As a Christian, I seek to live in the Word of God, to feel the power of the Holy Spirit, and to know my savior, Jesus Christ. I read, I study, I pray, I praise. I talk endlessly about my faith. I minister when and where and how I can. I have taken to the streets in the name of Jesus. I have been baptized in the water, I have been confirmed, I have felt the Holy Spirit flow into and through my soul. I have heard the voice of God. I have seen things. And still, when I read the Word, I think "How strange!" I think "What strange things scripture asks me to do. And how strange I must become if I am to live in the Word."

Take our gospel reading for today, especially the last couple of verses:

"And he said to all, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.'" Luke 9:23-24

Let's hear that again:

"And he said to all, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.'" Luke 9:23-24

How strange it is!

When I journeyed in the desert last spring with my Uncle Thomas, I met a man who had been the pastor of the small church where my father's burial service had been held almost ten years earlier. I did not know it then, but he was the pastor who had presided over that service. He was and is a very hard core, charismatic fundamentalist, and I felt uncomfortable at the idea of meeting him. What would I, a liberal Lutheran, a college professor, have to do with this strange man in Marathon, Texas, this man who had been driven out of one and another church and had made a life of worship and hard work in a place where grinding, aching poverty ruled unchallenged?

My uncle and I interrupted the man's work, but he did not seem to mind. He was open and friendly and full of energy. He had close cropped hair and sparkling blue eyes. He told us of his successes, and when my uncle asked him to, he told us the vision he had had while he prayed one night in his small church in my home town. It was a strange and complex vision, full of destruction and danger. When he was done with the story he had to tell, which had become the only story he could tell, I was convinced that he was a holy man, that he had the gift of prophecy.

When I read the scripture for today, I thought of him immediately because he had done exactly what it seemed Jesus was telling all to do. This strange man in the desert had denied himself, taken up his cross, and lost everything–his church, his car, his livelihood, almost his family. He had put on sackcloth and ashes. He had walked hundreds of miles to churches that would not hear his message, and then he had not spoken for almost a year because the voice of God had said, "Be silent now."

At the end of our time together, the man looked across the space between us and said he had no idea what I would do with what he had told me, that each person seemed to hear his story in a different way, that some people seemed not to hear it at all. "You will do with this vision what it is given you to do," he told me. "You may do nothing. Or you may think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy sometimes, and if someone else had told me these things, I would think they were crazy. But I'm not crazy. This is real."

After a long moment, we joined hands and began to pray. And then the space that had been between us, the distance from Lutheran to Charismatic, from liberal to literal, from college professor to crazy man in the desert vanished, and we became simply Children of God worshipping together.

As I pondered the Gospel for today and recalled the story of my desert prophet, I thought to myself, "Can this be what Jesus meant? Is this how strange and far from my self I must get before I can live in the words before me on this Sunday morning? Is this what it means to save and to lose and to lose and to save one's life? Would I have to go into the desert in order to live in the Word of God?"

On Tuesday of this week, I received a call from the chairman of my department. Luis Gabriel had died suddenly the night before. When I understood that my huge, laughing, wonderful student was gone at the age of 38, I could not believe it.

I had worked with him years ago when he was just beginning to write and had watched him grow from a wild and crazy kid into one of the best comedy writers with whom I have ever worked. I remembered his wife Iris and his son and daughter, his brothers and sisters and his sisters-in-law, all of whom I had met only in the pages of Luis's notebooks and in the conversations we had had about his writing. I remembered that he had beaten his cocaine habit and had tried to help others do the same. After his writing, helping others avoid the trap he had fallen into was his greatest passion. I remembered how much he had loved his life and how fully he had lived it. I remembered that he had touched others and helped them to believe in themselves. "Hey," he'd say, "if I can do this, you're gonna blow their doors off. Trust me on this one. Just trust me." And sure enough, they would. And the doors went flying all over the University.

On Wednesday evening, I drove to North Little Rock with my friend Dale, who had shared writing classes with Luis. I did not want to attend the wake, but felt drawn and needed to say to Luis that he had mattered to me, that I had learned from him, that the world would be darker and sadder without his joy and his laughter. I wanted to tell him that I treasured our time together and that I loved him. I wanted to tell him that I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe it.

When we opened the door to the room in which Luis lay, the first thing I heard was his laugh, cutting a path through all the voices and into my heart. Iris met us at the front and squeezed our hands. When she learned we were from UALR, a smile lit up her face, and she told us how much we had touched her husband's life and through him, every life in that room. She asked about a piece of writing I had given Luis and laughed when she learned it was mine. We spoke with her son and daughter. A little later, Albert, Luis's brother, who owned the laugh that had sounded so familiar when I had opened the door, stepped over and began to tell me all the things Luis had gotten wrong in the essay I had published in a class anthology. I met Albert's wife and saw pictures of all the people Luis had known. I met the sister-in-law Luis had found so frustrating, the sister-in-law who had taught him patience and toleration.

Everyone in that room knew everything Luis had written. They treasured his stories and held them close, and because I had been a part of that part of his life, they treasured me and welcomed me into the desert of their grief. They told me their own stories, and I felt suddenly not a stranger, but a part of their family, a family so different from my own and yet so much the same.

When I was filled with the wonder of it and thought there could be no more, I turned to where Luis lay so strangely silent, so absent. I stood beside his mother, who whispered quietly to him in the soft Spanish sounds she had spoken just this quietly to him all the days of his life. As I told him what I had come to say, that he had mattered, that I loved him, her voice and mine twined in and out of each other, and she leaned into me, and I put my arm gently around her. Her tears made a damp spot on the shoulder of my coat. She said, "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." I held her to me and the distance between her mother's grief and my own vanished, and we became simply two Children of God worshipping together.

In that simple, strange, profound act of faith, I understood that denying ourselves, that losing and saving our lives need not take us into the desert, and when it does, that desert will not be an empty place. I understood that we lose our lives most often and most powerfully to each other, in the love we share and in how we tell and touch and hold one another. That we can tell and touch and hold one another is the promise God gave to the prophet Zechariah:

"I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first born." Zechariah 12:10

In our acts of compassion and of supplication, in the telling and the touching and the holding, the Holy Spirit is most with us and through us and in us, and the distance between us and our Lord, between us and the glory of God, between us and the one we have pierced, between us and ourselves vanishes, and we become simply, purely, and perfectly what God has always meant for us to be–His Children, together, worshipping. And when we have become His Children worshipping together, Paul tells us,

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." Galatians 4:28-29

People of Faith, we are the house of David. We are the inhabitants of Jerusalem. We are Abraham's offspring. We are the Children of God. Let us worship now and daily together. This is our cross, this is our glory, this is our life.

May the peace that passes all understanding be with you now and forever.

Amen.