Hebrews 9:11-14
Psalm 130:1-8
Mark 10:32-45

"My Cup You Will Drink"

Last week, we shared a proverb. May I revise it slightly:

If we reflect upon life in these United States, we cannot help but come to a daunting conclusion: the life we Americans live, I mean most people in the U.S., is offensive to Heaven. Roughly half of high-school age young people have intercourse regularly. And sex on a date? Well, that's expected. You cannot go on a date and not consent to give sex or receive it! Half of all teenage girls in the U.S. have had an STD that can cause infertility or death. Of course, the situation worsens as life's journey grows darker. By the time they reach their twenties, sixty percent of African-Americans have incurable genital herpes, to name one group, with young women skyrocketing over seventy percent .... perhaps upwards to one hundred percent given the asymptomatic character of many cases.

Now consider this: if we simply had lived the life that God had chosen for us, we would have not one case. In fact, the entire catalogue of STDs — with their heartbreak, their hallmark of betrayal, and (in many cases) their legacy of death — would be completely unknown to humankind.

God has planted a garden for us. First, it was planted in Eden. But He plants that same garden again, over and over again, within the boundaries of each human life. If we should honor and revere its comely walls, built for our defense, then nothing foul will enter into its fragrant confines. And there you may receive the one who is for you. The young woman may receive her one and special young man in the purity and fragrance of her world. And the young man may enter into this garden with clean hands and clean intentions and purity of heart. But if we should breach that wall, open any chink through our willfulness, then that garden is lost, and our destiny radically changes.

Let us consider the story of one high-school age girl. She will tell you that "girls just want to have fun." And she has had fun with all the boys she has dated in her small town. But lately she has noticed a new kind of human animal: men. So, at age twelve she runs away to the big city and immediately fulfills her fantasy: sex with grown men. She is destined to become popular with all the men she meets. As she would say later in life, "I never said 'No.'" She would live this fast, city life for seventeen years. Then, one day, she noticed a new buzz going round. She saw a large crowd buying tickets to attend a great gathering. "Where are they going?" she asked a man standing near to her. "They are all going to a great event in a famous city where men from all over the world are gathering." She knew right away that this was the place for her. And it did not take long to secure passage on the ship they were all boarding using her accustomed method of payment.

When they arrived, she resumed her ways of picking up strange men and permitting them to entertain her. But everywhere she went, people kept talking about the great event that was coming. So, she resolved go with them. The next morning she saw a flood of people all going in the same direction. They were streaming in through the gates of a famous site, so she pushed her way into their midst, but as they approached the gate's threshold, she discovered that she could not move across it. In fact, people were pushing from behind, but no matter how many pushed, she could not be moved forward. She related later that it were as if a whole detachment of Roman Legions were blocking her path.

Friends she met later told her that the site was the holiest place on earth. "Holy?" she thought. "What's that?!" Yes, had she heard the word but always assumed it was just a figment of the imagination of boring people so they could get on with their boring lives. But now something very real was happening. It was happening to her. Somehow, an irresistible force was preventing her from passing through these gates. It was not anything subjective — not an emotional feeling or a little nausea or vertigo. It was an invisible wall through which she could not pass.

And then something else happened. Something was revealed to her. And she understood for the first time in her life that the overwhelming, incommensurable power of purity and holiness was real. This place was holy. And then she became aware of another, overwhelming force: the fact of her own impurity. She perceived that she was soaked through with foulness and stench. And she wept.

Hearing her story, perhaps we will say, "A tale of our times .... a girl hitting bottom at a mega rock concert." And who could dispute this? For no matter how much we insist on our "own truth," and no matter how many people approve and support us, God is God, the Holy is Holy, and we cannot be anything but what we are. Here is another story of our times.

A small group of monks and priests begin forming around a leader whom everyone believed would become great — perhaps a First Hierarch or a Patriarch. They knew in their hearts that if they were able to cement a bond of friendship with him, they too would rise ... perhaps even to the level of a bishop or metropolitan. Now, to be truthful, while they did follow him; they did not always listen while he spoke. Often, they were distracted piecing out the details of their future greatness. One of them, an impulsive, unthinking sort of man, would seek out the master from time to time and say, "Now, look here, I've thrown all of my support behind you, sacrificing future prospects. What's in this for me?" There were two others, of a more precise and calculating disposition. They would sit around the kitchen table at night (they were brothers) staring at the "chess board" of ecclesiastical preferment, plotting out their future careers. Sometime their mother would join them offering advice. Then, there was another man who was jealous of the master. Jealousy and envy burned in his heart to the point of rage. Though the master had done nothing to provoke it, soon he started to plan revenge, for he hated being "second best." He did not want to follow, but to lead! So he became a kind of "espionage mole" going to certain dangerous rivals of the master who sought to destroy him.

In general, each member of the master's entourage was too preoccupied with his own career to notice the obvious signs that the master was soon to die. Before long, though, the calculating brothers did notice and sought to meet their leader privately. Instead of ministering to him, they were preoccupied with their own fears: perhaps he would die before they had petitioned him for ecclesial preferment. "Before you die," they said, "we want you to arrange for our elevation, our elevation to become metropolitans!"

Another tale of our times? A story of corrupt men feathering their nests in an unholy Church? No question, this sort of story is all too frequent, and I recall Joseph Ratzinger, when he was Cardinal and Prefect of the CDF, saying that careerism was the principal blight of the Roman Church. But the story I have in mind this morning is from our Gospel lesson. For it is also the story of Jesus' disciples — the impulsive and demanding Peter, the calculating John and James, and the vengeful Judas.

And the story of our twelve-year old girl? That is the story of St. Mary of Egypt, born in the fourth century. She was born in a provincial Egyptian town, then ran away to Alexandria for the sole purpose of having sex with men. Later, she journeyed north along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean to Jerusalem driven on by sexual curiosity, for she heard that men from all over the world — black men, brown men, white men, tall men, all men. They would all be there. But during her sea voyage, procured through sexual favors, she learned that the pilgrims aboard the ship were going to the Holy City in order to adore the True Cross. When the time came for adoration, she resolved to go with the crowd through the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. You see, the Holy Cross was recently discovered by the Empress Helena and was now to be presented the people for veneration. Being carried along in the stream of the crowd, suddenly was stopped. She could not advance forward. An invisible force-field would not let her pass!

It was there, so close to the Holy, where for the first time, she saw herself as she really was. Her lies, her narratives, her explanations, her rationalizations, her "own truth" finally had come to ... nothing. Nothing was all that was left now ... only herself — the inevitability of herself exactly as she was, exactly as God had seen her all throughout her sordid life. And her whole world became plain to her seeing every detail of every filthy deed she had ever done, now seen plainly in sharp clarity with nothing left out. Nothing left out. And she felt so covered in filth that she gasped for air, just a breath of clean, pure air.

What had happened? Without meaning to do so, she had embarked on a religious pilgrimage, we might say a Lenten journey, to Jerusalem. She too had begun down a path leading to the door of a tomb. Indeed, now she stood near the tomb. And she received one of life's greatest blessings, which is to see ourselves as we really are, as God sees us, in all of our truth, which is God's truth, the only truth.

Nearby, she saw an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. She fell to her knees and prayed contritely offering a truly broken heart. And in that prayer, she felt peace come over her. Soon, she dared to venture near to the gate and even before the Holy Cross and prostrated herself committing to a life of penitence. From there she turned northeast to the Jordan River, as the the Most Holy Theotokos had counseled her. Like the people Israel before her who had also departed from the fleshpots of Egypt; she entered the wilderness, where toxins leach out of us, alone in the wilderness with God. To quote from her Vita, written by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Sophronius (c. 560-638), Mary reported,

Forty-seven years later, in a different setting God planted a seed in the heart of Hieromonk Zosima, to also make a penitential journey. St. Zosima had been perfect in every ascetic practice. He lamented that no master remained for him on earth, for no monk on earth could be his equal. But Zosima was to discover a different path of perfection than the one he had known. He would be the first human to see St. Mary of Egypt since she departed into the wilderness:

One year later, he returned with Holy Communion but found that St. Mary had died shortly after receiving the Holy Mysteries the previous year. Even after an entire year, her remains were incorrupt. And the carrion-eating birds would not disturb her as a lion guarded her body.

Who could deny that these are tales for our times? Unlimited and pervasive promiscuity? Corruption and careerism in the Church? We must admit that these things, tragically, are the hallmarks of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Yet, the wilderness always awaits. The tender heart of the Most Holy Theotokos always awaits. And the Father stands at a bend in the road always waiting, waiting for our hearts to break that we might return home. Our Savior promised those who love Him, "The cup that I drink, you will drink." Our Desert Mother Mary drank deeply from that cup. And she invites us to follow her, to drink from the bitter cup of our broken lives that we might reclaim our purity, our holiness, and resemble, once more, the One in Whose Image we were made.

May I share a few undoubted truths about our God? His will is that each of us return home to Him. His home is nothing like our brief stay on earth, but rather forever. For God, human death is not a penalty, but rather a joyful passage. And the world is His implacable enemy.

Let us, therefore, understand our unprecedented global pandemic in God's light. He has forced us into a wilderness out of His love. He has forced us to stop living our worldly lives. A wilderness has been cleared for each of us to enter; it is our quarantine area. He has carved out this wonderful space and time to consider the state of our souls and our relationship with Him. As the examples of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Zosima suggest, spiritual preparation is not done overnight. When we die, it is too late to begin the process of regret and penitance. Let each of us, therefore, go into our wilderness with gladness, with gratitude, and with expectation. For He awaits. And soon we will discover that He is present to us and even has sent angels to guide us along our ways.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.