We had an internationally known Anglican couple deliver the homily on October 20 at our little Episcopal Church in Kentucky. Rev. Alan Amos and his Anglican theologian wife Claire Amos delivered our sermon in tandem from either side of the altar. The Amos' are those wonderful kinds of people who when the start talking the wise person suddenly grows very still and simply listens.
They spoke about how we as Christians try to possess God rather than let God possess us, as if the Creator of All needs us to shelter and somehow protect the One Who Is. When we act this way we do a quite thorough job of putting ourselves at the precise center of the Universe. Then everything, including God, revolves around us and our humanity. This is similar to what happened when Robert Bellarmine condemned Galileo, not for bad astronomy, but for bad theology. Galileo said that the earth revolved around the Sun. Bellarmine and most of the other theologians of the day and thus the whole Christian church believed the earth was so important that the Sun MUST revolve this little green and blue ball. And they could draw complicacted epicycles to prove it.
In Mark's Gospel lesson yesterday, Jesus told his friends, James and John, that "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life a ransom for many."
It is so easy, so natural to believe we are indeed the center of the universe, but when we do it is so hard to be a servant of anyone at all.
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