Sermon:
March 28, 2002
Maundy Thursday

"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms (mansions KJV). If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"

Not much changes, does it? Just a couple decades short of 2000 years ago, a good Jew was killed after supper. And just a couple days ago, 19 good Jews were killed during supper. One hopes and prays that the angel of death will pass over this house of the Lord during this supper. For while it is one thing to come to church and offer your life, it is entirely another thing to come to church and have it taken.

Still, death was present in that borrowed second-story dining room that we, unfortunately, relegate to the biblical landscape known as "once upon a time." Death was in the air. And death was in the town. Jesus said so. Though nobody believed so.

When last we broke Lenten bread, you and I, it was Ash Wednesday. And death was there then, in the ashes that few of us used….either because we Methodists are squeamish about smudging, or (perhaps) squeamish about dying. I know that in the services I preached that day, I recalled that, as dust goes, we were "it" once, and shall return to "it" again. The first axiom of humanity is that none of us will get out of here alive. The second axiom is that we can’t take it with us.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. In the 30 percent of the funerals I do that still have caskets, you’d be surprised at the things people put in them. All to the good, I suppose. Things like floral tributes and fuzzy teddy bears. Other things like notes from the grandchildren, or pictures of the grandchildren. Seldom jewelry, which is almost always removed by the undertaker. Never money, except the time I saw a grieving son slip a twenty into his reclining father’s suit coat pocket. Then, upon spotting me spotting him, he explained: "In our family, we take no chances that the deceased won’t have to bribe St. Peter."

Tonight’s sermon title is actually a reprise ("reprise" being a musical term for a theme circled back upon itself). This particular reprise circles me back to Ash Wednesday and my use of the phrase "Till my trophies at last I lay down." Few of us understand it, even though all of us love singing it. One finds it in "The Old Rugged Cross," one of the few hymns ever written by a Michigander. Rev. George Bennard being the name. Pokagon being the town. Methodist being the church. June 7, 1913 being the night. And Florence Jones being the first organist ever to express it with fingers and feet.

On Ash Wednesday, I told you how I came to link the song with the season. Antiques being the bridge. My wife being the reason. "Let’s go look at some," she said. And applying just a dab of polish to my "good husband" badge, I said: "Why not?" For while antiques are more her thing than mine, I tag along willingly….especially since, as antiques go, I am fast becoming one. Concerning antique appreciation, our tastes differ. Hers runs toward "primitive." Mine, towards "polished." I mean, if it doesn’t look like I can’t afford it, why buy it?

So we sometimes separate at a sale. Which is how I came to stand, one particular Saturday, before a huge table of trophies….gold-colored figures mounted on brown-colored bases. Hundreds of them. Some with names attached. Others without. Some with accomplishments inscribed. Others without. There were golf and bowling trophies, swimming and skating trophies, speaking and spelling trophies, singing and selling trophies. There were trophies for a hole-in-one here, a caramelized carrot cake there, and 20 new cars sold during the month of February someplace else. Medals, too. Here and there, a plaque. No Oscars, at least as far as I could tell. As trophies go, none of ‘em worth much….now. I could have had any one of them for 50 cents….probably the whole shelf of them for 50 bucks.

But I found it kind of sad, realizing the people who had once (in triumph) held them up, had now (in death) laid them down. In the wake of the wake, someone in the family held them up, one at a time, in a gathering of relatives and said: "Any of you guys want this?" And when nobody did, it was thrown into a box marked "rummage," "resale," or "refuse."

Who wants those old things? Well, we did once. At least I did. I’ll admit it. Gold stars. Blue ribbons. Inscribed plates. Plated plaques. Trophies and titles. I didn’t mind ‘em, then. Truth be told, I don’t mind ‘em now. Not because there is prestige on them. But because there is pride in them. Memories, too. There’s a little child in every one of us who goes around saying: "Did I do good?" And the stuff on the wall….along with the stuff on the mantle….says (whenever I sneak a peak at it): "Yes, Billy, you done good."

I couldn’t stay awake until the end of the Oscars. But were I an actor or an actress, I’d probably want one. For a slew of reasons. Some of them, decent. A few, even admirable. Occasionally, an Oscar goes unclaimed. But there can be reverse snobbery in turning one down, as reflected in the speech of an actor who once said (after winning his third): "I take great pride in being above such things." Which calls to mind an old friend’s Sunday morning title which read: "The World’s Greatest Sermon on Humility." No, if someone gives you a trophy, take it.

And, if not for ourselves, we take delight in the trophies of others. I loved the article in Monday’s Free Press about Ben Wallace’s mother down in Crooked Tree, Alabama (or some such place)….rejoicing in Ben’s having made it….remembering the sleepless nights while waiting for Ben to make it….and proudly displaying his trophies on her mantle as a sign that everybody’s hard work (hers and Ben’s) had helped all of them make it. Better her than the mother of James and John who, a few days before the death of Jesus, asked Jesus for a couple of big-time titles for her boys….or that lady in St. Clair Shores who prattles on about suing everybody in the phone book because the beauty pageant title she believed her 14-year-old daughter deserved to win, went to somebody else. One hopes she is the exception.

In and of themselves, there is nothing inherently wrong with trophies. We are not likely to have Trophy Turn-In Day anytime soon….24 hours of spiritual amnesty where you can trade tired trophies for fresh blessings. No, if you earned it, keep it. Don’t idolize it. Don’t allow yourself to become overly impressed by it. It was you, then. It may not be you, now. It tells the world what you once did. But it tells no one who you presently are. And do not cling too tightly to anything you own….lest it own you. Because you really are going to have to lay it down, you know. All of it. Trophies. Treasures. Titles. Life itself.

Jesus didn’t leave much (at least that we know of). Tomorrow….downtown….I’ve been asked to talk, not about seven sayings from the lips of Jesus, but five garments from the body of Jesus. Souvenirs, I suppose ("What am I bid for Jesus’ undershirt?"). I will seek, somewhere in my sermon, to differentiate between the "pieces" of Jesus and the "peace" of Jesus. But that’s tomorrow. After all, he’s not dead yet. Nor, praise God, are we.

But a certain lightness in the saddle is called for (by the hymn as well as the hour). There is so much (in this life) that is so good while it lasts. But it will not last. "Travel light," Jesus told his friends. And they were merely "hitting the road"….not "crossing the river."

There are times when I wish Jesus would say: "Bill, feel free to bring a few of the really important things with you." But he didn’t. Why, I don’t know. Unless he knows what God knows….that (come the time) my needs will be known and prepared for in ways I can’t even begin to imagine.

As some of you know, I have a house up north. I see it less and less each year. But I enjoy it, even in absentia. Over the years, one of my goals has been to equip that house with just enough stuff….underwear and socks, sport coat and slacks, staples in the cupboard, books by the sofa, wood by the fire, even biblical commentaries in the bookshelf….so that if I ever (at a moment’s notice) want to drop it all and go, I won’t need to take a thing. Which I’ve largely accomplished.

But I don’t think it matters who lays in the provisions. What matters is that, upon arrival, it feel like home.