Politics and the Kingdom of Heaven, 3
The Rev. Mark Sherwindt, Pastor
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Easter 5: April 20, 2008
Last Sunday we used the Sanctuary, our new screen, and our new video equipment to show the movie Kingdom of Heaven, starring Liam Neeson and Orlando Bloom. What a great movie, and what a great setting! Sure, there's more than a tinge of blood and gore, with 12th century Christian knights battling Moslem Saracens for control of Jerusalem. But that's part of our shared history with Islam and Judaism. It's a reality we need to understand and question. Actually, we didn't quite see the entire movie. In fact, we're no more than halfway through it. So, this evening - between the sermon this morning, a brief introduction this afternoon, complete with some courtesy clips from last week - you'll all be good to go if you decide to come and see what all the Sunday evening buzz is about.
The movie begins with Orlando Bloom, a village blacksmith in France, burying his young wife following complications during childbirth. Liam Neeson is Lord Godfrey, Defender of Jerusalem at the service of Jerusalem's King, Baldwin IV, and he rides to the home of his son looking for his sole heir to join him in Jerusalem. After some hesitation, Orlando Bloom agrees, and the journey begins. His father is killed on the ride out of town. His ship is wrecked en route to Jerusalem. His horse is almost stolen in the desert. Finally, he arrives in Jerusalem. He is recognized by the insignia on his father's sword, and welcomed into his role as Godfrey's son. He is dispatched to a dry patch of parched land several villages away, which he turns into an oasis of vegetation through a system of wells and irrigation. The Queen of Jerusalem is so taken by his strong sense of honor and straightforward integrity that she would have made him king, had not the role already been taken by the arrogant and misguided Guy of Lusignan.
Balian, the character played by Orlando Bloom, winds up defending Jerusalem against the much larger and stronger army of Moslems marching with the legendary Saladin. Against great odds, with only townsmen and young boys to help, he prepares a defense for the inevitable assault. There is more violence, more bloodshed, with very little glory. In the end, Saladin understands that, while he could take Jerusalem by force, his foe had earned his respect and deserved a victory of sorts. Orlando Bloom agrees to surrender Jerusalem if Saladin promises safe passage to the sea for all of the people living within its walls. It is historically significant, of course, since it meant giving up the sacred sites - the Wall, the Sepulchre, the Mosque - to Moslem control in a see-saw struggle for power pitting Christians against Moslems for millennia. But it is also heroic that Balian could save a defenseless people from destructive forces and historic strains that didn't concern them, certainly didn't consult them, and didn't care much about what happened to them.
So, the march begins that takes Orlando Bloom back to the same house in France where his father found him, doing the same work that preceded his ascent to heroic fame of legendary proportions, married now to the woman who would be queen had not her husband the king invited his own destruction and Jerusalem's by provoking Saladin to take decisive action against him. I don't mean to get sidetracked by the minutia of movies and history, but it is so striking that Balian should wind up right where he was before it all began. He had been a hero, a valiant knight, married now to the woman who once was a queen ruling at the center of the universe in Jerusalem, the city known to the world as the gateway to the kingdom of heaven; and this ironic ending suggests that he has seen the fleeting nature of it all. There as a blacksmith in some nameless village in France, with nothing more than hard work, an honest living, and a loving wife, he has all the life he needs. He had made the desert bloom. He had won the love of a city of servants, and earned the respect of his enemies. He served the King of Jerusalem and protected its people. What is it that really and ultimately matters? Where is the way that leads to the truth about life, to true life? One thing is certain. It wasn't the way to the Crusades.
It's not easy to boil down the complexities in life to its simple essence. But in a sense, with lots of special effects and great cinematography, that's what Kingdom of Heaven tries to do; and that's what Jesus is trying to do with our Gospel Lesson in John 14. This entire text is so memorable, filled with images that are dear to the hearts of many. In my Father's house there are many rooms. This is a line that I have referred to often at funeral services, both because of the comfort it brings and because of the hope and imagination it inspires. It's a keeper, but so is the interplay between Jesus and Thomas that follows. I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas' response says it all. Lord, we don't have any idea where you're going. How could we possibly know the way? Jesus makes the connection clear. I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
I discovered something interesting about this text listening to the radio while driving to Boston on Wednesday. I was racing the clock to get to Boston in time to join Austin at a reception sponsored by the College of Business at Northeastern University, when some bible chatter on a local radio station started talking about St. Jerome, the Church Father who translated the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament into Latin back at the beginning of the 5th century, in a version of the Bible known as the Vulgate. It turns out, as I confirmed with a little research of my own, that Jerome chose a word that has come to leave the wrong impression when the faithful read this memorable text. Jerome saw the Greek word monay, which means a place to stay, and chose the Latin word mansione, a word that certainly is a place to stay, but carries with it much more than the original intended or implied. This new meaning continues to invite all sorts of interest and imagination still today. While Jesus was getting his group to focus on the journey of being with him, most of us are already well down the path of thinking about the ending, the fabulous estate that awaits us, an all-inclusive resort with all the trappings, and some we haven't yet thought of! When Matthew 8:20 reminds that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head, all we can say is, If that floats his boat, fine. As for me, it's nothing but first class accommodations all the way! Jesus was focusing on their being with him. But most of us have already anticipated that the social director at Hotel Heaven will be so busy planning days of fun-packed delight, that there will be little time to think of who's doing what with whom.
This disjointed sense of expectation is in part what drove the Kingdom of Heaven. Crusaders thought that Jerusalem would be something different than it was. They imagined a city worthy of the hopes that had been invested in its being regarded as the gateway to the kingdom of God, the way to God Himself. Tiberias, a friend of Godfrey, also a servant of the King and the leader of everyone who was commissioned to defend Jerusalem, offers one of the better lines of dialogue in this regard. I have given my whole life for Jerusalem. First, I thought we were fighting for God. Then, I realized we were fighting for wealth and land; and I was ashamed. Can you imagine the scene in heaven that John 14 pictures? In the realm where God abides, there's a place to stay for all of us. I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also. It is clear now that this text is about being with Jesus. And there we are with our laptop and a blackberry. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just checking out for the menu of choices that are available to me now that I have arrived. I guess I just forgot that the point of my arrival was to be with you. But in truth, if we're being honest, we'd be more likely to be ashamed than sorry, because it's not just our mind that's elsewhere, but our heart, too, and our hopes running wild with all sorts of pointless distractions that so easily become obsessions, until, with Jesus' help, we learn to refocus us on the point of it all. That's the point of his saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. Come, follow me, and I will open your mind to the truth and your heart to true life.
Peter tells us exactly where we are going to find the way that leads to true life. It's right there in the Second Lesson. Again, our disjointed expectations may keep us from seeing what is so clear to Peter. The place where we will find the way that leads to true life is right here in the church. Come to him, a living stone, and like living stones, let your-selves be made into a spiritual dwelling of God, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. For you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God's people. (1st Peter 2: 4, 5, 9, 10) Once you were nobody, but God has made you somebody, somebody special, his chosen people. Once you were strangers to grace, enemies of God, in bondage to sin's power and death's curse. But now you know God's mercy. Now you know that the cup of judgment, filled once with righteous wrath and condemnation, overflows with God's grace, and that God's grace has overcome the power of sin and the curse of death. Here's the point. If you now know that God's mercy is yours, then claim the promise it offers with new life in Christ. If you now know that God's grace reigns, and proclaim its reign through the life you live, through the love you share. This is what Peter is saying. We are the place where God's grace reigns. We are the living stones built into the Rock, made for the purpose of proclaiming the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, which is ours here and now in Jesus' name. Amen