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I cherish the vision of what could have been a great moment in American poetry. One day my American literature professor told our class about Emily Dickinson, the quiet and reclusive woman who was satisfied to live in a circumscribed world in Amherst, Massachusetts. Then he told us about Walt Whitman, the wild man of American poetry whose energy and sensuality and wide experience of the human condition were dramatically different from Emily Dickinson’s.

My professor gave us two facts: the Dickinson family occasionally went to the beach for picnics; and Walt Whitman was fond of going to a beach, stripping off all of his clothes and running in the sand while yelling his poetry into the wind. My professor then said, with a mischievous smile on his face, "What if, one day at the beach, just after Emily Dickinson had finished spreading her picnic blanket on the sand, suddenly, flying over a sand dune and landing right in the middle of the Dickinson picnic, came a naked Walt Whitman. Who would have spoken first? What would that person have said? What poems would have been written by each of them afterwards? What a moment that would have been!"

The appearance of John the Baptist is like Walt Whitman landing on the beach -- a wild and surprising character shouting his prophecy all over the wilderness and howling his message into the wind. He must have shocked many people even as he attracted others. Hard to go on with business as usual or concentrate on your little picnic when the Baptizer bursts onto the scene. Nothing can remain the same after he appears. Either he is crazy or he is onto something big. Or maybe both. But the world is going to be changed. The valleys will be filled and the hills will be made low. Or, as Clarence Jordan translates in his Cotton Patch Version:

"Make a road for the Lord in the depressed areas and make it straight. Every low place shall be filled in. Every hill and high place shall be pushed down. And the curves shall be straightened out and the washboard road scraped smooth." A radical vision of a world dramatically renewed and improved. That’s John’s vision.

In Vermont, that vision is especially attractive. It’s almost impossible to get from one town to another without going over hills and around curves. There are few long and straight roads in the state, and after mud season, many of the dirt roads are rutted and bumpy, like giant washboards. Those hills and curves are part of the beauty and charm of Vermont, but it is frustrating to contend with them year-round, especially if there is snow or ice. It would be heavenly to be able to drive smoothly and quickly without steep inclines or sharp curves or merciless bumps.

And that is John’s point. In the kingdom that is coming, the rough places will be smoothed out and the crooked ways will be made straight. But ultimately it’s not highway maintenance he is talking about -- it is people and culture maintenance. He is talking not about road improvement but about the creation of a world of righteousness, safety, justice and compassion, the kind of world dreamed about by poets and promised by prophets.

There is a highway in southern Vermont where many serious accidents happen because cars and trucks build up their speed descending a mountain, only to come upon a sharp curve in the road. The people living in the house near that curve keep a pile of blankets on their porch because they know there will be accidents regularly, and the victims will need to be covered while waiting for the rescue squad. Residents of the area have been petitioning the state for years to straighten the road out in order to prevent accidents and save lives. John the Baptist seems to be saying something similar -- the curves of injustice, immorality and inhumanity need to be changed into smooth paths so that everyone will see God’s salvation. That is God’s plan, and it is not wishful thinking to proclaim it.

Who is going to do this work? It is God’s work, but at the same time, it is our responsibility to join that work. That is our work of repentance. That is our harvest of righteousness. We pile up our blankets and respond to human misery, but we also do all that we can to remove the curves and injustices that cause so much suffering and pain. That is our vocation, easily forgotten amid holiday busyness and jolliness. It is serious business, all-important business -- which is why John shouts at us incessantly.

As serious as this task is, though, we can still approach it with joy. Whether we express our joy quietly, as did Emily Dickinson, or exuberantly, as did Walt Whitman, we are invited to share our joy by offering our praise to God and enjoying our eucharistic picnics. And when we gather, who knows what surprises await us? That’s what this season of Advent is for -- to heighten our awareness of God’s surprises, whether they include the surprise of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who are way too old to be having a baby yet bring forth John, or the surprise years when that same John appears in the wilderness. All of these events remind us that we can never predict when God will appear in our lives or what lies beyond that next curve or who is going to come leaping over that sand dune. We’d better be prepared.

What is the most popular Christmas song? One way to determine that is to consult the Muzak Holiday Channel and find the song that has the most versions available. If that’s a fair way to deal with this question, then the answer would be "The Christmas Song," most often sung by either Nat King Cole or Bing Crosby. Second prize goes to "White Christmas" (Bing Crosby again). Then come "Winter Wonderland" and "Silver Bells."

All of these songs contain the requisite amount of "warm fuzzies." Now, imagine you are sitting in front of a crackling fire with Nat King Cole’s mellow voice in the background. Suddenly the door bursts open, a gust of wind blows snow into the room, and a man with a bushy beard and camel-skin tunic strides in. There is fire in his eyes.

As he chews on a handful of locusts, he says, "How nice that you’re feeling cozy and happy. Your holly and mistletoe look lovely over the fireplace. But what have you done lately for justice and peace among all people? And what effort have you made recently to respect the dignity of every human being?" It’s the Baptizer. A real killjoy. You want warm fuzzies and he gives you caustic questions. You want a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, but he doesn’t much care how you feel or what you think. He just wants to know what you’ve done for the kingdom recently. The questions he poses are the last two questions of the baptismal covenant in the Book of Common Prayer. Those are hot-potato questions, much harder to handle than the roasting chestnuts.

When we ask what we should do, he offers some good examples. If some people have too much and other people have too little, guess who should share? This is not a new message; in the Book of Exodus, the story of God’s gift of manna was all about the same thing. Nobody should have too much and nobody should have too little. Everyone should have enough. That godly prescription is strong medicine. It subverts the notion that we should strive to accumulate all that we can. It challenges the idea that we should invest our time and talent and treasure into making ourselves happy and comfortable. Instead, the Baptizer says, we should strive for justice and peace among all people and put our money into kingdom investments.

There’s nothing on the Muzak Holiday Channel that will be good accompaniment for that message. When some powerful people (tax collectors and soldiers of the occupation army) question the Baptizer, he challenges them to be fair and nonviolent. In other words, they should respect the dignity of every human being. Listeners who have experienced harassment or have been cheated are suddenly the ones feeling some warmth. This messenger is on their side. They find their expectations rising. Maybe there is hope for a better world.

That is the message that sears itself into our consciousness. This intruder is here not to spoil our holiday, but to point us in the direction of real hope and real joy. His words are the refiner’s fire that burns away impurities.

Mystics throughout the ages have understood how the holy fire burns away the superficial images and idols we erect. One of the most famous expressions of this reality comes from French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. He wrote, "In the year of grace 1654, Monday 23 November . . . from about half-past ten in the evening till about half an hour after midnight: FIRE. . . . God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Emotion. Joy. . . Joy! Joy! Joy! Tears of Joy. . . My God . . . let me not be separated from thee for ever." Pascal carried this description of his experience with him for the rest of his life. It was written under a drawing of a blazing cross. The Baptizer points in the same direction, to the One who will baptize with fire and ask us to take up our crosses. The fire that blazes forth in this story is not from a cozy fireplace. It is from the word of God.

As Pascal realized, underneath the holy fire is holy joy. If the Baptizer can be described as a killjoy, it is because the joy that he kills is the false joy of manufactured sentimentality and superficial jolliness. Underneath John’s stern message is the good news that a better world is possible by the grace and power of God. Zephaniah said it thousands of years ago. Paul wrote it in the first century. Now we can hear it too, if we will only turn off those other songs for a while.

John’s baptismal water may put out some of the fires we have kindled ourselves. It may rain on some of our parades. But choices have to be made. Wheat and chaff must be separated so we can get to the good stuff.

As the child who had never before been to a Christmas service said when asked what it was like, "I want some of that ‘umphant.’" "What’s that?" the child was asked. "You know, it’s what those people were singing about -- ‘O Come all ye faithful, joyful and try umphant’ I’d like to try some of that ‘umphant."’

Go to Harvard Square in Cambridge or Washington Square in New York City or any public place where chess players have gathered to watch or challenge each other. If you stand in the midst of the crowd long enough, you will eventually hear someone say, "That’s it!" It might be a soft whisper or a matter-of-fact statement or even an enthusiastic exclamation, but it will be the announcement of a spectator who realizes that the game is over. Even if the soon-to-be-loser doesn’t realize it, the spectator and the soon-to-be-winner know that the decisive move has been made and the outcome assured. No matter how long the loser prolongs the game and thinks there is hope of winning, he hasn’t a chance in the world. Those who know what is happening see who the victor is.

John the Evangelist gives us a chance to watch and learn from another kind of encounter: the one between Pilate and Jesus. There is Pilate, the wily and cynical old-timer who has consistently knocked off all challengers. He is definitely someone you don’t fool around with. He’ll toy with you and then swoop in for the kill. But then here comes Jesus, the young upstart from the boondocks who has been raising eyebrows with his persistence and skill and surprising strategies. No matter how good he is, however or how many people are rooting for him, the odds are very much against his displacing that crafty old pro Pilate.

What a match it turns out to be. At first, Pilate is curious and a bit annoyed. He wants to know if Jesus really is a threat because he’s heard stories about how clever this fellow is. Now he wants to find out for himself. "Are you the champ?" he asks. "Are you the new gunslinger who is supposed to be really fast on the draw? Are you the new kid with the never-before-seen offensive moves who can also play terrific defense? Are you the one who is going to take over my place of honor?" As the conversation continues, we get the feeling that if cigarettes had been invented at that time, Pilate would be chain-smoking them intensely as his curiosity and discomfort turn to agonized puzzlement and dejection. This Jesus is no ordinary player. Jesus’ strategy is brand new. Because Pilate lives in a world of intimidation and cruelty and mercilessness, he cannot comprehend what Jesus is bringing to the table. It’s a different reality, unlike anything Pilate has seen before. Pilate is out of his league as he faces Jesus’ strong resistance, mysterious mercifulness and unrelenting compassion. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he can’t wait for the match to end.

As we watch Pilate squirm and take another deep drag on his cigarette, we say, "That’s it!" The game is over, even though there are still a few more moves to be made by the ultimate loser. As the faithful have internalized the reality of this revelation, they have chosen many different ways to express their confidence and joy. Like observers at a chess game, some of the faithful quietly whisper their affirmations in their centering prayers and their daily mantras. Can we hear the second and fifth verses of Psalm 93 as this type of quiet acclamation?

Other portions of the Psalm, however, are more like loud exclamations from those kibitzers in the park who suddenly see that the game is in the bag. Even the ocean joins in with loud crashing percussion to the psalmist’s shouts.

Alongside these whispers and shouts from the psalmist are the apocalyptic choruses from Daniel and the Book of Revelation. The writers of these texts are not calm and careful analysts. They are exuberant recipients of the kind of truth that Pilate could not comprehend. They are so overcome by the turn of events that they can barely find words to express themselves, and they move quickly into Hallelujahs and Amens and bountiful praise. When Handel was composing his Messiah, which was his glorious way of saying, "That’s it!" he understandably turned to the Book of Revelation to find support. How sad it is to see some believers turning to that same book to find support for their own narrow interpretations of current events, instead of appreciating the book as a joyous outburst of confidence in God.

Their response to the book seems to be similar to what happens when observers at a chess match become obsessed by the details of the hand-carved chess pieces instead of by the game. In the match between Pilate and Jesus, we know who the ultimate victor will be. Pilate and all the other tyrants who have come after him for 20 centuries and more will challenge Jesus and his way of living and dying. Some of the challengers will think that they have come up with a new move to get the best of the champion. But they never will.

In his book Abel’s Island William Steig tells the story of a mouse (Abel) who is marooned on an island for an entire year. In the first part of the book, Abel is all alone on the island. Unlike the participants in the Survivor TV series, he has no one around to help him survive -- or to vote him off the island and thereby return him to his home.

All during fall and winter, Abel is lonesome. Then, on a spring day, Gower Clackens appears. Cower is a huge bullfrog who is swept along by powerful currents in the water and deposited on Abel’s island. At first Abel is overjoyed to have a companion, but soon he discovers that Cower has a maddening habit of regularly drifting off into a trance. During these times Abel must patiently wait for Cower to "wake up."

When I preach to a congregation about the second coming, or as Paul says, "the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints," I often feel that I am Abel trying to communicate with Cower Clackens. As I begin to explore this topic, I find most of my listeners experiencing a grand case of MEGO ("My Eyes Glaze Over"). Most of us can gear up for another round of Christmas festivities in honor of the "first coming." But when we raise the topic of Jesus’ second coming, we find ourselves looking into unblinking, glazed-over Cower eyes. When this happens, it’s hard to be as patient as Abel was.

A few years ago, I discovered a song that helps me during this time of the year -- Carly Simon’s "Anticipation." It begins: "We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them in many ways." That crystallizes the dilemma of this Sunday. Indeed, we don’t know much about what God has in store for the world in the days to come, but as faithful people, we are invited by Jeremiah, Paul and Jesus to think about those days. Then, when our thinking is done, the psalmist invites us to pray about those days, lifting our total selves to God and asking God to deal with us out of steadfast love. That’s where we should end -- in prayer and self-offering -- but we still have to do some thinking before we get there.

As I think with anticipation, I try to prevent myself from drifting into the traps that millennialists have encountered. One trap is the "Jesus and the fig tree story." Some modern apocalyptists go through a variety of steps, beginning with the fig tree as a symbol of Israel and ending with 1948 as a key date -- the establishment of the state of Israel. They then convince themselves that they are in the final days. But as Jesus and Carly Simon remind us, we can never clearly know about the days to come.

A cartoon published after the world did not end in September 1988 shows a bookstore owner replacing a sign that says, "The book that proves Christ will return in September 1988" with a new one that says, "The book that proves Christ will return retroactive to September 1988."

What we do know is that we have been given a foretaste of the righteousness and justice promised by Jeremiah and that we have some experience of the holiness and abounding love described by Paul. These experiences give us a sneak preview of the days to come. According to the word, God is preparing a future of justice, freedom, reconciliation and wholeness. As we wait and prepare for those days, we are to imagine this new age. We are invited to think with anticipation, pray with confidence, and work with commitment for that future.

As nonviolent ways of resisting evil spread and as non-oppressive ways of governing increase, we can "stand up and raise our heads, because our redemption is drawing near." When violence and oppression make it difficult to see this, we must resist the temptation to go into a trance or let our eyes glaze over. Instead, let’s join the psalmist and lift ourselves to God. Even if we feel deserted and alone on an island, wondering if we will make it, we can put our ultimate trust in God and God’s future.

My favorite Kierkegaardian parable is called "The Man Who Walked Backwards." The Danish philosopher was particularly hard on religious professionals, and claimed that inconsistent behaviors most often accompany exorbitant professions of good intentions:

For Kierkegaard, what mattered most was the gulf between concept and capacity. And who is most susceptible to this confusion? Why, church leaders, of course, who are not only paid to be virtuous, but are expected to talk about it all the time.

After all, how does one become gracious? By reading a good book on the subject? Perhaps by appointing a committee to study graciousness and pass a resolution? And what about mercy and forgiveness? Can this ever be a calculated behavior, something you decide to "do today," part of what the power-of-positive-thinking folks call a "life strategy"?

The most insidious thing about being a "parson" (the person) who agrees to be on display as an example of what the gospel actually does to a person is that an insidious, largely subconscious form of compensation begins to produce a kind of "virtual virtuosity" The performance becomes the product. We must be a caring person, we think to ourselves -- after all, we are always recommending it. We must be sensitive, patient and kind, because we just finished a sermon series on all three, and lots of people have requested copies.

This means that Jesus was warning people to beware of folks like me -- and perhaps you. We do indeed like to walk around in long robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. We like to have the best seats wherever we go, and we do devour the houses of widows -- especially if they are rich, and in a mood to name our church in their will.

For the sake of appearances we do say long prayers. When given a chance to pray before our colleagues, we often feel the need to cover every cause, name every country, and in a marathon of self-righteousness, write every last vestige of prayerfulness out of prayer by making it not a moment to confess dependence and gratitude, but the closing argument of a self-nominated saint. No wonder Jesus preferred the prayer of the publican. At least God was the intended audience.

As for the widow’s mite, we have praised her devotion a zillion times, but none of us really wants a whole congregation full of generously self-sacrificing poor people, do we? This is a wonderful idea, but a disaster for the annual budget. We are much more likely to pray for people who give more abundantly out of their abundance than to praise the person who gives us a truly heroic pittance. Let’s hear it for "large sums in the treasury." This is you and me he’s talking about.

Whatever else may be true about this text, we are the intended audience -- you and me. Because what could be stranger than to live the upwardly mobile life while preaching the downwardly mobile gospel? Or preen like peacocks when we gather for festivals of righteousness, and fear being passed over when the names of the beautiful people are read aloud?

Why have some mega-churches blurred the line between worship and entertainment? Dare we ask why anyone needs Christian aerobics? And when did prayers of confession begin to seem morbid? When did liturgies of contrition and dependence become examples of negative thinking? And when did sanctuaries become auditoriums with an orchestra pit but no cross -- to serenade people with wholesome and charismatic infomercials for Jesus? This is you and me he’s talking about.

There is hope, of course. For all of us who dress up and profess the faith for a living, there ends up being one rather simple but critical decision to make. Either we role-play the faith until we acquire more of it, trapping ourselves with our own words. Or we let our appearances "stand in" for the real thing, until gradually we become unrecognizable in the pulpit, especially to those who love us.

No one expects us to be perfect (that’s an easy out). But they do expect us to be better than average. Otherwise, this text is too close for comfort, and Kierkegaard knew it: "In the magnificent cathedral the Honorable and Right Reverend Geheime-General-Ober-Hof-Pradikant, the elect favorite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches with emotion upon the text he himself elected: ‘God hath elected the base things of the world, and the things that are despised.’ And nobody laughs."

Whenever the text turns apocalyptic, as it does this week, there would seem to be only two choices: either take it literally and join the lucrative doomsday machine of late-night, splendidly coifed Christian psychics, or begin your best apologetic backpedaling -- cheered on by Bishop John Spong. If you choose the first option, to be a player in the apocalyptic game, then you too can help frightened people "read the signs." There is big money in the "End-Times Came," and what’s more, the deeply satisfying prospect of "Gotcha!"

If you choose the second option, and claim that it’s all just an allegory for the tenacity of hope in the midst of a world gone mad, then what becomes of history’s arc? Of human progress? Of the possibility that suffering itself will one day be redeemed?

Whether it’s Daniel’s bizarre dream of the winged beast and a prince named Michael who "goes by the Book," or Mark’s "Little Apocalypse," written after a generation of suffering and perhaps over the rubble of the temple, predictions of the end times and the second coming demand a soul-searching kind of honesty. But that’s seldom what we get.

It’s not hard to understand why human beings long for some sort of judgment day. Life itself passes judgment daily on the notion that anyone is in charge, that good deeds and righteous living provide exemption from mindless tragedy, or that the meek will inherit anything other than a crushing debt and a dead planet. Surely, we think to ourselves, there’s a plan -- we may not be able to see it, we don’t know when it will be implemented and we’re not sure what happens to even the score. But, by God, justice demands it!

Besides, Jesus seems to talk about the kingdom in both present and future tense, and a quick look around is enough to convince anyone that the "human race experiment," as Mark Twain called it, is either unfinished or hopeless. If it’s unfinished, then what will it look like when it is? Or if it’s a cosmic "irregular," if we are destined for eternal brokenness, then perhaps the best we can hope for is a salvage operation. Jesus came once. He will come again.

But after 25 years in the ministry, I can honestly say that I don’t believe this. Fred Craddock once said, "Maybe people are obsessed with the second coming because, deep down, they were really disappointed in the first one."

What’s more, history itself teaches us that when times are bad, eschatology thrives. But when times are good, apocalyptic talk subsides. And this makes perfect sense. How quickly one wishes to "check out" depends a lot on how happily one is "checked in."

The gospel is saturated with the expectation of both the imminent return of Jesus and some sort of final judgment. But it didn’t happen, and this very fact became the foremost problem of the New Testament.

Jesus tells the disciples to beware of false prophets (against which the church is already struggling) and to not be fooled by "wars, or rumors of wars" -- for they do not mean the end has come. Then he uses a familiar image for patience in the midst of tribulation, comparing the present trials to the "first pains of childbirth."

But what the disciples want to know is the same thing we want to know: How long is this labor? When can we expect "deliverance"? I know, I know, our time is not God’s time, but perhaps there is room to think outside the apocalyptic box altogether, and to be fully satisfied with the first coming.

Can’t we believe that the kingdom both is and is yet to be, without thinking that God will someday slice the film in half, right in the middle of the movie? Or pull the plug on the projector and let a single frame stand still and then melt from the heated lamp of God’s righteous anger? Is an "intervention" the only way to redeem the incalculable suffering of the human race?

I live and work in Oklahoma City. When the Murrah Federal Building was bombed by an antigovernment zealot who believed he was starting the second American revolution, the building "pancaked." Among those killed were 19 children in a day care center on the first floor. Many of the pastors in this town called them "God’s little angels," and said that the Almighty, in his infinite wisdom, had "called them home."

If one of my children had been among those pulverized, I can assure you that in the presence of such mindless drivel I would have had to be physically restrained to keep from strangling the preacher. Perhaps the same caution, and common sense, should be exercised when preaching about the apocalypse and calculating the date of the second coming.

The magnificent national memorial now built on the spot where the 168 people died senselessly is my idea of the shape of tenacious hope, and hope is the one thing for which there is no acceptable alternative. Maybe, come to think of it, the most difficult thing about faith is how much faith it requires. And my faith tells me that before an anxious church bent Jesus around the shape of ancient predictions, he was content with the lilies of the field.

And hoped we would be too.

By the time we reach the 12th chapter of Mark, Jesus finds himself in the middle of a kind of theological cross-examination free-for-all. Priests, scribes, elders and other assorted defenders of the letter of the law are swarming all over him in a frenzy of entrapment.

First there’s a question about divorce (with a follow-up from his own disciples), and nobody likes the answer. Then a question from a rich man about what he must do to inherit eternal life, and the answer is: the one thing you’re not willing to do. Then the disciples squabble over seating arrangements in the kingdom while the Lord sits on death row. There Jesus stops his own parade to heal a blind man named Bartimaeus, and curses a poor little fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season.

Then the questions begin. "By what authority are you doing these things?" Read that: get the blasphemer’s hook ready. Then comes the dark parable of the wicked tenants, and a question about taxes to test his citizenship. And finally, a real Mosaic brainteaser about seven brothers who do their brotherly duty by marrying each other’s childless widow, only to find themselves all in heaven without a clue as to who gets to call her "my wife." With a deep sigh he says, in effect, "You just don’t get it."

That’s when a nameless scribe, who has been hanging out on the fringe of the crowd, and cannot but be impressed by his own stamina, moves in for the kill. His question is the question, the let’s-get-down-to-it-and-see-if-you-bleed Torah question: Which commandment is the first of all?

Something tells me this scribe knew the answer (the Shema) before he asked the question. My students at the university do this all the time. They ask me questions they already know the answers to, just to hear me say it, just to have a kind of personal, extracurricular "moment." If I begin by saying, "As I said to the whole class . . . ," they look at me as if I’ve missed the point -- which indeed I have. Then it hits me -- they aren’t interested in the whole class. They want to be an audience of one.

It’s almost like a form of extra credit (which I don’t allow in my classes, strictly speaking, but they always ask for it). I used to think this was a form of compensation, a kind of insurance policy for a bad grade or a poor paper. Now I realize that it has much more to do with getting attention -- trying to break through the ordinary student-teacher relationship in order to prove to me, and ultimately to themselves, that they are not ordinary.

You see, there are two kinds of student questions. The ones they ask in class, which are utilitarian in nature: "How many absences are we allowed in here, anyway?" And the kind they ask after class, which are invariably philosophical: "So what is your position on the death penalty anyway?" Or, "So, like, were you a hippie when you were in college?"

These are not just "questions," but indirect pleas for relationship. Some sort of validation is being sought, even if it’s just a momentary reminder from an authority figure that they do indeed exist, and are not as dumb as people think. Tell me something I already know, they seem to be saying, so I will know better.

If they find the validation they are looking for, they will often compliment me for being "right on," without realizing that we have suddenly reversed roles. "Well done, good and faithful teacher, well done." When Jesus responds to the scribe, something similar may be going on. He’s heard the greatest commandment before but he is astonished to see it. A routine quiz suddenly turns into something much more, a moment when a lawyer looks up from his paperwork and sees the face of God.

Stunned perhaps, and feeling undone by much more than the right answer, he compliments Jesus for being "right on" and then stammers through a paraphrase of what he has just heard. Monty Python’s Jesus would say, "Duh! . . . didn’t I just say that?" But Mark’s Jesus sees a student who is both vulnerable and teachable -- a human being who is searching, and now undone by the fact that he has addressed his question to the answer.

That’s when Jesus says the one thing all of us want to hear. All of us who spend our days swimming in the fickle currents of the church, at war with things both petty and impossible -- tired, sometimes, before the meeting begins -- that we are not far from the kingdom.

I recently had the chance to meet Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Amid the restaurant noise and secondhand smoke, I realized that I was in the presence of a saint. I wanted to say something to her, something to indicate how important this moment was to me, but it would have come out all wrong -- like a blubbering paraphrase of what she had already said. Besides, I knew the answer before I asked the question, or maybe I just couldn’t figure out how to address a question to the answer.

All I knew for sure was that I felt close. Dangerously close to the kingdom.