We have the Paschal Candle in the church for a baptism this morning, but if we did not have the baptism, I would still have placed the Candle here remembering the miner’s trapped in Utah and the three killed trying to rescue them. Jesus said:

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

My favorite quotation from this week

On a much lighter note, I want to tell you the best quotation, my favorite quote, from this week. Yesterday, Eve and I stopped by the Harold Washington Library here in Chicago, and Eve had me look up at a quotation on the wall from David Mamet: "My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library." The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright was looking back on hours spent in the reading room of the old library, what is now the Cultural Center. I am very sympathetic to that sentiment for I, as a kid growing up in urban Boston, spent a lot of time at a great public library literally across the street from my mother’s apartment, a beautiful building (in a not very beautiful part of town), designed by the great architect Richardson. We Christians are a people of the Book, who believe Jesus is the Word of God (John’s Gospel describing him as the Word made flesh and dwelling among us), we value the Word, and value the creative gifts of writers as gifts given by God. And we are a people who value freedom, the freedom of ideas.

Speaking of libraries, yesterday evening I was browsing this morning’s New York Times on the web, and there was a great photo of Mrs. Astor, who died this past week at 105, God rest her soul, and the caption “She could have danced all night” and I clicked to the article by Bill Cunningham, and came across this quote:

The Mrs. Astor of the Gilded Age led by exclusion. A hundred years later, the Mrs. Astor of our age, who died on Monday at 105, led by inclusion. She had none of the old snobbery against the new rich, inviting them into the inner sanctum of philanthropy. For her hundredth birthday luncheon, when she was asked whom she wanted as guests, she replied without hesitation: “One hundred librarians.” 

New York Times, Sunday, August 19, 2007   

In administering the great foundation left by her husband, Vincent Astor, Mrs. Astor did great things, not least for the New York Public Library and a host of other institutions. I remember my boss in New York using the word “responsible” for some people of great financial means in that parish. I have known a number in the two parishes since. Responsible people who have helped many great causes – that is no small part of our calling in a great city.

The Gates of Paradise

St. Ambrose was the great librarian in Milan, and I very much hope he has welcomed her home into Paradise! And speaking of the welcome into Paradise, I remember distinctly the first time I saw the doors of the Baptistry of the Cathedral in Florence, Italy. It was thirty-six years ago, and Eve and I went there not long after our wedding. Eve had lived in Florence, she got her Masters’ degree in Italian from Middlebury for a year at the University of Florence. In 1425 Lorenzo Ghiberti was commissioned to do two new doors for the Baptistry. He had done an earlier set of doors, winning a competition as a young man, with such competitors as Brunelleschi. He worked on the new doors for twenty seven years. There are ten panels, each showing a Biblical scene. Thirty six years ago, the doors were still outside. If the truth be told, I can’t remember if they had a protective glass over them or not. But they were outside and in spite of centuries of grime were extraordinarily beautiful. Tradition says that Michelangelo gave them the nickname “The Gates of Paradise” – a name they still have – with perhaps the double meaning of being, of course, the doors to Baptism which itself is the gate to Paradise (great to remember on this day of a baptism) and the gate to the new risen life in Christ, and also a work of art of extraordinary beauty that itself is a glimpse of Paradise. I grew up on the view, not uncommon in New England pulpits, that the great works of art of the Middle Ages – of the twelfth century renaissance, Chartres Cathedral and its windows and sculpture – and a work like Ghiberti’s doors, were intended to tell the Biblical stories to an illiterate population. Well, maybe. I have applied my New England skepticism to that theory! Having taken part in a number of Malcolm Miller’s wonderful talks explaining the windows of Chartres to a modern educated audience, I note that they take some explanation, and the windows are very far indeed from some sort of easy comic book version, to be replaced by a higher realm –  like, my sermon! Well, as a preacher I am all for sermons. But it seems to me these great works are a celebration of the Biblical stories, a bringing alive of the Biblical stories. I think of the Hasidic Jewish communities dancing with the scrolls of the Bible, or Chagall’s rebbes flying over the rooftops. I believe the creative ability given to Ghiberti was a gift of God, and the inspiration of a great artist is a sibling of the inspiration of the writers of the Bible themselves. Well, you can see for yourself. I recommend a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, sometime before October 14, where three of the ten panels of the Gates of Paradise, newly cleaned and gilded, are on view – telling the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, the story of Jacob and Esau (my own favorite), and the story of King David. It is a small blockbuster, it does not take long to see them, there is no audio guide (there is a very good catalogue) but if you want to know the stories in more detail, just turn to the Bible. (If you do not have one, I am happy to give one to you.)

Are you able?

And a comment about this morning’s Gospel (Luke 12:49-56).  

Jesus said, "I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”

Well, I believe the stress shows in today’s passage. The baptism Jesus is referring to, is his coming arrest and death and resurrection. Jesus saw this coming, he could not run away from his work and mission. He could not just say, hey, sorry, it was all a misunderstanding and go home to Nazareth. He faced what was coming with clarity and courage. But there was stress. And it was real. And the stress was real.

And Jesus speaks of the divisions that will take place because of his Gospel – when some family members became Christians and risked their very lives doing so, and others remained pagan. But that said, Jesus is NOT in any way calling us as his disciples to division and hatred. That goes against everything else Jesus said and did. Sadly, 2007 is marked in Christian circles by very great and deep division, ranging from polite but firm statements of why other people are wrong, to very angry and bitter attacks. It is true within our Anglican communion, but it is also – tragically – equally true in all sorts of other places.

In Mark’s Gospel there is a great story that one day James and John – the closest disciples to Jesus, John the closest friend, James who would be the first to die for him – came to Jesus and asked that when he came into his kingdom, could they have the best seats, one on his left and one on his right. And Jesus said they did not know what they were asking. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38) Are you able to face what comes in life in self-giving love, reaching out in love, sometimes at very great cost. This is the race that is set before us – it may be a long distance marathon, it may be a great rush of sprint, something that happens in a moment. But we look to Jesus, who went before us. Looking to Jesus, may we make their answer our own: “We are able.”

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