This sermon was preached at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Florida.
I was new in 10th grade. My father sent me to a private school, much like this one, but not so cool. It was not a Christian school, just a secular, private school. I had grown up in the inner-city and I did not know how to fit in. I had no idea what to wear and since no one wore uniforms, dressing each day was an ordeal. I would try on one thing after another and nothing looked right.
But worse than dressing was talking. I was incredibly shy. Incredibly. I was so shy I that could not recognize the sound of my own voice. It sounded weird to me when I spoke at school. I guess that was because I hardly spoke.
At home, I was a completely different person. I fought like crazy with my little brother. I argued and talked to my mother about everything. And I constantly worried about my dad. He suffered from depression and would just stop working and go to bed. One time he went to bed for three months. We did not know what to do or how he could hold his job at the law firm. I was always worried but, at home, at least I could speak.
I loved theater. When I got to play a part on stage, it was like I was being given permission to speak. I could become someone else, someone who was not always scared about her dad. I could become carefree and happy. So I tried out for everything. And the spring of my sophomore year, they gave me the romantic lead in the Spring Musical.
It was Anything Goes. Set in the 20’s on a boat, I got to fall in love with a handsome guy and sing about it. We even kissed on stage. I was curious to meet the guy who would play the other lead. When I met him, I was not disappointed. His name was Mark Volpe.
Mark was handsome. He was a senior. He had a lot of friends. He was amazing. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I lived for rehearsals. He would talk and laugh with me. I would forget about my dad and just think about Mark. It was amazing.
The performance was everything that I could have dreamed of. And to top it all off, Mark gave me a letter and asked me to the prom. I went home elated. But when I got home, I got scared.
“I don’t think that your dad can handle you going to the prom with a senior,” my mom said. “It would just kill him with worry.”
So I wrote back. I’m so sorry, but I have to say No, I said. Mark did not wait long to ask out another girl, a senior. He seemed fine with it, but I was heartbroken. Later that year, I wrote him again, explaining that I had always really liked him but was too scared to go to the prom. He wrote back and told me that I reminded him of a clown.
It’s been over 20 years and I can still feel the pain. I have daydreams of going back to high school now, when I am confident and clear about who I am, when I am not afraid. I would go back and not worry so much. I would go back and not be afraid. I would go back and say yes to the prom and enjoy myself. But I cannot go back.
So I say this to you.
I know that many of you live your lives as two different people. You are one person at school, with your friends, and you are someone else at home, someone entirely different. Please raise your hand if you feel that this is true for you.
And we have this image of ourselves, or of the person we want to be. We think about how we look, who likes us or doesn’t like us, how we can fit in or stand out. We think about ourselves almost all the time. And the more we think about ourselves, the more we cannot quite fit in.
Every person, deep down inside, feels that they don’t belong. Even when things are going great and we have friends and we are dating our dream person, we still wonder, deep down inside, when all of this is going to end and we will be discovered for who we are, someone alone and left out.
The only thing that really brings us out of our self-absorption is falling in love. When I was really into Mark, when I couldn’t wait for the next rehearsal, I was happy because, for the first time, I was thinking about someone else more than I was thinking about myself. I got over myself for while and it was good.
But falling in love with people leads to disappointment. You go on a date and they say something really stupid and you just want to get out of there. Or they decide that they like someone else more and you live with that hurt. Or you chicken out and live with your own disappointment in yourself.
There is only one person who really can respond and love you back in the way that you need. God. Falling in love with God is what its all about. It is the best kind of romance. The only one that doesn’t leave you out in the cold or disappointed in some way.
The saints fell in love with God. They acted totally bizarre. They listened to Jesus’ words about how they should be humble and not show off, so they did things like this…
St Francis wanted to give everything to God, so he went to the bishop and, in front of the whole crowd, he stripped naked.
St. Philip Neri was so loved by people that they followed him around. He became nervous that they had fallen in love with him and not with God so he shaved off half of his beard and walked around looking like a fool.
Peter, when he found out that he would be crucified like Jesus, did not want to be killed like his master. That was too good for him. He loved Jesus too much to be crucified like him. So he insisted on being crucified upside down. Upside down!
They looked like fools, these saints. And they didn’t care because they were no longer thinking about themselves. They were too in love with God to worry about themselves.
The reason that we want to fall in love with God is that God knows who we truly are. Trying to be something that you are not will only get you so far. God knows you for the powerful, incredible person that you are and God wants you to become all that.
There is a story about a baby tiger who gets lost from his mother and ends up being raised by goats. He learns to bleet like them and to nibble grass. He grows into a large tiger but is simply behaving like a goat, bleeting and eating, nibbling and wandering. One day, the King Tiger comes to the forest.
He watches the young tiger bleet and nibble on the grass with the other goats. And he says to the Tiger, Come with Me.
He takes the young tiger to the river. Together, they look into the water. For the first time, the young tiger sees a reflection of himself. “You are not a goat,” says the King. “You are a tiger, like me. You do not nibble on grass. You were made in my image. You eat raw meat, like me.” And the King throws him the carcass of a dead animal.
“And you do not bleet nervously. You can roar, like me.” And the King let out a ROAR that shook the whole forest. And with that roar, the young tiger woke up to who he really was.
You are not two separate people, one at home and one in school. If you find yourself divided, unsure, nervously trying to find out who you are, then you have not really fallen in love with God. God will show you who you are. God will teach you not just how to speak, but how to roar.
Saints are simply people who fell in love with the true one. That’s all. They just fell in love.
