“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”
—Henri J.M. Nouwen
Luke 10: 38-42, Psalm 52
You have probably heard of the Seven Virtues. The Greeks identified Four Virtues: Wisdom, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. Later, the three “Christian” virtues were added: Faith, hope, and love. These comprise what tradition has held to be the “Cardinal” virtues.
“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” Thomas Merton
This past week we heard about the tragic deaths of nineteen Granite Mountain Hot-shots, top firefighters who were killed in a forest fire in Arizona. We are all moved by their bravery and by their sacrifice. These are men who demonstrate arête, the Greek virtue of excellence—they strived and succeeded at being the best of the best, part of a world-wide elite of firefighters. They died doing what they believed in and what they trained for, and so, according to the Greek heroic tradition, they died a good death, and therefore lived a good life.
My years acting gave me a different perspective on what it means to be a human being. I have played MacBeth, the tyrannical, power-hungry King of Scotland. I have played one of the ditzy star-crossed lovers in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. I played a comic character in Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor and Don Juan in Man and Superman and lots of what are called “spear-carrier” roles, where you’re really nobody but simply a tool to carry forward the plot, you know, the messenger or something. And I’ve played Jesus Christ.Read More »The Holy Trinity: The Many Faces of God
John, Peter, Joanna, and Anna traveled with the hearse to pick up Jesse’s body at Eagle Pass. When they arrived, they had to pass, once again, through reporters and distraught crowds. Jesse’s pale, slightly bluish body was arranged on a metal morgue table, covered by a sheet from the chest down, over which could be seen the “y” incision made by the coroner.Read More »Chapter VIII: The Cowtown Christ Comes Back!
We Crucify the Cowtown Christ, II: The Cowtown Christ is Dead
John 13:1-18
Jesse the Cowtown Christ had become a political lightning rod. On one side were the far-left wing liberals, calling attention to the fact that Jude, a prominent psychiatrist, had declared Jesse in need of serious mental health treatment. Well, she wasn’t going to get any decent treatment in Texas, they said, noting the shortage of mental health services in the Lone Star State. And anyway, isn’t threatening to lock up or deport Jesse just a way for “The Man” to quiet dissent? Kinky Friedman put together a “Free Jesse” Concert in Zilker Park.Read More »Chapter VII: The Cowtown Christ Is Dead
For a couple of days after their arrests for interrupting the broadcast of the National Day of Prayer in Cowboys Stadium, Jesse the Cowtown Christ, and Peter and Mary, her two self-acknowledged accomplices, wore the orange jumpsuits of the Tarrant County Jail on Weatherford. They were represented by a law firm that specialized in federal crime. Jesse had no clue who had hired the law firm until their very expensive bonds were paid and they were released on their own recognizance. As they were leaving the courthouse with their lawyer, they were met by two men Jesse knew: the rich man from her old church job who had tried to pay for her to start a new church, and the political power-broker who’d tried to get her to run for office.Read More »Chapter VI: We Crucify the Cowtown Christ, Part One: To Tell the Truth
Holy Jesus, I hear God’s mighty “Yes!” in your Resurrection. You invite me to live also, and I want to say “Yes!” to you. Take me out of the tomb that imprisons me: lead me into the morning of new life, and walk with me wherever your love may lead.
Peter Storey, Listening at Golgotha
Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary,” probably Mary the mother of James, go to the tomb on Easter day, and what they aren’t expecting– is Easter.
They are expecting to find a tomb guarded by soldiers. They expect to find a great stone rolled in front of the grave. They expect to find Jesus in there, even more dead as He was a couple of days before.
Jesus prays for something we’re all too familiar with. He prays that God change a situation. “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”
Cowtown Christ is a sermon series that reimagines the stories of Christ in the gospels as though they were happening today, right here in Fort Worth, dealing with the issues of our times. The Cowtown Christ is Jesse, a Mexican American woman with a group of followers she calls her Close Companions.
After this sermon, we’ll take a hiatus from this series for Palm Sunday and Easter, and for the next two Sundays, I will return to my normal preaching style. But following Easter, we will finish the story of the Cowtown Christ.
Jesse, the Cowtown Christ, turned to her close companions, those who’d followed her for some time, those who had been there at Oakwood Cemetery when they saw her revealed as some sort of supernatural being, and had heard a voice say, “This is my Daughter–Listen to Her.”
Jesse turned to them and said, “Who do people say I am?”
This is the Fourth of a sermon series called “The Cowtown Christ” that reimagines the story of Christ from the gospels by setting it in modern day Fort Worth. The Cowtown Christ is Jesse, a Mexican-American young woman with an unusual relationship with God. She preaches that “The City of God,” “la Ciudad de Dios” has come to Fort Worth, just as Jesus in His ministry taught that The Kingdom of God had come to the earth. It’s a message of God’s presence and hope in the real world, but also of concrete responsibility.
The grave of Broadway Presbyterian Church’s first pastor, the Rev. Junius French, in Oakwood Cemetery. Broadway was St. Stephen’s predecessor church before they moved to the TCU area in 1950.
Jesse, the Cowtown Christ, had assembled a diverse group around her, whom she called mis compañeros cercanos, my close companions.
There was Joanna, an Iraq war veteran who was now a Fort Worth Police officer who worked with the homeless; Anna, a Palestinian Muslim doctor, who admired Jesse as a wise female leader; Peter, the former gas company executive and recovering alcoholic whom Jesse had met at the Apple store; Nate, an African-American community organizer from Stop Six; John, the mega-church pastor who hadn’t quite decided what he thought of Jesse, yet; Mary, the teenaged runaway that Jesse had rescued from working at an underage strip club; Glenda, a slighty-off-kilter homeless woman who was diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenic and was very laid-back about taking her meds; And Jude, a well-known local psychologist with a burgeoning practice.
Jesus prays for something we’re all too familiar with. He prays that God change a situation. “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”