An Illinois man left Chicago for a vacation in Florida.

His wife was planning to meet him there the next day.

When he reached his hotel,
he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail message.

Unable to find the scrap of paper
on which he had written her e-mail address
he did his best from memory.

Unfortunately, he missed one letter,
and his note was directed instead
to an elderly Rector's wife
whose husband had died the day before.

When the widow opened her e-mail file,
there was the note to the other wife.

"Dearest wife: I just got checked in."

"Everything is prepared for your arrival tomorrow."

"It sure is hot down here."

Today's readings are about messages, links -
from one kingdom to another
- helping us to know w/out understanding,
- and to approach with faith
places we have never been.

It is sort of like a memory I have from my childhood.
Just after WWII
we were able, once again, to take vacations
when school was not in session.

We would spend time at a cottage
on the Western Shore
of the lower Chesapeake Bay.

My Dad told me
that 34 miles to the east
- further over the horizon than we could see -
was a remote land which few people ever visited.
It was called the lower Eastern Shore of Virginia.

To my young mind
it became a land of mystery
- endless marshes and wild life
- perhaps a few cannibals

I might have been right on all counts.

I asked a native how one might go there,
and he replied, as expected,
"You can't get there form here."

Once I became aware of the curvature of the earth's surface
I calculated the height from which
one might on a clear day
see this mysterious land.

So, on one such marvelous day
I climbed a tree, like Zacchaeus,
and, looking to the East,
saw the tree tops
of that mythical shore,
and it began to become real to me.

Later, in my college years,
We studied the construction
of the fabulous new Bay Bridge at Annapolis
which linked this shore to that.

It became easy to drive there,
enjoy its wonders,
even live there, if one wished.
The land became accessible and knowable.

We use stories like this all the time
in order to describe parts of life
for which we have no suitable language.

"Life is like a box of chocolates",
explains Forrest Gump,
and we know what he means
without understanding the subject.

It is a good teaching tool
as one seeks to broaden
another's perception of life.

So we are not surprised
to hear Jesus in today's Gospel Reading
doing the same thing;
as he describes the Kingdom of Heaven
by relating it
to what people can observe and know
in the world around them.

Wherever he went
Jesus said pretty much the same thing,
though in a variety of ways.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is among you,"
was his message.

And, it is clear
that he expected that perception
radically to transform the lives
of those among whom he walked.

In this reading,
we hear him describing this Kingdom;
thought by many
to have been long long ago and far far away
- unattainable, beyond time and space, -
and therefore irrelevant.

"Not so!" says Jesus.
It is inbreaking right here
right now
right among us!

The Kingdom of Heaven
is like a tiny seed
that the farmer plants
and it grows in our time and in our place
to become a shelter for the birds of the air.

Or, the Kingdom of Heaven
is like yeast
that a woman mixes with flower
and the whole is leavened, transformed.

and, with such sayings
did Jesus build bridges
from here to there,

No longer were God's rule
God's Love
God's Comfort
God's Promise
and God's Possibilities
to be remote
and far away.

No longer was the way unknown
or the time, another age.

We are in our life
aware of moments of transcendence,
moments when we have glimpses from the tree tops
across the horizon to a place
usually unattainable to us.

We find ourselves at those times
faced by the reality
of the realm of the Spirit.

These are "Bridge" moments,
when we glimpse life in a different way,
in a dimension of God's creation
in a quality of God's Life.
It is a reality for which we long.

Nations and peoples
have such moments
- need such moments

That is why
we experienced the overwhelming outpouring
of interest and pain
at the tragic loss of John Kennedy, Jr.,
- his wife, Caroline, and her sister, Lauren Bassette.

That is why the nation waited
with bated breath to hear news of the missing,
and then thousands laid flowers
on the street
when the grim announcement came.

That is why millions watched Requiem Masses
on television.

We need our martyrs and our times of public mourning
to describe for us
the value of life,
because we are generally blinded to that value
by all the things, feelings
compulsions, and diversions
we put in the way.

Individually, we have these moments as well.
They cause us pain
but then can serve us well
or not well.

It depends on perspective.

God sent Jesus
to give us his perspective
that we might not be isolated
by that which blinds us
but have a bridge
connecting us
to the immediacy
and the intimacy
of God's Kingdom of Heaven.

As we read this text,
we are interested in the words,
but soon discover
that the power of the passage
lies not much in the words that are said,
but in the speaker of those words.

Most anyone can recognize
the wisdom of the words;
A Christian is she or he
who recognizes the speaker.

For us, Jesus is the bridge
to God's realm.
I know you, he says
And I know where you truly want to be.

Hold on to me
in this random world

and I will take you there.