross will be the instrument for Jesus to complete his mission as Savior and the final proof of how far God will go to turn our sorrow into joy, our condemnation into new life.
There have been times in my life when the crosses I have carried have cast a dark shadow over me. The current one is with the failing health of my 91-year old father. I have stories to tell about feeling abandoned by God, stories about being victimized by fear to the point where it slips into my life like a spy and nestles inside like gangrene. I have stories to tell about becoming a lesser person by my complaining and grumbling. Oh how I wish complaining and grumbling was just an Old Testament disease. Why didn't God rid us of that on Good Friday? I got down on my knees once in desperation and talked with God about that. God's response was you ask the wrong question. Ask what does your complaining and grumbling mean for your future life in glory? That's not what I wanted to hear. But, it's want I needed to hear. Throughout my faith journey I have come to believe that when things are going poorly in my life, when the voices of shame and failure smother life out of me, I am forced to decide where I will place my faith. At some time or other we are all forced to ask ourselves in what will we place our hope for a future life? On which side of the cross will we stand? The side that is clean, undisturbed, antiseptic. Or the side that is bloody, painful, and sad to look out because a dead and not-yet-resurrected Christ kills our grumbling with love and melts our smallness with a silent dignity.
Many years ago as a little boy I went to the Stations of the Cross at St. Joseph's in Clayton with my family. I didn't know what they meant, but I knew there was something sacred about them. Something that connected me with God. A few years later when I was ready to know more, my Aunt Mary said to me,"these are about God with you here and you with God hereafter." That was one of those treasured lines that you store in your heart like an email and access later so that it can make a difference always.
Today, I don't have any treasured lines to give you. No lines like "I have a dream" or "ask not what your parish can do for you, ask what you can do for your parish." So, in place of a treasured line I offer you the treasure of a simple cross. It was made with the loving heart and skillful hands of Henry Krysiak. It is a smaller model of the new and larger Processional Cross that was blessed last evening at the Vigil Mass.
My vision is that each weekend a different parishioner will take the cross home, along with a copy of the first reading from Numbers and the Gospel reading from St. John. Place it on your kitchen table or your coffee table or wherever you can gather around the cross. Let it become for you what it was for the Chosen People and for Nicodemus. And just like their stories have been written down and proclaimed again today, I invite you to write down the stories of how this cross, taken from the parish church to your domestic Church, became an instrument of healing and hope. Next Easter let's publish those stories as our own version of the fifth gospel, a testimony to how Jesus continues to heal and save us from the voices of terrorism that draw us away from a God who desires to draw us away from terror by embracing the love poured out by Jesus on the cross.
Kathy Swain, newly elected officer of the Pastoral Council, along with Alan and sons Nathan and Zachary will be the first family to pray around the cross at home.
In this assembly today is a high school classmate and a good friend. She is also one of the survivors of 9-11-01. Diane, please stand. Four months after she escaped from the Verizon offices in the North Tower I visited her in NYC. We went to ground zero and did our holy ground thing. She can testify to the horror of terrorism and how the shadow of the cross that day stretched wide across lower Manhattan and saved her.
Before closing I want to honor the pastors who have gone before me. Each in their own way has carried your crosses and taught you the meaning of finding happiness in carrying them.
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