The Saints and Self-Esteem

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.

Idolatry

Last week, a hen came to church. It was St Francis day and her owner brought her at 10:30 inside instead of at 9 outside, where most of our animals were blessed. But this hen did a wonderful thing. She laid an egg in the back of the church. And the ushers sat there deliberating about whether or not they should put the egg in the offering plate. After all, this was her gift to us.


Every Sunday, we make this big procession and we put stuff on the altar.  Why?  Why do we bring up beautiful silver vessels and money? Sometimes the kids will draw pictures or pick a flower that is placed in their offering basket. Why do we do all this? What is the point?

In 2005, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. His cancer was a was a more treatable form. Most pancreatic cancer victims die within 6 to 8 months. Steve would live for six years, undergoing surgeries and inventing some of his most innovative technological tools. At a lecture at Stanford, Steve said this about his diagnosis...

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,"

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

One day, this man may be regarded as another Einstein, as the world’s greatest innovator. His name is already spoken in many households. China mourns him. All over the world, people are grieving a man who knew how to be truly creative.

Steve's life was not easy.  Steve was an orphan. Born of a mother who was too young and could not raise him, he was adopted by Mr and Mrs Jobs. He only went through six months of college. At what should have been the height of his career, he was fired from one of his greatest jobs. At 50, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and instead of seeing all this as bad luck, or an occasion to feel sorry for himself, he saw every setback and every failure as a great opportunity. Steve seized life as a gift and he milked it for all its worth. He brought his best game to life, every day. And he changed the world.

Did you know that you won the lottery? Even if nothing good happens to you for the rest of your life and you die young and miserable, you still won the lottery. Because you were born. Stop for one minute and consider all the possible genes and chromosomes that could have been combined to create a person. The chance that you would be YOU is one in a million, literally. It is a miracle that you were born.

The first and greatest sin that is talked about over and over again in the Old Testament is the sin of idolatry.  Remember the first of the ten commandments?

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage.  You shall have no other gods but me.

 Most of us have no idea what idolatry really means. We hear the story of how the Hebrew people got worried and anxious when Moses was talking with God in the mountain and they made a golden calf out of all their jewelry. And then they worshipped the god that they had made. We hear this story and we think, “OK, I don’t have to worry about that one. There is no way that I am going to be caught dead bowing before a golden calf! So I don’t have to worry about idolatry.” WRONG.

Let the calf go. We don’t do calves anymore. But we do idols. Believe me, we do worship idols.

What is an idol?  It is anything that takes the place of God in your life. Anything that becomes more important than God to you becomes your idol.

Idolatry begins with the myth that you must be happy all the time.  The myth continues when you start searching for something or someone to make you happy. Whatever that something is that will make you complete, that becomes your idol. Your family. Your money. Success. Your body. Your parenting. Your job. You tell me what it is, but there is something or somethingS in your life that rival God for your top priority. And whatever they are- these are your idols. They distract you from living life as a gift. You waste your time searching for them, serving them, and you are not fully alive.

Here are the voices of some of the idols.  Maybe you will recognize them.

“If only I were thin, I’d be happy.”

“I have to raise the PERFECT kids.”

“If I had more money, I would be happy.”

“I need to succeed to be respected. I must be respected!”

Idols tell you that there is something in your life more important that your relationship with God. And nothing makes God angrier than when you listen to them.

This miracle that is called your life, this is a gift to you from the Creator of the Universe. It is a gift, a party, a banquet. You were created not to fix the world or to keep God company but just for the sheer joy of it. God was dancing when God made you! God was playing. And God wants you to celebrate and relish this life, all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly. All of it is a gift.

In the parable that Jesus tells us today, a King throws a wedding feast. In Jesus’ day, there was nothing more special, nothing more fun that the celebration of a wedding. It was a feast that would last for days. People would sleep and eat and sleep again. The guests were treated lavishly. It was the best thing going.

This King invites guests, but the guests refuse to come, so he goes out on the street and invites anyone who wants to come, rich and poor alike. All are invited. But one man comes without a wedding garment.

It was customary to wear a white wedding robe. It was a sign of appreciation, a sign of gratitude, of respect. But this man did not wear one. And when the King asks him why, he says nothing. He is a free-loader, come to take part in the banquet but not to thank or respect, not to show his gratitude. So he is thrown out, into the outer darkness. Jesus describes this scary place as a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you ever listened to fingernails on a chalkboard? (My first grade teacher sometime would do that by accident. She had long nails. It would send chills up my spine.  Think of that for all eternity.  It is not pleasant.)

Life is a feast of tastes and sounds and sights.  Life is a gift. Every day, when you open your eyes, you have been given a gift.  You think that any of this really belongs to you, your clothes, your body even? It is all a gift from God. All of it. And God wants you to say thank you and most importantly, to enjoy it.

Steve Jobs had a choice about his life. He could have been grateful or he could have been bitter.  He chose to wear the wedding garment, even when he was dying. He chose to relish every moment of his life, to make the most of it.
Many people are horrified by the notion that the King might throw a guest out. But God does get mad, there is no avoiding that fact. It is there in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. God gets really mad.  There is no sin greater and nothing that makes God angrier than when we waste our lives chasing after idols, running around like chickens with our heads cut off, going nowhere.

As Celie once put it in the book The Color Purple, “I think that it makes God mad when you pass by the color purple in a field and do not notice it...”

Why do we bring plates up to the altar every Sunday?  We are showing you how to live.  We are reminding you of the most important, first action that all of us should take, with each breath, each moment, each day.  We are saying Thank you.