Downwardly Mobile

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March 29, 2018

Maundy Thursday

Some fifteen or so years ago, I was sitting on the Close of General Seminary in New York City—gabbing and grousing with a group of senior students who had just graduated from that bastion of theological education on the East Coast.  Late spring within the context of an Episcopal seminary always brings with it an element of upheaval for seniors: it is mad dash to finish up course work; it is heightened emotion and conflicted feeling at saying goodbye; it’s frenzied packing to get out of housing before another month’s rent is due; and to use a theological term—it is most certainly der grosse angst over securing a job for the future.  Once upon a time, Mother  Church guaranteed her fresh starts with new beginnings—and certainly in fields that were white ready for the harvest—but no more is that the case.  

Most seminary students these days find themselves straddled with the weighty responsibility of doing their own work of deployment, of finding their own church positions, and oftentimes in areas that are as spiritually and culturally drought-stricken as were so many of our midwestern cornfields in the summers of recent past.  With big-time debts acquired in the self-payment of tuitions, and with the responsibility of securing a job for oneself, my heart goes out to the freshly-minted deacons and priests of our beloved  Church who gather up the courage and the grit to do it anyway.    

On that particular day at the seminary, and into that huddle of anxious graduates sitting outside the mail room, a student burst forth in what appeared to be a state of ecstasy.  She was waving a letter, and dancing a jig, and shrieking the words, “I’ve got a job; I’ve got a job!”  And a great swell of applause ensued.  “Congratulations,” dear Cathy, “that’s wonderful!”  Where is it?  Where are you going?  What will you be doing?”  She said proudly: “I am the new curate at Holy Trinity, Manhattan—UP there on 88th Street and 2nd Avenue—the UPPER East Side of the Big Apple itself.  Was she ever priding and preening with such LOFTY news of a move UPTOWN.  Then Suddenly, and quite spontaneously, the heavenly chorus erupted.  Her fellow students began singing:  “Movin’ on up, to the East Side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky-y y y.  Movin’ on up, to the East Side, I’ve finally got a piece of the pie.”  Whose pie?  Why the American pie of course.  Certainly not that of Jesus.

Do you remember “The Jeffersons”?  Do you recall that remarkable TV sitcom of the 70s and 80s that featured an affluent, upwardly mobile, African-American couple who made it, and made it big?  It became an iconic feature of the great American dream of that time,  and I daresay this time.  It reminded a large minority subset of this country’s population that the “sky is the limit” and open to all, and just the place one should aspire to call home.  The singing seminarians’ metaphor of upward mobility was remarkably accurate.  Cathy, the new curate at Holy Trinity, was actually moving into the parish’s office building wherein there was a wonderful, newly-refurbished, deluxe apartment on the top floor...way way up there in the Sky y y y.  Oh dear God—worldly triumphalism even has an insidious way of creeping into the life of the church at times, and it can literally dog our every step.  You might think we church women and men value life at the top even with such strong Gospel prescriptives to the contrary.

A part of me had such fun preaching at this young woman’s ordination.  I sang the Jefferson’s theme song, and the organist accompanied me with an improvisation on the theme that almost blew the roof off the church house (a roof of highly-coveted Guastavino tile I might add).  I did so enjoy the occasion, but you won’t be surprised when I say that another part of me was cold-sobered after reading the ordination Gospel from St Mark….that other-worldly, counter-cultural, highly subversive Gospel lesson on greatness; that sockdollager of a sermon on servant ministry; that pericope of Scripture that states without any equivocation whatsoever that the way up with King Jesus is the way down.  And the way down is the way up.  Suffice it to say, the human ego cringes at such a notion; but the soul nods it appreciation and quietly rejoices.   

Several years ago, I heard the pastor of New York’s Riverside Church preach a sermon on tonight’s Gospel reading from St. John…a homiletical masterpiece that immediately etched itself on the frontal lobe of my brain.  His name was Campbell and he said: “Jesus took a towel, and went down, down, down to wash the feet of his disciples, and here we are trying to go up up up and away.  Who on earth do we think we are?  King Jesus blazed a trail that the sociologists never dreamed—the way of downward mobility...a direction that leads, quite ironically, to the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven itself.” 

Oh dear followers of Jesus, listen up.  Take up your Cross and follow Jesus.  Better yet, take up your towel and learn to descend with our Lord…all the way to the level of a foot.  Now don’t be surprised when the way of the Cross turns out to be the way of life.  Don’t be shocked, or bewildered, or resentful when the direction for the Kingdom turns out to be this way—not this way.    I know it’s almost subversive to teach such truths as we know; they run so counter to what’s cultural.  And yet they come straight from the Master’s mouth.  Saint Luke records another of Jesus’ stirring homilies on authority and greatness and going up up up and away in our beautiful balloons.  Luke says:  Now the disciples were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest.  But Jesus intervened:  Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles.  But it’s just not going to be that way with you.  Let the senior among you become like the junior; and let the leader act the part of the servant.”  (Luke 22, the Message).  Can you imagine!  Hearing such a thing aimed at those who live up there at the top…or even aimed at those who aspire to go that direction.  It’s enough to make you crazy…well maybe not crazy…but a least a fool for Christ’s sake.  

I love this particular service of Holy Week--the Maundy Thursday liturgy.  There was a time when I focused all my attention on the institution of the Lord's Supper, but then I began to hear the message of servanthood, spoken at the level of a foot, and focused on all who would travel with Him this road less traveled.  The music of the evening is sublime.  The ceremonial is sobering.  The Gospel lesson is heart-rending.  And for me as priest, the opportunity to divest myself of trapping and get back to substance is clear and certain.  What a dose of strong spiritual medicine as we move into Good Friday.  Would that the spirit of Jesus the Servant King, who blazed a trail by going down down down to wash the feet of others, emblazen you to do the same.  May this otherworldly king who gives you the will to do this work of downwardly mobile, servant ministry—now give you the power and the grace to accomplish it.

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