6 Easter

 

Rogation Sunday

May 14, 2023

 

John 14.15-21

 

 

+ A few weeks ago, our very own Amy Phillips did something innovative.

 

Amy, who is part of the Diocesan Creation Care Committee, formed a new group here at St. Stephen’s called “The Green Team.”

 

The Green Team is made up of a several St. Stephenites who are striving to make St. Stephen’s a more ecologically sound place.

 

When Amy first brought this all up to me, my first reaction was, “Wow! This is great!”

 

I have long been committed to being ecologically conscious of how we use this earth we have been given.

 

I have been working in my own life to “live green.”

 

It’s not an easy thing to do.

 

But any little bit really does help.

 

And one of the reasons I went vegan 10 years ago was because I was made aware of the massive damage factory farming does on our environment.

 

The Green Team is going to making suggestions to the Vestry about ways we can make St. Stephen’s more ecologically sound.

 

One of the suggestions I made came as a result of a visit I made recently to All Saints Episcopal Church in Northfield, Minnesota.

 

There, next to their church where the Rectory obviously once stood, they have allowed a portion of their property to revert back to natural prairie.

 

In the near future, the Green Team will be making other suggestions for our parish, such as a possible use of solar panels.

 

Today, Rogation Sunday, is a perfect time for us to celebrate our Green Team and make a real commitment toward being a more ecologically-sound parish.

 

When Amy brought all of this up to me, I told her in no uncertain terms that I really want to see St. Stephen’s be on the forefront of this cause in the Diocese.

 

After all, why shouldn’t we?

 

We are the leading Progressive parish in the Diocese, and this all falls squarely under our progressive ideals.

 

Issues of Eco-Justice, Life-Giving Conservation and Creation Care as a whole are vital to the ideals we stand for here at St. Stephen’s.  

 

The Episcopal Church’s Creation Care Covenant states,

 

In Jesus, God so loved the whole world. We follow Jesus, so we love the world God loves. Concerned for the global climate emergency, drawing on diverse approaches for our diverse contexts, we commit to form and restore loving, liberating, life-giving relationships with all of Creation. 

 

And so, with that commitment in mind today, we will commission our Green Team.

 

And today, Rogation Sunday, the Sunday on which we give thanks to God for this earth God has given us, we find ourselves making a true commitment to Creation Care here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Of course, this is not really all that new for us here.

 

We have been incrementally trying to make changes here at St. Stephen’s over the years.

 

In fact, nine years ago, in 2014 we did some inadvertent creation care are at our Rogation Blessing.

 

On that Sunday nine years ago, we dedicated our Memorial Garden.

 

Now, I remember when I first introduced this idea at St. Stephen’s about a memorial garden about a year before that.

 

There was frowning.

 

There was a sense of, “Lord, what is he thinking of doing now?”

 

There was a groan of “Really? A cemetery? Seriously?”

 

But, when I said what I was planning was not a cemetery, but a place where essentially we were doing “Green Burial” of cremated remains, people really came on board.

 

When I said what I was proposing was a place where cremated remains would be buried directly into the ground, without an urn, or in a biodegradable urn, people really were happy with it.

 

And  look what a blessing that memorial garden has had in our life here at St. Stephen’s.

 

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 nine years, our memorial garden has become a place of rest for twenty-one or so people.

 

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 given, 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.

I would add to that, “toc are for the earth.”

 

We at St. Stephen’s, in the ministry we do as followers of Jesus, have done most of those well.

 

Including that one about “burying the dead.” 

 

Burying the dead is a corporate act of mercy.

 

And it is something we have do with our services of burial and in our memorial garden. 

 

And it definitely sounds like something we do with Creation Care.

 

And, it’s appropriate we are doing to 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.

 

When we forget to be Christ to others, when we fail to do this, when we fail to honor the earth and our place on it, we fail to do mercy.

 

We are doing mercy 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.”

 

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 our works and acts of mercy.

We are asking to be filled with the Spirit of Truth.

 

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 might seem a bit too much.

 

Maybe even Creation Care seems like a bit too much for people.

 

But I believe all of this is very much a part of 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 (which we can interpret as as the Earth itself)

 

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 the resources, which at the time is or ought to be used.

 

In so many ways, that is what we do here and what we continue to do here.

 

Our memorial garden—this visible sign of the corporal act of mercy of burying the dead—is a part of this Rogation celebration.

 

This is where we do our blessing.

 

We process there and bless the earth and the land there.

 

We ask God’s blessings on the growth not only of crops and fields.

 

And we do something also very important there: We thank God today for this earth we have been given and told to take care of.

 

We also thank God 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 you to look around the memorial garden.

 

I ask you to look at the names there.

 

We know some of them.

 

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.

 

I also ask you to look about at the earth and the sky and the trees and the plants.

 

I ask you to truly give thanks for this beautiful earth God has given to us to care for and preserve.

 

And I ask that you remember Jesus’ call to us, 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.

 

Let this procession today truly be a "living walking" as 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.