Secret Agent Man

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
June 22, 2008; 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 7, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Matthew 10:25-39(40-42) – Jesus said to the twelve disciples,

"A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

"For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
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I don't know if it's still this way, but when I was a freshman in high school, the seniors seemed pretty great and powerful. I'll admit I was a little naive and immature even for a freshman, but in our adolescent world, seniors had a god-like aura. The senior boys looked like men and were so worldly; the smart seniors were so smart, and next year they would be in college; and the senior beauties were mysterium tremendum.

But the most adult-like, smartest and most mysterious senior was Mike McMurray. He walked the halls with a condescending, knowing air; he had a powerful voice and presence; and he usually had a briefcase. Nobody else came to Oxford High School carrying a briefcase.

This was 1966, and the James Bond movie Goldfinger had spawned the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the spy spoof Get Smart, and Johnny River's hit song Secret Agent Man. Christmas catalogs featured spy briefcases that would shoot plastic bullets from a hidden button near the handle, take surreptitious photos from a concealed lens, and hide various forms of firearms and weaponry inside.

Senior Mike McMurray carried a briefcase to high school, and freshman Lowell Grisham loved to tail him like a yapping terrier puppy, with taunts like, "Hey, Secret Agent man. What have you got in your briefcase? Who are you spying on? Are you going to kill somebody today?"

In hindsight, I realize he was very tolerant of me. He never threatened, except in complicated jest -- "Yes, I have a bomb set to go off in your britches during third period." Usually he just kept walking with a bored, sophisticated grin and dismissed me, with "Go away child. You bother me."

But every once in a while, Mike McMurray would open his briefcase and pull out some piece of paper. Often it included some photocopied non-mainstream newspaper story or a small print essay. "Here!" he would thrust the paper toward me. "Go read this. It'll improve your mind."

I usually read them. They were essays about things I didn't know about -- Shell Oil's deal with the South African apartheid government; the importance of the Shah of Iran; the rise of peasant communes in Chile and Central America. I suspected him of being a Communist. But I noticed, every once in a while, whatever Mike McMurray was interested in ended up as front page news many months later. There was something prophetic about these strange tracts that he carried in his briefcase.

As the school year ended, there was an incident that marked the memories of all of us who were students at Oxford High that year. One of the seniors, Bill Hartman, had been suspended for three days for getting drunk at the Junior-Senior Banquet. The suspension included Honors Day. Bill was an honors student and slated to receive several awards. He was promised that he would receive any awards that were his, but he couldn't attend.

Bill had been the driving force behind the school theater that year. He was stage manager, designed the sets, and recruited students from the Drama Department at Ole Miss to do the makeup and lighting. Bill and Mike were close friends.

On Honors Day, the principal announced the winner of the Thespian Award for Drama – "Mike McMurray." Mike walked with huge, purposeful steps down the aisle, bypassed the side stairs leaping onto the stage directly, and grabbed the microphone, loudly announcing that he would not accept this award, it rightly belongs to Bill Hartman. At that point, chaos ensued. The principal tried to grab the microphone away from Mike, and they wrestled physically for a while until the principal literally dragged him out the side door of the auditorium and told him never to come back. Mike was expelled from school the next day. He did not graduate, and had to go to summer school at Columbia Military Academy to get his high school diploma.

As you might imagine, the reaction around town was pretty severe toward Mike's scandalous behavior. It darkened that year's graduation.

I thought of Mike as I read the words from the prophet Jeremiah, crying passionately, "within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." Jeremiah knows that people will not want to hear what he has to say. He knows, he will be punished for speaking truth. Nevertheless, he speaks. It didn't turn out well for him.

In our Gospel today, Jesus acknowledges almost passively, that there will be conflict. He recognizes that he is a divisive person. He says that what he brings will divide friends and families. He insists that the demands of God will create division. When anyone stands up for what they believe to be right, there will be disagreement. That's just the way it is.

It's not that Jesus demands that we be agents of division, but that we recognize that contention and division will happen. Conflict happens. Especially in election years. And what Jesus demands is that we be open and non-anxious enough to welcome others in the midst of conflict, to be open and unthreatened when conflict happens. That other, the one who is so infuriating or intimidating, may be the prophet who like Jeremiah must be the bearer of uncomfortable news.

No need to be defensive, anxious or self-protecting. After all, "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

Instead of being defensive, Jesus tells us to welcome the prophet, and receive a prophet's reward; welcome the righteous one -- even though they can be so intimidating, those righteous ones; welcome the little ones -- the under-represented voices of marginal, the outcast and the different. Welcome them as disciples, even if they may seem so different that they make us uncomfortable.

My friend Tony Clavier, who used to be at Trinity Church in Pine Bluff, says,
This is surely a timely message when we see so much conflict in our parishes, dioceses, in the national church, and abroad, conflicts marked by the ways of the world rather than by the hospitality of discipleship. Following Jesus is not all about fighting for a Cause... Following Jesus means walking into a holy, gentle, self-forgetting lifestyle lived in community. It means costly learning to be like Jesus. One of the signs that we are doing this is our willingness to open our arms to others, and to take the risk of being abused in the process. Yet risking being used, and indeed of losing everything, means following the path Jesus trod. In human terms, Jesus is the great loser. Yet, through his loss, Jesus becomes Christ the Victor, and in him his victory is also our own. (1)

Eventually the truth came out. Bill Hartman had indeed won the Thespian Award. "Nothing that is covered up will not be uncovered." Years later a classmate of Mike McMurray's recalled the whole incident on the Class of 1966 web page. Chappie Pinkston is a pulmonologist now living in Jackson. He says, "The real hero of the whole affair was Mike McMurray. He knew what the administration was doing was wrong, and he did everything he could, even sacrificing his diploma, to do what was right. Even though I haven't seen him since then, I will always respect him for what he did that day."

And I've always paid attention to those alternative press things and those flyers that odd, passionate people want to put into your hands at inconvenient moments. You never know when what they are warning about may be front page news sometime down the line.
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(1) Anthony F. M. Clavier, Sermons that Work, from the Episcopal Church web service, June 26, 2005. Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8) Year A

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