|
|
"The i-Phone and Jesus"
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last six months,
you know that the most important event of our time is upon us.
It’s not the Iraq war, the Millennium Development Goals,
the turmoil in the Anglican Communion, the Olympics in Chicago
or the possibility of a woman or African-American becoming the
next President of the United States. The hype and expectations
exceed all of these combined, as it promises nothing less than
salvation to each and every person who gets it. Yes, it is the
i-Phone – but also known as the “Jesus-phone”,
the “Holy Grail” and simply as “God.”
Police were needed in Chicago and New York to manage the crowds
which began lining up in front of AT&T and Apple stores
in anticipation of its release last Friday at 6 p.m. Perhaps
someone here has one. Please raise it up if you do. I myself
have only seen pictures of the lustrous, rounded-edged rectangle
whose smooth, glassy, mirror surface seduces the eyes with a
black-as-night background and flashes of billion pixel color.
The i-Phone features include a contact list, camera, multi-media
player, text-messaging, virtual keyboard, internet browsing,
and did I mention the capability of talking to other people
in real time – i.e. a phone? The cartoon gallery in Saturday’s
Chicago Tribune offered this image: an i-Phone, floating weightlessly
in an ethereal realm with the following icon buttons: text,
photos, maps, Iraq Exit Strategy, End to Global Warming, Universal
Health Care, Fair Immigration, Cure for Cancer and Paris Hilton
News Blocker. By the way, who is Paris Hilton? Actually, when
everyone was talking about the Paris Hilton scandal, I thought
it was about a voyeur problem at a hotel in the city of lights.
The i-Phone matters because it symbolizes a world that is
in search of good news, hope and meaning, and looking for it
in a 5 ounce piece of glass, metal banding and silicon bits.
The fact that it has been called the Jesus phone and the Holy
Grail, and that is founder, Jobs, sounds a lot like a Biblical
prophet, and that the corporate symbol is an apple with a bite
taken out of it, and that it was released on a Friday at sundown
– all add up to a synthesis of religion and technology
gone awry. But I don’t blame the Apple Corporation for
this, its genius founder and engineers, the media, or the people
who are lining up to spend $500 for their salvation. I look
to the church itself for failure to offer a compelling truth
and hope that Apple seems to be able to offer, for failure to
tell the real and message of Jesus, for its pre-occupation with
in-fighting, self-preservation and tertiary matters, or what
Annie Dillard calls “moving the deck chairs around on
the Titanic.” It is ironic, shameful and disastrous that
the message of Jesus has been twisted to condemn, judge, and
diminish so many people, that powerful bishops trade caustic
rhetoric, that attendance matters over transformation and control
over love and justice.
Seen in this way, the i-Phone is really just another pathetic
wake-up call to those who follow Jesus. There have been many
before now, none more alarming than the rise of Nazi Germany
in a Christian context. It was Dietrich Bonheoffer who then
wrote these words about a Christianity gone soft and irrelevant:
“The real trouble is that the pure Word of Jesus has been
overlaid with so much human ballast – burdensome rules
and regulations, false hopes and consolations – that it
has become extremely difficult to make a genuine decision for
Christ. It is not the fault of our critics that they find our
preaching so hard to understand, so overburdened with ideas
and expressions which are hopelessly out of touch with the mental
climate in which they live. It is no use taking refuge in abstract
discussions, or trying to make excuses, so let us get back to
the Scriptures, to the Word and call of Jesus Christ himself.
We propose to tell how Jesus calls us to be his disciples. But
is not this to lay another and still heavier burden on people’s
shoulders? Are we to follow the practice which has been all
too common in the history of the Church, and impose on people
demands too grievous to bear, demands which have little to do
with centralities of the Christian faith, which may be a pious
luxury for the few, but which the masses, can only reject as
utter blasphemy? Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought
again and again. Such grace is costly because it calls us to
follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus
Christ. We must undertake this task, because we are now ready
to admit that we no longer stand in the path of true discipleship.
We confess that, although the Church is orthodox as far as her
doctrine is concerned, we are no longer sure that we are members
of a Church which follows its Lord. It is becoming clearer every
day that the most urgent problem besetting our Church is this:
how to live the Christian life in the modern world? The response
of disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith
in Jesus. Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity
without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth.”
If Christianity has become an abstract idea, a myth, devoid
of discipleship, devoid of Jesus, no wonder the i-Phone has
people lining up for days, putting their lives on hold just
to get one. I don’t think that anyone waiting for an i-Phone
would have trouble understanding today’s passage from
Luke, which is about the cost of discipleship if understood
in terms of the cost of getting an i-Phone. As Jesus encounters
those who would follow him, he tells of the demands and conditions
they can anticipate. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay
his head” says Jesus. Following Jesus is not easy –
there is no soft pillow waiting at the end of the day. Jesus
says, “let the dead bury their own dead.” Would
a true i-Phone devotee leave the line for any reason? Surely
not. Would someone put a sign in the line that said, “I’ll
be back in five hours” and expect it to be respected?
It is a radical demand to tell a Jewish man to leave his dead
father for others to bury. One of the foremost commands in the
Torah is to honor your mother and father. Can Jesus be serious?
If you want an i-Phone, you bet. Jesus says, “No one who
puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom
of God.” Looking back means that the furrow will not be
straight, and it means that your place in line will be taken
by another and another. Those who want an i-Phone and those
who look to the kingdom of God do not look back.
Surely it must be blasphemous to compare the kingdom of God
to an i-Phone. But Jesus talked about objects like a pearl and
lost coin to help people grasp the beauty, value and desire
for the kingdom of God. But pearls and coins were illustrations.
The i-Phone is a real phenomenon, and a real call to examine
our faith, the church, and the meaning of discipleship.
Today we will baptize two infants at the 10 a.m. service.
I can’t think of a better occasion than this for thinking
about what the meaning of the church is. Baptism is joyous and
beautiful – but it is initiation into a dangerous and
costly journey. We can’t forget that. Why are we here
on Sundays and why do we claim to follow Jesus as Lord? I can
suggest three simple reasons. First, we are here to praise and
give thanks to God – for the God revealed in Jesus, for
the Creation, for our creation, and for the sustaining of our
lives. Second, we are here to bear each other’s burdens
– the Law of Christ, as written by St. Paul in his letter
to the Galatians. Each of us carries a tremendous burden - of
hurts and hopes, that is honored, prayed for and loved by all
of us. Third, we are here to claim a kingdom where the least
are heard and considered side by side with the greatest and
to see the divine image in each other, and to bring that claim
and vision through our lives and actions out to the world. If
Jesus leads, we must know that the path ahead will be difficult,
because it leads directly to Jerusalem, where the prophets go
to be killed. There is no feather pillow and there is no time
to run back and say goodbye to your family or opportunity to
take a break for burying the dead. It is like waiting in line
for the i-Phone. And how much more valuable is the kingdom of
heaven?
Amen.
|
