May 25, 2014
John 14.15-21
+ It’s a rare occurrence. A very rare occurrence.
Anyone who has served with me on vestry knows how rare of an occurrence it is. There are moments, maybe, the vestry and the
wardens wonder to themselves: “Oh no. What is Fr. Jamie planning now?” That is
the opinion I got a few months ago when I first introduced to the Vestry this
idea about a memorial Garden here at St. Stephen’s.
And when I did, I think there was a
moment of doubt among them. OK, you could almost hear them say. We’ve went
along with his Anglo-Catholic renovations, with his introduction of bells and
incense, with his genuflections and his images of the Virgin Mary. But a
cemetery? On our grounds? That’s a bit strange… And I’ll admit: the idea is
kind of strange.
But…as I have said from day 1, it IS
very much a part of our Anglican heritage. And more importantly is ties in
wonderfully to our Christian faith. Certainly, in England, it common to see a church,
even in the middle of a city, with a cemetery around it.
Why? Because people wanted to be buried
near a place that meant something to them. And in the months since I have
introduced this memorial garden to the people of St. Stephen’s, I can tell you
that sentiment has been echoed.
This congregation is important to
people. And it naturally makes sense that they would want to be buried
close-by.
But a deeper meaning, deeper even then
sentimentalism, is at work here. In our Christian tradition, mercy plays heavily
into what we do. And as a result, there have been, since the early Church, a
series of what have been called corporal acts of mercy. These corporal acts of
mercy are:
- To feed the
hungry;
- To give drink to
the thirsty;
- To clothe the
naked;
- To harbor the
harborless;
- To visit the
sick;
- To ransom the
captive;
- To bury the dead.
Burying the dead is a corporate act of
mercy. And it is something we should be
glad we are offering now. And, it’s
appropriate we are doing on this Sunday, Rogation Sunday, the Sunday before the
Ascension.
In our Gospel reading for today we find
Jesus explaining that although he is about to depart from his followers—this
coming Thursday we celebrate the feast of Jesus’ Ascension to heaven—he will
not leave them alone. They will be left
with the Advocate—the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Spirit.
He prefaces all of this with those
words that quickly get swallowed up by the comments on the Spirit, “If you love
me, you will keep my commandments.”
And just to remind everyone, that
command is, of course, “to love.”
To love God. And to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is what it means to be the Church. To love. To serve. To be merciful. To be Christ to those who need Christ. To be a Christ of love and compassion and
acceptance. Without boundaries. Without discrimination.
When we forget this, when we fail to do
this, we fail to do mercy. We are doing
so this morning. We are living in our
ministry of mercy to others.
Today is, as I’ve said, Rogation
Sunday. Rogation comes the Latin word
“Rogare” which means “to ask.” Traditionally,
on this Sunday, we heard the Gospel in which Jesus said,
"Whatever you ask the Father in my
name, he will give to you".
Today, with our current lectionary of
scripture readings, we actually find him saying, “I will ask the Father, and he
will give you another Advocate…” From a
very simple perspective, the thing we are asking today, on this Rogation
Sunday, is to be faithful followers of Jesus, thorough out works and acts of
mercy.
Now for some of us, this whole idea of
Rogation Sunday and the procession that we will soon be making outside at the
conclusion of our Eucharist this morning might seem a bit too much. The fact is, it is something, very much like
burying the dead on the church grounds, that has been done for centuries in our
Anglican Tradition.
In the 1630s one of heroes (you hear me
quote him and reference him often), Anglican priest and poet, George Herbert,
commended these rogation processions. He
said that processions should be encouraged for four reasons:
1. A Blessing of God for the fruits of
the field.
2. Justice in the preservation of
boundaries of those fields and properties.
3. Charity in loving, walking and
neighborly accompanying one another with reconciling of differences at the time
if there be any.
And 4 (hold on to your seats). Mercie
(yes, mercy) , in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution of largesse,
which at the time is or ought to be used.
What we are doing today is all of those
things. Even the dedication of our memorial garden—this visible sign of the
final corporal act of mercy—is a part of this Rogation celebration. We are
asking God’s blessings on the growth not only of crops and fields. We are
thanking today for the growth of our congregation. We are thanking God for the
acts of mercy done to each of us. And we
are asking God to continue to make us Christ to those who need Christ.
As you can see, the rallying themes of
this Rogation time are hope and justice and mercy. As George Herbert reminds us there is always
room for charity.
As we process out at the end of the
Eucharist today, I ask that you remember Jesus’ call to us, to love him and to
keep his commandment of love and mercy. It
is more than just sweet, religious talk. It is a challenge and a true calling to live
out this love in radical ways. It is a
challenge to be merciful.
As we process, as we walk together, let
us pay attention to this world around us. Let us ponder the causes and the effects of
what it means to be inter-related—to be dependent upon on each to some extent,
as we are on this earth.
We do need each other. And we do need each other’s love. And mercy. We do need that radical love that Jesus
commands us to have. With that love, we will truly love our neighbors as
ourselves. We will show mercy to them.
Our neighbors, of course, are more than
just those people who live next door to us. Our neighbors are all of us, those we do in
fact love and those we have difficulty loving. And our neighbors also include this earth and
all the inhabitants of it. That command of Jesus is to love—to
respect—those with whom we live and share this place.
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