The Great Escape

April 1, 2007

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below.

Prayer

Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, today we’re going to talk about you – the mystery. Wanting to speak about profound secrets, and enigmas – things beyond human comprehension puts us in the rather embarrassing spot of having to wing it! May our wings be sturdy enough to buffet the winds of doubt, may we journey over the sea of profound inexplicability, and resting upon the mast of a fishing boat may we watch as odd forms are brought from the depths. May our spirits be like those in dreams as we watch, marvel, and do not fear that which is beyond reason.

It’s not knowledge that we seek this morning. We have knowledge, and ways of getting more. But rather it is an understanding of our place in the scheme of things that we intuit this morning. Give us the wisdom that goes beyond mere knowledge to that place in our hearts where we comprehend a peace that passes all understanding. It is that peace we look for, it is that peace that we desire, it is that peace that lures us into the unknown.

May we forgive ourselves for not being totally human. May our compassion override our sense and may we reach out even when we fear to do so. Franklin Delanor Roosevelt once said that all we have to fear is fear itself. But we fear love, we fear acceptance and rejection, we fear poverty, we fear the shame of growing old and out of control – the real question is what is it that we do not fear?

Sitting quietly, and letting our breath slow down may we land in a spot where the good and the bad are but names for preferences, may we sit as the rocks, immovable, constant, and always present. May our hearts grow to accept whatever it is that comes our way, and may we see in each instance a chance to simply be there.

We pray this in the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything.

Amen.

The Great Escape: The Baptism of Jesus

as Seen From the Viewpoint of Jesus, Himself

Matthew 4:1-11(NIV) Gospel of Judas 2:16-20

(Jesus said) “Let whoever is strong among you humans bring forth the perfect human and stand up and face me.” And they said, “We are strong!” But their spirits did not have the courage to stand up to face him – except Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand up to face him, even though he was not able to look him in the eyes, but turned his face aside.

(Translated by Karen L. King)

Introduction:

(Go out into the congregation and walk up and down looking at as many who will let you – return to the pulpit.)

I’m very happy to be here today.

I saw many things as I walked among you. The eyes are, after all, the windows of the soul.

My name is Judas Iscariot – and no, I am not the warm up act for Jesus. Jesus chose not to come here today. More of that later. Why, you might be wondering, am I here? Good question! I’m here because I was the favorite disciple, and I remain the favorite. It’s a long story.

Jesus knew and he still knows that he can count on me to tell the story, set the record straight, lay it out for you so that – perhaps – you’ll understand? There’s always the chance that you will not understand, or choose not to want to understand. That’s okay, many have not understood, many have gotten it wrong.

I know that I am expected to speak of Jesus? Baptism. Jesus, and I, we have spoken of this event many times. Each time, we seem to learn more. It’s as if the baptism itself were still going on, in some bizarre and timeless way. Like the baptism was a marriage and funeral of sorts, a ceremony of union with death and life that has lasted to this very day, this very hour, this very moment.

I’m very happy to be here today!

Once Jesus said to me, “Come and I will teach you about the things that no human will see. For there exists a great realm and a boundlessness whose measure no angelic race has comprehended.” [Jesus loved to speak in hyperbole.) He continued, “In it (the boundlessness) is the great invisible Spirit – the one whom no angelic eye has seen nor any inner thought of heart contained, nor has anyone called it by any name.”

(Gospel of Judas 10:1-4)

It’s like a Koan. The Great Invisible Spirit that no angelic eye has seen, so obviously, it’s not in heaven. The Great Invisible Spirit that no one’s heart has been able to imagine, so that it’s not of human origins. The Great Invisible Spirit that is beyond naming – mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming.

I’m very, very happy to be here today!

When I was a boy, my friends and I used to play near the dunes where the Goat Lady lived. The Goat Lady was old, real old. There was a wrecked chariot in those dunes, and we boys imagined that the Goat Lady had once been the lover of the Roman Centurion who had wrecked the chariot and lost his life. She stayed now in the dunes, because it was the only place that had anything that still could remind the old woman of her lover, when he was in his prime, healthy, strong, vibrant, tanned and delicious. We, too, dreamed of a time when the Goat Lady had been young and beautiful.

Now, she herded a scrawny bunch of goats over these dunes, drank their milk and occasionally they said when a goat would meet with an accident and die, she’d cook its meat and eat its strength. Yet – no one could remember ever smelling the smoke of a goat meal. We boys knew why! She lived off the bodies of boys who had disappeared from their villages, and we were thrilled that in those dunes, we faced more than simply an old woman. We faced a fierce enemy – an old, evil one who lived off the flesh of young boys.

One afternoon we took some apples out into the dunes and ate them there. I grew sleepy and napped. I was awakened by the sound of laugher. Opening my eyes I expected to join in the fun, but instead I couldn’t move. I’d been buried up to my neck in the sand. My friends circled me chanting, “The Goat Lady’s coming! The Goat Lady’s coming!”

One of the boys keeping watch came running from the top of the dunes. His expression told everyone that what they chanted was true. She – was – coming.

They were gone before I could beg them to stay. I could hear the belled lead goat as it made its way toward me. I squirmed, I wriggled, nothing. My bowels moved and – I passed out.

When I awakened the sun was setting. I had been pulled from my grave. I had been cleaned up and was wearing a rough white robe. I remember wondering if I had died and gone to heaven, yet the hole was still beside me – the empty tomb!

I want you to know – from that day till this one – I have never been afraid – ever – well, almost never! I had been reborn, recast, remolded into something very much like me, but not quite me. It was as if I was this big energy – The Great Invisible Spirit – that now simply went by the name of Judas Iscariot.

The feeling didn’t last. You notice that. You feel great and think, this is the way it will always be – in love, fully invested, made in the shade, got your swerve on – but no, things change.

The mind that stops is the mind that dies. Latching onto something in our life, in our presence – stopping the mind to rest in the shade of good feeling – these are the things that rob us of our ability to simply – keep – going.

I’m so very happy to be here today!

Jesus, now, he had the mind of someone who could simply keep going. They stood around him, and they all had stones. There was that beautiful woman, still smelling of the bedchamber, and the eyes of the men – those eyes. They were looking for a victim, hell, they had found a victim, but they were feeling generous, hey, let’s share this adulterer with the new prophet – that weird one from Galilee – he won’t know what to do!

What would you do? The leaders of your community standing against a law breaker – an outsider – wanting you to light them up so that the disenfranchised can get what they deserve. It’s a lot of pressure.

But that Jesus, hey, man, what can I say? Never knew a man who knew human nature like that man. There they were with all those – rocks! The sheer enormity of them – a crowd full of rocks and strong arms, working arms, killing arms.

You know that saying “Can’t see the forest for the trees!” Well, they got it backwards; it’s really “Can’t see the tree for the forest.”

Jesus wasn’t worried about an arsenal of rocks, no; he was just worried about that first rock. Yeah. He knew, that’s the one that would be the hardest to throw, that first rock was more than simply a rock – that was a modeling rock, an expression of a throwing behavior and my friends, that’s all a mob wants is a model, give ’em a model – Sieg Heil! – and you can get them to do anything.

The blood of the genocides of every generation scream now from the rocks themselves, “We are innocent! We are innocent!”

Jesus? mind didn’t stop, you see, he bent down and drew on the ground. He doodled!

The fate of a young, healthy, sexy woman was at stake – she was so close he could smell her – and he doodled on the ground! You can’t fake that. That’s the stuff of legend. I was there, and I was armed and ready. Jesus, what a party pooper!

(Mocking voice) Let he who is without sin throw the first stone! Man, this guy could mess up a wet dream!

That one little sentence – Let he would is without sin throw the first stone – and all of a sudden it’s a rock dropping contest!

When I was a boy I used to pester the blacksmith in my village. Well, all we boys did. Fire and smoke – name me a boy who doesn’t want to play with fire and smoke. The blacksmith was always warning us, “You’re going to burn yourself. Be careful!”

One day I saw the most beautiful horseshoe, pretty and new, I picked it and dropped it.

“Burned yourself, didn’t you!?” came the blacksmith’s laughing retort.

“No,” I said, “it just don’t take me long to look at a horseshoe.”

Yeah, my mind bounces, too. Maybe that’s what attracted us to one another in the first place. Jesus and me.

He gave me power over the purse cause I could figure things in my head, and was good at business. He mocked me sometimes for thinking too much about money, and then that jerk Michael Angelo paints me clutching my purse and spilling the salt. Salt and money they were equals back then – one as precious as the other.

But Jesus knew. When the chips were down, when there was no one else to turn to, then he could turn to me. My mind could follow his, we could move together and I could see what he was driving at – at least part of it.

I did stand up to him. True, I couldn’t always look him in the eye, but I stood up when he needed someone to stand up. “Stand up, stand up, for Jesus you soldiers of the cross, lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss.”

He told me I’d be cursed for all time, and jokingly referred to me as, “The Thirteenth God of the Thirteenth Realm.” What a sense of humor, what a weird sense of humor. Jesus would have liked Austin – probably lived south of the river.

“Keep Jesus Weird!” That’s the bumper sticker I’m waiting to see.

I am so very, very happy to be here today.

Jesus knew the holy books and the holy stories. We didn’t call him Rabbi for nothing, ya know!

He talked of Ezekiel and the contest he had with the priest of Baal. Ezekiel challenged the priest of Baal to a sacrificing contest. The priests of Baal went first and to tell you the truth, I can’t remember how good their sacrifice was, cause no matter how good theirs was, that wasn’t the point.

The point was old Ezekiel was the man when it came to sacrifice and he had a deep and abiding faith in the one whose name we do not speak.

When the priests of Baal had finished with their meager sacrifice Ezekiel – what a showman! Ezekiel has buckets and buckets of water poured on the wood of the sacrifice, drenches it! Then, he calls down fire from heaven and wham-o! The altar is burned so completely, that there is nothing left of the sacrifice. Nothing! The crowd went wild! (Cheer into microphone)

But old Ezekiel he was just getting warmed up. He showed the crowd that there was absolutely nothing up his sleeves, and then – he called down fire upon the 400 priests of Baal – wham-o! – and it was like Hiroshima.

You’d think that Ezekiel would be pretty happy at this point – sort of like Evil Kenevil jumping the Grand Canyon and not getting hurt.

But no, Ezekiel went away by himself right after that. He went into the wilderness and hid in a cave, and didn’t eat for days. He sat there listening for the voice of the one whose name we do not speak, waiting for a comforting word from his Lord and Master.

The wind blew mightily outside the cave and at first Ezekiel thought he heard the voice of Lord in the wind, but then realized you could hear whatever you wanted to hear in the wind. A storm came along, and there was lightning and thunder and Ezekiel listened carefully for the voice of the Lord. But the voice of the Lord was not in the wind; not in the storm. But after the storm, when the quietness of evening settled on the cave and the dancing firelight images made their way across the cave walls that’s when Ezekiel heard the voice of the Lord. The still small voice.

The still small voice – is still small. It’s not in the stock market – not on the World Wide Web – not on your cell phone. It’s in the quiet. It’s in the silence. It’s in the gaps.

Jesus heard the voice of the wind, but it wasn’t the voice of God. Satan has been called the Prince of the Power of the Air. The Prince of the Power of the Air what a nice way to call someone a bullshitter!

And what did Satan say? “Hungry Jesus, well, you’re the son of God, command these stones to become bread!” But the voice of the Lord was not in the wind, not in the air, not in the prince of the power of the air. Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Then Satan took Jesus up to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem – now Jesus swears he didn’t eat for forty days, but it sound to me like he might have stumbled onto some mushrooms! What do you think? So there he is with Satan standing on the pinnacle of the Temple, and Satan says, “Throw yourself down, for it is written he will give his angels charge over him, and will not allow him to strike his foot against a stone.”

Jesus felt the adrenaline. Sure. Standing way up there his feet itching, he could feel the wind tugging at his clothes, as he did a swan dive into the hands of God.

But the Lord wasn’t in the adrenaline, and Jesus said, “Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

So now Satan took Jesus to door number three; the highest mountain in all the world and showed him all the storming activity of mankind, the hustle and the bustle, the moving and the shaking, the glitter and the gold, Jesus could have it all for a simple nod in Satan’s direction.

But the voice of the one whose name we do not speak – the Great Invisible Spirit – was not in the storming of humankind

And Jesus said, “You don’t hook me, Satan. My mind sees you, acknowledges the power of evil in the world, and moves on. I’m not stuck in evil.” We are here to serve the still small voice. If you can’t hear it, how can you serve it?

Listen. (pause) The still small voice is still small.

I am so very happy to be here today.

The Romans were getting tired of the trouble Jesus was causing. They and the Jewish leaders. It was Passover and they just wanted the festivals to go on without a hitch. Tempers were high and the crowd was involved.

They hallelujahed when Jesus entered Jerusalem and now their voices were vicious, rapacious, sanguine.

Pilate offered Barbaras, but the crowd would have none of that. They had raised him up and they could take him down.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jesus knew that if he weren’t careful, the group he’d gathered about him, those called his disciples, would be dispersed before he could show them his best prophetic trick. We all need our audience – his twelve and the others who are rarely mentioned. Perhaps they gathered for the last time there in Jerusalem?

He pulled me aside. He told me what to do. I was to tell them – the authorities – where he would be that night – in the Garden – surrounded by sleeping followers.

He told me, he said, “As for you, you will surpass them all. For you will sacrifice the human being who bears me. Already your horn is raised up, your anger is full, your star has passed by, and your heart has prevailed.”

(Judas 15: 4-8)

I turned him in. It was a betrayal – of sorts. Without me, there would have been no Road to Emmaus. Without me, there would have been no surprises in the Upper Room! Without me he couldn’t have shown them the trick – the secret behind it all. “Pay no attention to the Spirit behind the curtain.”

Conclusion:

You know my reward. It has been written that I hanged myself, but the truth is, they stoned me. And I don’t mean they took me behind the stable and shared a Doobie with me. No, they picked up stones – maybe the same ones that had been dropped earlier, ya think? And the modeling came easy. They’d run off and not seen Jesus crucified, but they’d seen others crucified. The modeling came compliments of the state, and their anger turned those stones into a which stone can be thrown first contest. They sent me into the Spirit world.

And it is from the Spirit world with the breath of Spirit that I speak today.

Jesus has left the building!

In other words?

“You can kill the protestors, but you can’t kill the protest!”

I’m so very glad to be here today.

As I walked around among you this morning I found what I was looking for. I saw it there in the meeting of our eyes. Spirit recognizing Spirit. And the still small voice though still small, has many listening and some even understanding.

You don’t need to believe this. It’s not demanded. Really nothing is demanded. It’s all quite all right, just like it is.

Some day the human being who bears you will be sacrificed. It’s true. Already your horn has been raised up, your anger full, your star has passed by, and your heart – your heart will prevail. I just know it.

Amen, and again, I say, Amen.