Drops That Sparkle
Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure and the privilege of accompanying our Eighth Graders on their class trip to New York City to see the Broadway musical, Aladdin. I love Broadway musicals. One of my favorites is called Camelot. It tells the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. In the final scene of this classic musical, Arthur stands on a hilltop overlooking what once was his glorious kingdom of Camelot. The kingdom now stands in ruins. So too in ruins are his dreams, his vision, the very principles on which he built Camelot.
As Arthur surveys what remains of his kingdom, he hears a sound and orders whoever is hiding to make himself seen. From the darkness steps a boy of about twelve years of age. His name is Tom of the province of Warwick, and he announces to King Arthur that he has run away from home to become a member of the Knights of the Round Table. Amused, Arthur asks him why he wants to be a knight. Is it because his village was protected by knights or did his father serve a knight? Tom replies, “No.” He simply wants to become a knight because of the stories people tell of the knights. He then recites what amounts to a litany of the principles for which the knights and Camelot itself have stood: truth, honor, justice, a new order of chivalry: not might is right, but might for right.
Arthur, filled with emotion that these principles have made such an impression on the boy, tells Tom that, as his king, he orders him not to fight in the battle that evening, but to return to England, to grow up and grow old. But in so doing, Arthur gives the boy a mission. In song, he tells him:
“Each evening, from December to December,
Before you drift to sleep upon your cot,
Think back on all the tales that you remember
Of Camelot.
Ask every person if he’s heard the story
And tell it strong and clear if he has not,
That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory
Called Camelot.
Where once it never rained till after sundown;
By 8am the morning fog had flown.
Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot!”
Arthur tells Tom to kneel, and then with his sword Excalibur, he bestows knighthood on him. Arthur’s friend, King Pellinore, startled at the sight of Arthur bestowing knighthood on such a young boy, interrupts Arthur and asks, “What are you doing? You have a battle to fight!” Arthur, pointing to the boy, exclaims: “I’ve fought my battle! I’ve won my battle! Here is my victory! What we have done will be remembered!” He then turns to Tom and bids him to return home behind the lines to become the keeper of the dream, the teller of the story. As the boy runs off, Pellinore, still confused asks, “Who was that, Arthur?” And King Arthur replies, “One of what we all are, Pellie - less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle, Pellie! Some of them do sparkle!”
This morning, in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles and our Gospel from Matthew, Jesus, like King Arthur, stands on a hill (actually a mountain – Mount Olivet) near the city of Jerusalem. We’re not told in these readings whether or not Jesus surveyed the city, but we’re told elsewhere in the Gospels that at other times he did. So it’s not a stretch of the imagination that he might have done so this time as well. And if he did, as he looked down on Jerusalem, what did he see? A city that had rejected him . . . the message that he came to bring . . . the kingdom he came to establish . . . the principles that were to be its hallmark - things like: “love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you,” “forgive seventy times seven times,” “the greatest is the one who serves.”
Like King Arthur, Jesus probably felt like a failure; he had been rejected and crucified by the very people he loved, the very ones he came to save. But also like Arthur, he is not alone on that mountain. With him are his Apostles. And in them he sees the future of the Church. In them he sees the drops that will sparkle on the sunlit sea. And as King Arthur bid Tom of Warwick to go and tell the story, so does Jesus. He entrusts his vision and dreams to them, and tells them, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Like the Apostles, Jesus calls us up the mountain. And there, he sees in us the same thing that King Arthur saw in Tom, the same thing he saw in his Apostles: Hope. Energy. Passion. Commitment. It is us, like the Apostles that Jesus sends out: to remember . . . to tell his story . . . to live his story . . . to make a difference . . . to bring about change . . . to re-create the world in his image . . . to establish, not Camelot, but the Kingdom of God.
This is especially true of our eighth graders who, in two weeks, will leave the mountain called “St. Therese’s” and begin their journey to the distant lands of Morris Catholic, Pope John XXIII, Seton Hall Prep, Villa Walsh, Sussex Vo Tech, and Roxbury, Randolph, Mount Olive, and Lenape Valley High Schools. You are the drops that Jesus calls to sparkle on the sunlit sea of the future. You are the ones He commissions to “teach all nations” by your word and most especially by your example. You are the ones that He sends out to baptize others - with your love and compassion, with your mercy and generosity, with your hope and sincerity, all of which find their source and origin in His Most Sacred Heart.
There’s one other thing that Jesus told his Apostles on that mountain. It was a promise: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of time.” That promise He also makes to all of us today. We never have to feel afraid. Never have to feel lonely. Never have to feel like we go it alone. Never have to feel that we’re not good enough. Never have to feel that we can’t get past our mistakes and failures. Because Jesus is here . . . With us . . . Always . . . Loving us . . . Guiding us . . . Forgiving us.
And so, like Tom of Warwick and like the Apostles, let us come down off our mountains. Let us run safely behind the lines . . . behind the lines of Sacred Scripture. Let us be true to ourselves . . . Let us be true to who God created us to be . . . Let us be true to the mission that He has given us - to be the keeper of His Dream, the teller of His Story.
