There is great conflict in the world over the word sacred.  What is sacred and how do societies deal with it?  Some people just recognize the sacred like the leper in the story one minute ago.  He looks at Jesus, and he just knows he is standing in front of the sacred.  Primitive power that emanates from a sacred source was a few feet away from him.  And it could cleanse him.  Then follow his request, the Divine pity, the cleansing, and the problem.

The problem then − as it is now − is the crowd.  The religious legions ready to glorify or crucify.  Always quick to hoot or hosanna.  Jesus had a lot of things to accomplish, but the crowd most always got in the way.  Like they did in this story.  Probably still do.

Today the religious crowd in the news is in Iran, and Pakistan, and Kenya, and Afghanistan, and Malaysia, and Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, and Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan.  They are protesting cartoons of Denmark.  Everyone in this Cathedral has been puzzling over this:  how to make sense of these events?  Plenty has been written from the perspective of sociology, politics, the clash of civilizations or cultures, etc.  I would like to focus on the dimension of the sacred.

As a Christian leader who is a citizen of the United States, I would like to ask a few questions.  (1) In our locale in Western civilization, is there anything sacred?  (2) Is it possible that we can underestimate the power unleashed from mocking the sacred?  (3) How important are the crowds in the sacred story of Jesus today?  I am not preaching about the good guys or the bad guys or who flung what at whom.  I am standing in a sacred place asking us to ponder what are the sacred dimensions of the cartoons and the protests.

I.          In our locale in Western civilization, is there anything sacred?  Or in San Francisco, as a society is there anything sacred for us?

When one pays attention to the words of our music or observes the drug use of our youth or the shallowness of our popular culture, asking if anything is sacred seems like an apt question.  But a quick reading of the Declaration of Independence, which I did yesterday, reveals a deep respect, at the rock bottom, for the Divine rootedness of our political experiment.  Plus the leaders of the thirteen colonies pledged their sacred honor.  Their sacred honor.  For us the sacred in our society is not only that which is above or at the foundation; it is also that which is in us.  Sacred honor.  You have it.  I have it.  Our society expects it.

But does that help us understand the sacredness that is centered in Islamic culture or nations?  For these people the Prophet Muhammad is not a religious brand name, one among many in a pluralistic culture.  He is God’s Prophet − and the last Prophet.  With him revelation ceases.  No more prophecy according to them.  I can look at Jesus through the filters of iconography, freedom of press, freedom of speech, and realize that Jesus is always on trial in our culture.  So be it.  Our culture always asks the Pontius Pilate question of Jesus:  “Where are you from?”  Are you from Nazareth or are you from God?  We are accustomed to living in a land of religious questions!  And we find it hard to understand the sacred in the lands of religious answers!  And these folks, the Islamic people, have a hard time understanding us too.  Is there anything sacred between the so-called Christian West and the so-called Islamic East?

Not right now!  Perhaps we are doomed to participate on and on for many more generations in occupations, and hideous violence, and threatening marches, and stealth policies of conquest until everything changes some day.  One day in the future, each one will sense the sacred in the other and have respect for it, and we will learn to peacefully coexist.  We have not learned that yet.  Europe is struggling with that.  The United States is struggling with that.  And there is no more important question on the horizon.  Can we find a place for the sacred of the other?  If we can’t, it is all cartoons and violence in the future.  But if we can, we’ve got hope.  Meanwhile nothing is sacred until everybody’s sacred is acknowledged.

II.         Is it possible to underestimate the power unleashed when mocking the sacred?

You mock the sacred and you unleash power because you’re dealing with something very primitive.  As a little aside − and I’ve got to say it − we Episcopalians have been mocked on Friday evenings in a television show called “The Book of Daniel.”  I didn’t know whether to write an indignant letter or just to let it go, but before I could do anything, the show mercifully bombed and died under the weight of its own profanity.  Now I’ve gotten that off my chest.  I’ll get back to the sermon.

Is it possible to underestimate the power unleashed when mocking the sacred?  This question made me think of the crowds who mocked Jesus.  The crowd again.  They had a good laugh on Good Friday.  Mocked him!  Jesus went from being hailed as their king to being the object of their entertainment.  When you do that, something’s going to get unleashed.  When the person that you hold in deepest reverence is treated like a joke, don’t underestimate the power then unleashed.  Perhaps even by God.

Today we are only talking about a couple of mocking editorial cartoons.  Oh, but the power unleashed when all the factors get in alignment!  Our society − I want to remind us − used to joke about African Americans, we used to joke about Jews, we used to joke about women, we used to joke about homosexuals.  It’s not so funny any more.  Our humor has had to grow up.  First came the bad joke.  Then came the pushback power of justice.  And finally came the deserved restraint and respect in our humor.  And that day will come with Islamic people.  We will pull Islam away from Comedy Central and leave no room for mocking their sense of the sacred.

III.       How important is the crowd in the sacred story of Jesus?

And I address you now as the crowd.  We are the crowd.  And I’d like to take your attention back to the leper who got Jesus in trouble by stirring up the crowd in their their expectations.  Remember our story of the leper today pointed out that the crowd got in the way of Jesus’ ministry.  That wasn’t always the case.  Sometimes Jesus looked at the crowd and had pity, sometimes he fed the crowd, sometimes he preached to the crowd.  He loved the crowd.  And it was the crowd that crucified him.  But it was for the crowd that he rose from the dead.

The crowd around Jesus keeps on going through times.  First through the time of persecution.  Then the times of crusades.  Today the crowd around the Jesus story is seen by some to be the Christian West with the most military, the most nuclear powers, the most reason for promoting the insatiable need for total security.

Folks, we are the crowd.  And we can do whatever we want, whatever we think we are called to do.  How important is the Christian crowd in the Jesus story?  It’s all important.  Look at the world and what does it need from the Christian West?  What does the world really need?  Is there too much hope in the world, and therefore we don’t have a vocation?  Is there too much forgiveness in the world following too much repentance?  Are there too many people who are loved and befriended?  Or is the landscape out there in the world really quite arid and we happen to have some living water?  Jesus isn’t a superstar, and we are not a crowd called to conquer.  It’s much more intimate than that, this ministry of Jesus.  Hear the words of that lesson again, just a few of them:  “A leper came to him begging . . . kneeling . . . .  Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him . . . .” [Mark 1:40-41]

As the Jesus crowd of Grace Cathedral, the world needs us to reach out and touch the leper.  That’s sacred.

Amen.