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Sixth Sunday in Easter
May 13, 2007 Sermon by The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings       

The Cigar Smoker, by Jack Shea - The Inspired Imagination:

Then Jesus took a little child, stood him in their midst, and putting his arms around him, said to them, “Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes, not me, but him who sent me” (Mk.9:36-37).

The Answering Imagination: The cigar smoker was giving a workshop in Los Angeles. It began in glory and ended in humiliation. At the close people were grumbling and his departure was more in the nature of an escape. But as the cab dragged through traffic to the airport, he thought to himself. “If only I can get to the airport, get on the plane, nurse a double martini, eat whatever lousy food the airline is serving, and smoke my cigar, everything will be all right.” For this was many years ago when cigar smoking on airplanes was allowed and they served food.

For the first time in three days there were no hitches. He got to the airport, got on the plane, and plunked himself down in an aisle seat in the smoking section.

Next to him in the middle seat was a little girl, around four years old. She had with her everything little girls carry on airplanes – a half-eaten bag of Fritos, a coloring book with a box of broken crayons, and a doll, mussed from too much hugging and squeezing. In the window seat sat the little girl’s mother.

Los Angeles, as usual, was socked in, a thick mixture of fog and smog. As the plane left the ground, it entered the thick, grey clouds. The cabin darkened. But as the plane climbed, the cabin grew progressively lighter until the dazzling moment when the plane broke out of the clouds into the sun.

The captain turned off the no-smoking sign. The woman in the window seat lit up a cigarette. When the cigar smoker looked over and saw her, his heart sank. As she exhaled the smoke, she waved her hand back and forth in front of her mouth. The smoke wafted upward and drifted toward the front of the cabin.

The cigar smoker instantly knew what this meant. This woman was going to smoke her cigarette, but there was going to be no smoke in the little girl’s eyes. But the cigar smoker also knew that when he lights up his cigar, smoke would swirl through the cabin, infiltrate the cockpit, and seep out into the universe. And if he lights up his cigar, this little girl would be engulfed in smoke. She would be coughing her pathetic little girl cough. People would be staring angrily at him. He would be the bad guy of all time.

The cigar smoker folded his arms and allowed the injustice of it all full reign over his soul. His thoughts boiled. Did he not get a seat in the smoking section? He did. Do they allow you to smoke cigars in the smoking section? They do. Does he need a cigar? Oh sweet Jesus, he needs a cigar. Will he be allowed to smoke a cigar? He will not.

He sank sullenly into the seat and entertained the idea of locking the little girl in the washroom.

The woman in the window seat finished her cigarette and said to the little girl, “Jennifer, come here.” She helped Jennifer slide over and sit on her lap. “Jennifer,” the mother instructed her, “look at the clouds.”

Jennifer looked out the window of the airplane and looked down at the clouds. The little girl immediately began to sob and repeat in a frightened voice. “We’re upside down! We’re upside down!”

The cigar smoker turned toward the noise and coolly observed the little girl’s panic. He thought to himself, “All her life this little kid has been standing on the ground looking up at the clouds. Now she is over the clouds looking down. She naturally things she is upside down.” But he decided that it was not his place to say anything.

Jennifer’s mother was the soul of logic. She explained to her, “We are in an airplane, Jennifer. When you are in an airplane you go up in the air. When you go up in the air, you go over the clouds. So you see we are not upside down. We are right side up.” And then from the mother’s mouth came a conclusion that she was obviously not prepared to admit but which she could not avoid. “The clouds are upside down.”

To which Jennifer replied, her sobs deepening, “We’re upside down! We’re upside down!”

The mother pressed the button for the cabin attendant; and down the aisle came a trained and confident stewardess, prepared for any eventuality.

She leaned over the cigar smoker and said in a voice of syrup to the little girl, “What’s your name?”
“Jennifer,” the girl whimpered.
“What’s the matter, Jennifer?”
“We’re upside down.”
“No we’re not, honey,” the flight attendant assured her. Then she talked about her experience of flying and that sometimes she gets afraid too, but that really there is nothing to worry about because the captain knows what he is doing, and what she finds often helps is some Coca-Cola and some peanuts, and that she was going to get some and bring them back to her, and then she would see that there was no reason to cry.

The cabin attendant retreated down the aisle, smiling.

Jennifer sobbed, “We’re upside down! We’re upside down!”

Jennifer’s mother, leaving reason, resorted to discipline. She picked the little girl off her lap and planted her firmly back in the middle seat. “Sit there and be good,” she warned.

Jennifer sat there, holding her thin knees and making soft crying noises that anyone with ear to hear could pick up.

The cigar smoker heard. He leaned over to the little girl and said, “Jennifer, we are upside down!”

The little girl looked up at him in grateful recognition. “But it’s O.K.,” said the cigar smoker. “It’s O.K.”

Jennifer climbed over the arm of her seat and sat in the cigar smoker’s lap. And for a moment before her mother could rescue her, for one dazzling moment comparable to when an airplane breaks out of the darkened clouds into the sun, the cigar smoker knew he really didn’t need the cigar.

“We’re upside down.”

Sometimes our life gets turned upside down: divorce, the loss of a job, an illness or injury, the death of a loved one, a suicide or miscarriage – or a tragic accident.

It can be difficult to make sense of such things – like the mother in the story, we try to use reason: “You see honey, we’re in an airplane…”

When that doesn’t work we try distraction and escape: “have a Coke and some peanuts and you’ll feel better, have a drink, take a trip…”

When that fails we can simply try to ignore it: “Sit there and be good, Forget about it.”

But none of these coping strategies make our struggle and pain go away. They might mask them for a time, or bury the hurt, but none of these is the path to peace.

Some things that happen to us and that take place in the world simply do not make sense, and we can’t just run away, or distract ourselves, or ignore them.

We live in an upside world:

• Why does a young man shoot and kill innocent people at a prestigious university?
• Why do we wage war to try to make peace?
• Why do elderly people who are suffering linger while children die of cancer and teenagers are gunned down in the streets?
• Why do we continue to pollute the environment when we know the devastating consequences of our actions?

“We’re upside down! We’re upside down!”

And we can’t explain it, or take a pill or ignore it to make it go away. We live in an upside down world, but we also believe in the Prince of Peace.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you,” Jesus says in his “Farewell Discourse” from the Gospel of John today. Jesus is getting ready to go – to ascend – to return to His heavenly Father, but he assures his disciples, us, that He is not abandoning us, He’s leaving us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Peace.

Now, the peace Jesus leaves us, his disciples, is not freedom from anxiety, or the absence of conflict, or a life free of challenges and difficulty, life without pain and suffering.

For even the Prince of Peace experienced suffering and rejection, even Jesus Himself was misunderstood and persecuted. He was afraid.

Knowing Christ’s peace does not mean some sort of perfect life filled only with bliss. Christ’s peace is knowing that God is with us at every moment of our lives.

“Emmanuel,” “God with us,” came to dwell with us and within us, so that we might know that we are never alone in our struggles and suffering.

God is with us – a God in Jesus Christ who has known pain and suffering, fear, lies and rejection, just like us. We can trust, because our god understands . . .

When our life turns upside down, when the reality of our upside down world smacks us in the face, we crawl into the lap of a God who understands because our God is fully immersed in our upside down world.

This God holds us in Her lap and surrounds us with arms of infinite love, so that we will know that even though our world is upside down, “it’s O.K. – it’s O.K.” God is with us. Amen.


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