There once was a great and good king of Crete who was loved and revered by his subjects. This good king lived a long life and his kingdom enjoyed peace and prosperity, took care of its poor, was a good neighbor to other kingdoms….but alas…as ever, all things must end…and the hour of the king’s death had arrived. Just before death came, the king sent a servant to bring him a handful of earth, a memento, an artifact of his beloved Crete so that he may forever hold on to that which he treasured, that over which he had ruled and nurtured.
Death came and the king after traveling far awoke in an unfamiliar room. He could feel the earth still in his tightly clenched hand. An old man with kind eyes was with him, and the old man spoke: “Dear king the hour has come for you to enter the eternal paradise; it is time for your reward in heaven; but first you must let go of the earth that you hold in your hand.” The king replied: I could never let go of my beloved Crete. It is all I have, all I am.” So the old man left… and a million years passed.
After the million years a beautiful woman appeared to the king and spoke softly to him saying, “beloved it is time to enter the joy of eternity, you are missed; but first you must let go of the earth that you so tightly hold in your hand, but the king could not be persuaded…the woman vanished…and another million years passed.
The king beheld in his presence a small child plainly clothed and the child spoke and said, “good king…let go of the earth that you hold…take my hand and enter the kingdom prepared from the beginning….you are needed” The king looked at the loving outstretched hand of the child, and at the clod of earth in his own….His aching grip relaxed and the earth fell to the floor….the child led him to the door… opened it wide…..and there before the king’s amazed eyes….bathed in golden sunlight…. was his beloved…Crete.
Several of you have asked for a copy of this story I told in my sermon this past Sunday. I heard the story first told by Allen Jones, Dean Emeritus of The General Theological Seminary, and former dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I don’t know about the origin of the story…but I think it is a story for our time. We live among neurotic self-interest and an insidious nihilism which are characteristics of Post Modernity. We have constructed for ourselves our own graven images which are safe and require little of us…and these paltry self images are protected by an impermeable comfort zone predicated on fear…this is the great illusion of our time….We have consciously and unconsciously set up barriers that impede us from living into our God-likeness, our true lives meant to honor imaginatively our God and each other and the world in which we live.
The great sages of the Biblical era, say from the sixth century B.C.E. until 150 C.E. referred to the failure to live into our God-likeness as “immaturity.” As a culture I think that description is apt…It is high time that we lay aside, as Paul puts it, “childish things” (just look at the dysfunction of our government, both state and federal) and live into the life that is forever being offered to us….a life of freedom, a life of the imagination that knows no barriers to peace, dignity and well being among all people including ourselves….Jesus said it: to find one’s life, one must lose(loose) one’s life…..That means to offer ourselves to the mysterious possibilities of God, and letting go of our self constructed prisons…Pray for courage, for courage such letting go will require….let us lay aside that to which we are bound… let us unclench our hands of the graven image and live.
If agreeing with this makes me a heathen, then so be it!