Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

31 July 2016

Emmanuel, San Angelo

If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above,
where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
-Colossians 3:1

The Letter to the Colossians is a tract written to help Christian people remain faithful to Christ in times of uncertainty. The uncertainty that challenged the faith of the original recipients of the letter was the seeming delay of the return of Christ, and the lure of listening to false teaching that the Gospel is just another philosophy among many.

After two millennia, most Christians have learned to wait patiently for our Lord’s return. Creedal Christians, such as we, are reminded that we are waiting for that day each time we affirm the faith we have received that says, among other things, “he will come again in glory. . .and his kingdom will have no end.”

While I do consider it wise to wait patiently for that day, I think it important to wait for it eagerly, trusting that what is being prepared for us is glorious beyond anything we can imagine; and to wait for it actively, with hearts lifted in adoring worship, hands extended in humble service, lips joyfully speaking and singing praises, and minds set on things above, not on things that are on earth.

Those things that are on earth are things that give rise to great uncertainty. How shall we live in the midst of the tensions of our time, the hatred and vitriol that fill the newswire with accounts of atrocities, crimes, attacks, scandals, cover ups, protests, mourning, and loss, all with such rapidity that there isn’t time to absorb the blow of one horror before the next one is breaking news? How shall we live? How shall we seek the things that are above? How shall we there set our minds?

Here we are in this place this morning, engaged in this ritual of Eucharist, this action of seeking things that are above; the inward and spiritual grace of forgiveness, strength, and nourishment that come from the outward and visible signs of the bread and the cup.

“Give thanks to the Lord,” says the psalmist. Every Eucharist is just that, an occasion of giving thanks, as the very word ‘Eucharist’ means ‘Thanksgiving.’ This is our sacred thanksgiving meal, when we remember the goodness of our Lord, who was broken so that we could be made whole. This is the meal in which we are re-membered, bound together with one another in, with, and through him in order to bear his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, his love in this broken world, this uncertain world. In the midst of all that is uncertain, we bear witness to one certainty - “Christ is all and in all.”

Such a claim requires faith, and there is no guarantee of success or security for those who stake their lives on the faith affirmation that “Christ is all and in all,” or for those who “seek the things that are above.” It is altogether possible that it may be too uncertain of an existence for some, who will choose instead a life devoted to the acquisition of wealth, possessions, power, and prestige, contrary to our Lord’s admonition to “be on guard against all kinds of greed.” Perhaps in great assets, so many that larger barns, larger safe deposit boxes, larger homes, larger portfolios are necessary, there may be found some certainty. But the only real certainty for those of us who live in this mortal coil is, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.”

In his book, “Free of Charge,” Orthodox theologian Miroslav Volf relays an episode from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov,” about a woman who died in the grip of greed. She started out poor, but acquired much in the course of her life by a mixture of honesty and dishonesty. Her great sin, however, was a refusal to share anything with anybody. Her guardian angel was distressed that she was cast into the lake of eternal fire. After some research the angel came to God with a story of how one day she had pulled an onion from her garden and given it to a hungry passerby. God said to take an onion and hold it out to her, and if she could hold on to the onion while the angel pulled her out of the fiery lake, and if the onion did not break, she could pass into paradise. The angel did as instructed. He held out an onion to the woman, who reached for it, and clung to it as the angel hauled her out of the flames. Some other poor souls saw her being lifted from the blaze, so they grabbed onto her ankles and held on tightly. The woman screamed at them that she was being rescued because she was kind and had given someone an onion, and started to kick at her hangers-on, whom she was not going to let ride on her virtue. In all of her kicking and shaking, the onion broke, and the woman, along with her unwanted passengers, fell back into eternal fire. “The angel,” wrote Dostoyevsky, “wept and went away.”

Miroslav Volf says that what the poor woman failed to understand is that she was not escaping her sizzling plight because she had a moment, even if only one, of generosity. She was being saved by God’s generosity. Had she grasped that, she would have given in to the hangers-on, and she would have maintained her grasp on the onion, which likely would not have broken, and all would have been saved, and the angel would have rejoiced.

“Beware of all kinds of greed,” says our Lord. Not because material things are evil, but because our reliance upon them and trust in them for our sense of self and our happiness can become an idol, something that we put in the place of God, and that impedes our capacity to recall whose we are, to remember that “our life is hidden with Christ in God.”

If there is any wisdom in this reflection for living faithfully in uncertain times, it is this. Remember. Remember whose you are. Remember that your life is hidden with Christ in God. And give thanks. Make Eucharist. Come to the Lord’s table assured of mercy, strengthened by grace, and nourished by faith, taking the bread and the cup as if from his very hand, being in that moment where he is, so that when you go out from this place into whatever uncertainty may unfold in the news of the world or the story of your life, your mind will be set on things above, the certainty of God’s faithfulness, perfectly revealed in the person of Jesus Christ his Son, Our Lord, to whom be glory, now and for ever. Amen.