Sermon preached by The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
23 January 2011
Jorge Rodriguez in the 1800s was an infamous Mexican bandit who would come up into Texas from Mexico, rob a town, and then go back into Mexico. No one seemed to be able to stop him, and he was getting away with a lot of Texas money.
One Texas Ranger took up the challenge, and after a raid followed Rodriguez into Mexico. He caught up with him in a bar and told him at gunpoint that he was finished and to give up the money he had taken. The only problem was that Rodriguez couldn’t understand English and the Ranger couldn’t speak or understand Spanish.
Finally a Mexican boy came up to the Ranger and said, “I’m bilingual, and I’ll translate for you. So the Ranger said, and the boy translated, “If you don’t give up the money, I’m going to kill you.”
Rodriguez replied, “I have all the money I have stolen. If you go to the village well, face north, and count down from the top, the fifth brick is loose. Behind it is all the money. Just spare my life.”
The boy translated, “Jorge Rodriguez is a brave man. He says he would rather die than give up the money.”
The world in which this boy lived and whose values he had acquired is not that much different from the world in which we live, or for that matter, the world in any age. Deceit, the idea that almost anything is all right if you can get by with it without getting caught, the almighty power of the dollar, are very much with us. This is a world of violence and crime, a world never free of war. This is a world that continues to be besieged by illness and death, breadwinners out of work, and families homeless. It is a place where the good suffer and the bad go unpunished.
It is to just such a world, with different trappings but with the same mindset, into which our Lord came and to which he ministered. He seemed to emphasize this aspect of his ministry by beginning it in a town not known for its piety, not unlike those small Texas towns of the 1800s which Jorge Rodriguez robbed. Of all places Jesus chose Capernaum, a town with a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, a town scattered with signs of pagan worship. And in the midst of such a setting, beginning his ministry, our Lord proclaimed, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Whether in Capernaum, a small Texas town of the 1800s, a war torn city in Afghanistan, or Sarasota at the beginning of the third millennium, our Lord has the same message: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand; it is near you. It is here right now.”
In Bible studies and Inquirer’s Classes we often come across the concept of the kingdom of heaven, and what most Christians think of as the kingdom of heaven is that it is a place where one goes after he or she dies. It is a place of comfort, of peace and tranquility. While the kingdom of heaven certainly includes that, what the scriptures mean most often when referring to the kingdom of heaven is not some place that is only available to us after death, but something available to us right now, in the midst of the chaos of this world.
The kingdom of heaven is the peace of Christ dwelling within us, reconciling us with God and one another. Yet it is always our choice whether or not we will live in that kingdom. What we do with our time, our money, and our talent is an indication of our choice to live in the kingdom or not. Whether we choose to live in fear of the future or trust in God’s goodness for our security is an indication of which kingdom we have chosen. We can choose to be forgiving or we can cling tenaciously to our grudge, and our choice is a kingdom choice. To allow God to rule our lives in all matters, large and small, is to accept his invitation to be a part of his kingdom, and being a part of that kingdom is the only way to true inner peace.
I used to love Twilight Zone—the old one, that is—and I still watch the reruns from time to time. There is an episode of Twilight Zone that is set in a futuristic world where a man has been convicted of coldness. He had been insensitive and unsociable toward the people around him. In other words, he had refused to live in the kingdom of heaven. For this he was sentenced to one year of invisibility. He was to be ostracized and ignored by his fellow citizens. A mark was placed on his forehead indicating that no one was to talk or interact with him.
At first he thought his punishment laughable. He took advantage of it by walking into stores and restaurants to take whatever he wanted. In time, however, he became increasingly desperate for companionship, affection, and conversation. One evening he came upon a young woman who had also been condemned to invisibility. When he begged her simply to recognize and talk to him, she fled in fright.
For long months the man agonized in his isolation until his sentence finally came to an end. The experience transformed him. He was warmer, more considerate and caring. But soon his new, more loving self was tested in an unexpected way. One day he ran into the woman he had begged to talk with him months earlier. She was still serving her sentence, and now she was the desperate one. She sobbed and pleaded with him to look at her and say something. When he pushed by her and kept walking she crumbled to the ground, weeping. “You’re so cold! You’re so cold!”
Feelings of compassion welled up within him. He turned, knelt down, and wrapped his arms around her. Seeing this, the other people on the street began moving away from them. Warning devices began blaring, “Unacceptable behavior….unacceptable behavior.” The man’s love had gone beyond the limits deemed appropriate by his society. Previously condemned for being cold, he was now condemned for being unacceptably loving.
The disciples chose to respond to Jesus’ invitation to live in the kingdom of God, and ultimately their society condemned their behavior as unacceptable. With the exception of John and Judas, all of the original disciples were martyred. Yet, their lives were filled with the peace of God that can only come from following Jesus. Whether or not you have chosen in the past to respond fully to our Lord’s invitation to live in the kingdom, he says the same thing to you today: “The kingdom of heaven is a hand, it is near you, it is within your grasp. Say yes, and follow me.”