Sermon Archive
Readings for 15 June 2008
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 6, Year A
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)
The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, "My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on-- since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
They said to him, "Where is your wife Sarah?" And he said, "There, in the tent." Then one said, "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" The LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, `Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too wonderful for the LORD? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son." But Sarah denied, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. He said, "Oh yes, you did laugh."
[The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."]
Romans 5:1-8
Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23)
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, `The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
"See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.]
How shall I repay you, O Lord, for all the good things you have done for me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all the people.
I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving in the courts of the LORD'S house. Hallelujah!
Thursday of this week, I finally started to clean out my office. I began with the piles on the windowsill behind my desk -- you know, the stacks you could see from the walk outside which made it impossible for me to open the lower section of the windows for several years.
Well, now the windows can be opened.
Going through those stacks of files, papers and notebooks was a bit like an archeological dig. The notebooks, folders and files were in multi-colored layers: white, red, green, tan, blue and, of course, pink. There were papers from at least 5 Diocesan Conventions and notebooks covering over 6 years of Vestry meetings. I found plans for the lights that were put in the Church about 7 years ago, a proposal for the sound system which followed a year or two later, and an architect's sketch for the wonderful pipe organ now in the balcony that Mark Trautman is showing off for us this morning. I came across papers from the Pains and Gains Conversations of the beginning of this decade; Confirmation class notes spanning 10 years, and a folder of confidential material that needed to be shredded.
I moved from the windowsill to a file drawer and dug deeper in time. There was material from a leadership retreat in 1998 and, further back, the seminal retreat in 1994 that led us to open these facilities to community groups and eventually to homeless families. I found folders about the Building for Ministry Capital Campaign that grew out of that retreat. That campaign funded the new lights, the sound system and part of the organ; enabled us to make these buildings handicapped accessible; and created the Library in which we have gathered so many times to meet and to learn together. In another drawer I found files for the weddings I'd performed in the last 18 years; notes for Adult Education programs I had led; and in yet another drawer, service bulletins going back into the early 90's, every one typeset by Barb Nichols.
When I went to take books off the shelves, I first had to move keepsakes and gifts that I'd looked at for years: pictures of my family; a small icon of the Trinity that got me through my first General Convention; a bottle decorated to hold oil for anointing from Journey in Christ; a beautiful print of a tree that Susy gave me years ago; the teddy bear with vestments for the whole liturgical year that Allie Graham made; and the bright pink Primal Scream Therapy for Priests monkey that Linda Carlson-Scholer came up with - don't ask!
It was dusty work on a hectic day, and it left me drained and sad at leaving behind the fullness of life and ministry that my archeological expedition had uncovered and brought to mind once again. But beneath and above the fatigue and sorrow was something else - gratitude: gratitude for that fullness of life and ministry we have shared together these 18 years; gratitude for having all of you -- faithful parishioners, dedicated clergy colleagues and gifted musicians -- as my partners in co-creation with God; gratitude for the rich life of worship that those service bulletins have outlined for us; gratitude for the good works we have done together in God's service that those files, folders and notebooks bear witness to; gratitude, too, that even when we had conflicts and disagreements, we tried our best to talk them through with love and understanding.
Above all, I felt gratitude to God for having called me here to be your priest and pastor; for the privilege of being your companion in times of joy and sorrow; for the joy of serving in a congregation where I have been both supported and challenged, and where, together, we have sought to be formed in Christ and to serve God in the world. Packing up my office, I was reminded once again of the many good things we have shared together these past 18 years,
gifts for which I am grateful to you and to our God.
How shall I repay you, O Lord, for all the good things you have done for me? the Psalmist asks.
How shall we repay you, O Lord, for all the good things you have done for us?
Today we will repay our God for all these good things by doing what we have done together Sunday after Sunday over the years, an action which I have had the privilege of leading.
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all the people.
I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving in the courts of the LORD'S house.
These words from Psalm 116 get it exactly right: We will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving in the courts of the Lord's house -- that is to say, we will make Eucharist. As many of you know, the Greek word Eucharist means Thanksgiving and the Prayer Book properly calls the Eucharistic Prayer the Great Thanksgiving. How else can I, how can we, repay the Lord for all things God has done for us these years except by making Eucharist, by offering this great sacrifice of thanksgiving to our God?
We must give thanks in this way, for when we do so, the words of the Great Thanksgiving set the good things that we are grateful for in our life as a parish in their proper context - the context of God, of God's goodness, God's abundance, God's love.
Eucharist Prayer D, which we will pray today, calls us to thanksgiving first simply for God's being; thanks that God is living and true, dwelling in light in accessible from before time and forever. After acknowledging the glory of God's being, we give thanks that our God is also the fountain of life and source of all goodness, who made all things and fills them with blessing; who created them to rejoice in the splendor of [the divine] radiance.
The Prayer then leads us to thank God for creating us in God's image and for calling us into covenant again and again despite our disobedience. Next, we rejoice that in the fullness of time God sent the only Son to be our Savior, to live as one of us, yet without sin, and to fulfill God's purpose, to give himself up to death; and to rise from the grave, destroying death, making the whole creation new.
And if that weren't enough, Christ sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.
Wow.
My dear friends, this is the big picture of Christian life in which our particular lives in Christ are set. The words of this Great Thanksgiving tell us of the saving work of the Triune God who creates, who redeems, who sanctifies. These words remind us that though this day may be full of emotion for us as we mark the end of our relationship as priest and people, the first focus of Christian worship and of Christian life is not ourselves, however dear we may be to one another. The primary focus of Christian worship, of Christian life and of Christian ministry is the Triune God who has been revealed to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The many good things that God has done for us at Grace-St. Paul's these 18 years need to be placed into that larger context of God's work if we are to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving in its fullness. I don't mean that we should deny or paper over the real human grief we feel at parting; nor do I mean that what we have been to one another and done together doesn't matter all that much in God's sight. To the contrary. All of the life, ministry, love, pain and joy that the stuff I found in my office bears witness to really do matter, not only to us, but also to God.
But they matter precisely because the good things God has given us in our life together at GraSP are a part of God's larger work of creation, redemption and sanctification. The particular gifts of being priest and people together that today fill us with gratitude and move us to tears are a piece of God's larger work. So when we offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for the big picture of God's saving work, we discover that the good things God has done for us are how God is working to save us and to make us whole and maybe even holy. They are not separate from the big picture of God's work of redemption. They are some of the particular ways that redemption has become real in our lives.
So this morning, when I lead us in praying the Great Thanksgiving, pay attention to the words and what they point to. Let them draw you to God and to God's great work of redeeming the creation that we at Grace-St. Paul's have had the privilege and joy of being a small part of these past 18 years. Together, let us repay the Lord for the all the good things God has done for us.
Let us offer our God the sacrifice of thanksgiving, here, in the courts of the Lord's house. Hallelujah!
For past week's readings and sermons, please visit the archive of sermons.