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SERMONS

Proper 14C
August 12, 2007

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

Luke 12.32-40

Do you know the story of the brass ring?

On the old carousels of another age, as the carousel spun around and around, there were long arms of bamboo or cane reaching out the riders who rode the outside horses. You see, the outside horses did not move, were not animated, and so owners created the ring gam as a way to entice folks to ride the standing horses, verses riding the jumpers toward the center. As the riders on the outside passed by, the more ambitious riders might spear the rings with their fingers, or simply reach out and grab them. Most of the rings were made with steel, silver in color, and were something of a souvenir. But the brass rings, were golden, and they gave the winner a free ride on the horse of their choice.

“Grabbing the brass ring” in our lives means that we win the prize.

We become for a moment the prince or the princess of the carousel. It takes a bit of daring, a bit of cunning, a bit of luck. Have you ever grabbed the brass ring? Are you still trying perhaps?

Although we don’t ride carousels the way we used to, that brass ring is still out there, almost within reach; perhaps it is reaching out to us. The prize it conveys is the recognition that we have got the stuff, “the right stuff.” There are all sorts of brass rings in the lives of those gathered here today. What carousel might we find ourselves riding today as we come into God’s house? For what are we reaching out for in life on this day?

Perhaps our brass ring today is a kind of recognition in our professional life - some promotion, some appointment to high office, that would really make all the difference in our world. Perhaps we are reaching for the attention of a particular group of people, the attention of a particular person; their attention turned in our direction would really make all the difference in our world. Perhaps we are waiting and hoping that our name will be added to a certain list of names; receiving that one invitation would really make all of the difference. And perhaps some of us are simply looking for that brass ring that will give us an invitation to get off of this blasted carousel; perhaps the whole thing has become ridiculously tedious and tiresome.

Who is holding our brass ring this morning? For whom, and for what, are reaching out on life’s carousel? Do our ambitions bring us joy and a settled rest . . . or do we say with the poet John Dryden, “Cursed ambition: how dearly have I bought you.”

The point is not so much that we strive for the prize, because there are good things in this life worth all of our best efforts. It is not wrong to reach, to hope, to plan, to strategies. The point, the question to answer, is why. Why are we striving, and for whom?

“Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, and unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also . . .”

In Luke’s Gospel today, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem carrying this new Kingdom on his shoulders. Jesus is awake. Jesus is looking into the eye of the tiger, and Jesus is calling us to be awake as He is awake. In his humanity and divinity, Jesus is explaining to his friends what happens when God’s presence enters the world. Everything changes. The places where we thought we had buried our treasure is no longer. What we thought of as gold becomes fools’ gold.

The notion that we might sweat and worry and work and save for a time of resting on our laurels in this life is no more. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit . . .” Each of knows that we do not hit targets for which we are not aiming. In this portions of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is explaining to his friends what it means to live with our eye on the target.

You see, God has already made a target of us. There is a kingdom breaking into our reality that is a gift that we cannot give to ourselves; God already has us in his sights. The question we face is how to live with God in our sights.

The carousel that is our lives is turning and turning, and the brass ring is dangling before us - for whom do we reach out, and why? For whom are we spending our ambition?

C. S. Lewis once said that perhaps the greatest danger and tragedy in a persons life is that they will come to life’s end never really having done what they wanted or liked, nor that for which they were created.

If we are wondering for whom we are created, all we need to do is to find our story within the Great Story; the story that is written in the books of scripture, the story that is the Church, and the story that is the Kingdom within our midst.

When we look, we see that God is faithful, though not always understood. Abraham standing under the desert stars, throwing the ultimate question mark toward the sky, “What about me? What will you give me?” And the sky smiling, “I will give you these . . . as the stars of the heavens shall your children be.” God already has us in his sights.

When we find our story within the greater story, we join others on the earth who found themselves strangers and foreigners because they reached for a prize that is not wholly of this world. Because they placed their ambition and their faith in the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” their treasure was not of this world, so neither were their hearts. They knew the one for whom they were reaching.

Jesus is telling us this morning that our story is wrapped up in these stories. Jesus is telling us this morning that God means, in his goodness, for us to have the gift - for us to grab the brass ring - the brass ring that only God can give to us and we receive. The carousel that is the kingdom is unlike the others we may have known, for there are no silver rings on this carousel of the kingdom, only gold; and anyone who reaches out toward God in faith will have one. God has his sights trained upon us, God means for us to have his gift.

This is not a carnival gimmick enticing us to go for a ride. It is not a souvenir of some trip to the fair. It is life and love forever, and it is for keeps. God is watching us going round and round on the carousel. He is reaching. He is waiting. Are we awake? Are we ready?

Because the book tells us, it is his Good Pleasure, his good pleasure, to give us his kingdom.