Rogation Sunday
May
25, 2025
John 14:23-29
+ 11 years ago tomorrow—on Sunday, May
26, 2014—we did something special at our Rogation Blessing.
On that Sunday eleven years ago we processed
out to our overgrown labyrinth and that bare patch of lawn under the tree there
and dedicated and blessed the space for our
Memorial Garden.
Before that, it was a somewhat
forgotten corner of our property.
We used to have a composting bin there,
where we would put our composting.
No one even really noticed it at ll.
And now, look!
Thanks to Sandy Holbrook and the
gardening committee and all the people who have worked for that garden and all
that beautiful landscaping that was done there, it has become a place of
beauty.
And in these eleven years, our memorial
garden has become a place of rest for 25 people—and a place of consolation for
countless others.
When I first proposed a memorial garden
for St. Stephen’s, I remember people being resistant.
I got weird looks when I first
mentioned it.
And there were some people who were
outright vocal in their opposition for such a thing.
But your loyal priest persisted.
(As he does!)
And he was diligent.
If, one day, when I shed this mortal
coil, I believe those two words will definitely be used to describe the rector
of St. Stephen’s.
Persistent and diligent.
(along with maybe a few other choice
words)
Well, this persistent and diligent
priest went out and did his research.
I visited memorial gardens in other
places.
I learned how such things were done.
And I learned also about an apostolate
of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina called the
Society of St. Joseph of Arimathea.
They were a group who provided burials
for unclaimed babies in their church cemetery.
I wanted to make sure that anyone who
needed a dignified burial had one in our memorial garden, that no one would be
turned away because of financial difficulties, or for any other reason.
I remember a dear friend of mine at
another church who was faithful in in her duties to that congregation.
As she was preparing for her own
passing, she decided she wanted to be interred in the church’s columbarium.
But the price tag to do so was a bit
steep for her.
I went to the priest and said, “She has
been very faithful to this congregation. She has volunteered and been there for
everything she is needed for. Just give her the niche.”
And that priest said no to me, and to
that elderly woman.
She finally was able to muster the
money together (due to some help from some of her friends) and her ashes now rest
there in peace.
But the story struck me.
I never wanted anyone to struggle in
their own lives to find a place of dignity for their final resting place.
That is why I am so grateful for our
memorial garden, and for all those who made this place what it is not only for
us, but for everyone else who has benefitted from it.
Now I don’t think I’m overestimating it
when I say it has also become a place of mercy.
We of course have laid people to rest
there who had no other place to rest, who were rejected or forgotten.
Why? Why do we do that?
Because that is what we do as
Christians.
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.
I’ve talked about this many times
before.
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.
We at St. Stephen’s, in
the ministry we do as followers of Jesus, have done most of those well
(actually I don’t know if we’ve ransomed a whole lot of captives)
Including that last one.
Burying the dead is a corporal act of
mercy.
And, it’s appropriate we are discussing
things like mercy and love on this Sunday, Rogation Sunday, the Sunday before
the Ascension of Jesus.
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.
Because that is who Christ is to us.
Our job as Christians, as followers of
Jesus, is to show mercy to others.
We are doing so this morning.
We are living into our ministry of
mercy to others.
Today is, as I’ve said, Rogation
Sunday.
Rogation comes from the Latin word
“Rogare” which means “to ask.”
In our Gospel reading today we hear
Jesus saying to us,
“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 our 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.
Our memorial garden—this visible sign
of the final corporal act of mercy—is a part of this Rogation celebration.
This is where we do our blessing.
We process there. In this procession,
we will bless the earth and the land.
We will bless our new pocket prairie.
We ask God’s blessings on the growth
not only of crops and fields.
We also thank God today for the growth
of our congregation.
We are thanking God for the acts of
mercy and grace done to each of us.
And we are asking God to continue to
make us Christ to those who need Christ.
We are thanking God especially for all
the graces in our lives.
Grace is especially something we
celebrate on Rogation Sunday.
Let’s see if you can remember my
definition of grace.
Grace, in my very simple opinion, is a
gift we receive from God that we don’t ask for.
In fact it is often something we
receive from God that we may not even known how to ask for.
And we all get to be reminded of the
fact that God’s grace still works in our midst in wonderful and beautiful ways.
This is how God works sometimes in our
lives.
And we have provided grace to several
of the people buried in our garden.
We gave them something they could not
ask for.
But we, seeking to live out mercy in
our lives and in ministries here, provided them something others did not.
It is appropriate to remember all of
this on this Rogation Sunday—this Sunday in which we ask God’s blessings on us,
on the growth in our lives, and on the renewal in our lives, and in which we
seek to be grateful for the graces in our own lives.
As we process out at the end of the Eucharist
today, I ask you to look around at the
memorial garden before and even as we head on to the Mary Garden at the back of
the church.
I ask you to look at the names on the
stones there.
We know many of them now.
Others of them we will never know on
this side of veil.
I ask you as you walk about to thank
God for them.
I ask you today to thank God for the
growth God has granted us at St. Stephen’s.
And I ask that you remember Jesus’ call
to us, to love God and to keep that commandment of love and mercy.
This 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—especially as we bless
our two pocket prairies—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.
We definitely need each other.
And we definitely need more mercy in
this world.
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 truly show mercy to them.
Let this procession today truly be a
"living walking" as the great poet (and one of my heroes) George
Herbert put it.
But let our whole lives as Christians
be also a “living walk,” a mindful walk, a walk in which we see the world
around with eyes of love and respect and justice and care.
And, most importantly, with eyes of
mercy.
Amen.
