That We All May Be One

Our Epistle today from the Second Letter to Timothy is interesting because it gives us a little glimpse into a later stage in the development of Christianity than some of the rest of the New Testament. We’re seeing here the early Church about three generations old. An older Christian is writing to a younger man and he says,

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” (2 Timothy 1:5) So, at least three generations of this family have been followers of Jesus and the young man is being reminded of his “goodly heritage” and encouraged to rededicate himself to the same faith – “to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands…” (1:6), the author writes.

This tells us that the early Church was doing the same thing that I do nearly every Sunday. Although the main purpose of a bishop’s visitation is to do what I’m doing here today – celebrating the Eucharist, learning something about the local congregation, trying to encourage and support the clergy and lay people in a parish, often when bishops visit congregations one of the purposes is to assist in “rekindling the gift of God within you through the laying on hands!” We do that in several different ways:

Sometimes bishops baptize new Christians. When we do that, we wash them with water in the name of the Holy Trinity, then we lay a hand on the newly baptized one and mark them with the Sign of the Cross using the oil of Chrism to show that they are now “little anointed ones,” little “Christs,” Christians!

Sometimes bishops confirm young people and adults. We lay hands upon them in that case, praying that the Holy Spirit (which has already been given to them in Baptism) may be strengthened (“rekindled”) through our prayer and through the laying on of hands. Most Christians are baptized as infants and so the vows are taken on their behalf by their parents and godparents – to sort of get them started on the right path.

But, at some point, we have to take these vows on ourselves — Because our Epistle today reminds us that “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” (I:7). If that’s so, then we need to confess our faith publicly (as Billy Graham used to say!) and to stand up for what we believe – not only because our parents and grandparents believed, but because we do as well. That’s what it means to be confirmed…to “confirm” our faith…and to do so publicly.

Bishops also pray and lay hands on people who have already been confirmed in another denomination, but who wish to join The Episcopal Church, and people who have just reached a point in their life when – for various reasons – they would like the opportunity to re-affirm  their faith publicly again. In each case the intention is basically the same – “to rekindle the gift of God – the Holy Spirit – which is already within them.

Why do we need to do that? Well, because Christians need to have a strong faith today. Of course, the Apostles did too and they asked Jesus in the Gospel today to “Increase (their) faith.” (Luke 17:5). He says that, if they had faith just the size of a tiny mustard seed they could say to a mulberry tree “Be uprooted and planted in the sea” and it would obey them. (17:6).

 Since there is no record of mulberry trees flying around the Middle East in those days, apparently they didn’t even have even that much faith! Even so, Jesus tells them to get on with their work and ministry lest they be accused of being lazy servants of God who expect to be rewarded for doing next to nothing.

But, in some ways, it’s even harder to have faith today. We don’t live in a world where God and religion are taken for granted. We live in a very secular age and in an age when lots of things work against our living a life of faith. That’s why the Church – the Christian community – is so important! Because it’s here that we can learn some of the disciplines that can keep us connected with God – through thick and thin… no matter what… come what may.

It’s here that you learn the stories and the history of your faith – through Scripture read and preached about on Sunday mornings, perhaps in Bible studies, or other Christian education programs. It’s here that you learn to pray – perhaps initially by being immersed in the great Liturgies of our Prayer Book, but later by learning to speak easily and often with your God in prayer and (perhaps even more importantly) learning to listen to that same God in silence and in meditation.

It’s here that you are nourished by the matchless sacramental system of the Church – at all the various turning points in your life – Baptism soon after birth, Holy Communion every Sunday on the Lord’s Day, Confirmation when you become an adolescent or adult, Marriage for lifelong partnerships, Confession when you’ve messed up and want to get right with God again, Healing when you are sick in body, mind or spirit. Maybe even Ordination as a Deacon or a Priest or some specific Lay Ministry here in the Church or in the world.

And finally, most importantly, it’s here that you learn something about how to live in this world – in ways that will be pleasing to God, and also that will make this world a better place. That’s the mission and ministry of this church you and I belong to. Everything we do here is intended to “rekindle the gift of God that is within you…for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” Thanks be to God that we have Holy Trinity Church to remind us of that fact every week!

In 1937, the great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book which has long been considered a classic of Christian thought. It was entitled “the Cost of Discipleship.” Bonhoeffer certainly knew something about “the cost of discipleship” and he was eventually martyred  in Nazi Germany for his faith and resistance to Adolph Hitler. In his book, he makes a distinction between what he calls “cheap grace” and “costly grace.”

“Cheap grace,” he says, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross; grace without Jesus Christ.”

Cheap grace is to hear the Gospel preached like this: “Of course you’ve sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.” On the contrary –Bonhoeffer’s book makes clear –the real Gospel is about “costly grace. He writes:

“Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels (one) to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light!”

Costly grace is exactly what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel reading when he says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14) Now, of course, Jesus didn’t mean that literally. Jesus loved his family; and he loved life!

What he was doing there was employing the old Middle Eastern rhetorical device of “exaggeration to make a point!” What he did mean, now that he had their attention, was contained in the next line: “Whoever does not carry the cross… and follow me… cannot be my disciple.” That would have been crystal clear to those original disciples. Crucifixion was a common form of capital punishment reserved by the Romans for political prisoners.

It was a dramatic and public way of warning anyone about challenging the authority of Rome, and Jesus and his disciples would have seen countless unfortunate souls carrying the cross beam of their instruments of execution along the Via Dolorosa and up the hill to Calvary or to the outskirts of Jerusalem. Those disciples knew on that day – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that Jesus was challenging them to follow him to death, if need be. Costly grace indeed!

They could not have been too surprised about all this though. The history of the people of Israel was filled with prophets and sages who had been willing to face imprisonment, torture and even death as a result of remaining faithful and loyal to their God. Our First Lesson today from Jeremiah was written by a prophet who was threatened with those things more than once – from his own people – when he warned them about the consequences of their disobedience:

“Just like the clay in the potter’s hand,” (says the Lord) “ so are you in my hand, O house of Israel…I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.” (Jeremiah 18)

And Jesus’ original followers got that message. Most of the Twelve Apostles were martyred for their faith. St. Paul wrote the Epistle we read today  from his prison cell, and he was asking his dear friend, Philemon, to defy the custom of his day and to take back his runaway slave, Onesimus, “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother” since the former slave had recently become a Christian. Costly grace indeed was being asked for.

Well, what about us, dear friends? How can we tell if we are following a false gospel of “cheap grace” or the real and authentic gospel of “costly grace?” How can we tell if we are paying “the cost of discipleship?” Well, the simplest way I know of is to use the outline we call “the Baptismal Covenant” as a kind of checklist on yourself:

1.       Do you put your whole trust in the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

2.       Do you worship that God every Sunday here in church thereby “continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?”

3.       Do you try to resist evil and, when you do fall into sin, “repent and return to the Lord?”

4.       Do you share your faith – in your words and in your deeds – with your family and friends and neighbors and all with whom you come in contact?

5.       Do you look for Christ in other people – especially in those persons where it might prove difficult to find him – so that you can begin to “love your neighbor as yourself”?

6.       And do you do your part to work for justice and peace in this world – treating other people as God would treat them and practicing non-violence (which is the only way to “respect the dignity of every…human…being?”)

Costly grace? Or cheap grace? Grace which leads to discipleship? Or grace which is taken for granted? Well, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gives us a word of encouragement along these lines. Remember he said that costly grace was “costly” because it challenges us to carry the yoke of Christ. But that it was “grace” because that yoke is easy and its burden is light. I never understood that exactly until I learned that, when two oxen are yoked together, usually one of them is stronger than the other and so he becomes “the lead ox,” he actually pulls much more than his share of the load and so makes it easier on his partner!

In our case, baptism and participation in the Church means that we are yoked to Jesus, and he becomes our “lead ox!” He carries the lion’s share of the load if we will only let him. Let’s join with those who are being received into our fellowship today by making those baptismal promises right along with them and, in so doing, re-commit ourselves to the God to whom we prayed in the words of this morning’s Collect:

“Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord….Amen!”

Over the last couple of years, I have been participating in something called “The Bible Challenge.” A number of congregations here in the Diocese of Chicago are doing this, and it has really taken off around The Episcopal Church, nationally. The Bible Challenge is simply this: to read the entire Bible through in one year!

 That sounds like a daunting task, but if you read three chapters from the OT, one Psalm, and one chapter from the N.T. each day, you can get it done…in one year. That’s not an insignificant amount of reading but perhaps not much more than if you were reading a good novel or doing some homework for school or work. And, if you have a good, modern, readable translation of the Bible, it’s really pretty easy to do.

 I hadn’t read the Bible through like that for many years, instead relying on the daily Readings from Morning and Evening Prayer and the Sunday lectionary to keep me in “the Word” on a regular basis. And those readings do indeed do that. But, reading the Bible straight through, without jumping around, and leaving out some parts, has re-introduced me to the power of Story. The wonderful Stories contained in the Bible.

 Stories are great teaching techniques. The prophets were master story tellers – beginning with the Prophet Nathan in our First Lesson today. Israel’s great King David was a flawed leader (as so many of our leaders have been throughout history!). One of his more notorious sins was basically kidnapping another man’s wife, marrying and having a child with her, and then ordering the man’s murder to cover up his sin!

 The prophet Nathan knew that if he confronted David directly, he would probably share the same fate as the murdered man, Uriah. So he tells the wonderful story in our First Lesson today about the rich man who stole a poor man’s lamb in order to feed it to one of his guests. Seeing the obvious injustice and cruelty of this act, David says, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die…” (2 Samuel 11)

 Seeing that the King has snatched the bait, Nathan quickly sets the hook, “You are the man!” the prophet snaps. And, now that David had indicted himself out of own mouth, Nathan confronts him directly with his sin, bringing him to his knees in repentance.

 Jesus tells a similar story in our Gospel reading for today. A “holier than thou” Pharisee is offended that Jesus accepts the love and the tears of a woman whose reputation in the community left something to be desired! Sensing the Pharisee’s disgust, Jesus seizes the initiative and launches off into a story:

 “So, a certain credit agency made two loans,” Jesus begins, “one for 500 the other for 50. Turns out neither borrower could pay up, so he wrote both debts off. Which debtor do you think will be most grateful, Simon?”

 “I guess the one whose debt was greater and therefore was forgiven more,” answered the Pharisee. “Right, and that’s the point, my friend!” That’s why this woman is so grateful – because “her sins, which were many, have been forgiven, so she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” That’s why she’s grateful to God. And you’re not!

Can you imagine the tension in that room?

 Stories are great teaching tools. They’re easy to pay attention to. Easy to grasp…but they can contain a hidden meaning…like the great fairy tales…the “moral” of the story, if you will. Well, some of us are better story tellers than others. But all of us have a story. It’s the story of our lives. And…all of us have a faith story. At least all of us who are in this church today!

 It doesn’t have to be dramatic (although I’ll bet some of your stories are!). But you have led a life. And something in that life has led you here to St. John’s this morning. Maybe you just grew up in the church and this is just part of your normal routine. Maybe you found this church after  a period of searching. Maybe you came here in a time of stress and strain in your life. Or, you came here to give thanks for something.

 Maybe you love the liturgy and the music. Maybe you enjoy the friendship and fellowship you found here. Maybe you participate in some outreach program (like the Crop Walk for Church World Service) as a way of giving back to the community. The stories in this room are as varied as the people in it! But telling “your story” to another person may just be what that person needs to take a step back toward the Church…and toward the life of faith.

 Years ago, the Episcopal Church’s evangelism office put out a colorful poster. It looked like the drawing of a chalice when you first looked at it. But it was one of those optical illusions and, when you looked again, it was a picture of two faces, in profile, talking to one another. And the three words beneath the picture were these: Go…Listen…Tell. It was a way of demonstrating how simple evangelism…and sharing our faith…is.

 Go outside the doors of this church after the Liturgy this morning. Go into your homes and neighborhoods and schools and workplaces this week. And then…Listen! Don’t talk so much. Listen! Listen to your friends and your family as they speak of their struggles and confusion…of their joys and their sorrows…of their pain and their blessings. Really Listen to these people…and try to relate to what they are saying.

 Then – and only then – tell! Tell them your story. Tell them how you got through something like what they’re going through. Tell them how happy you were when something like they are describing happened to you. And, when you feel it’s appropriate, tell them how God was part of all that for you. How God’s Church was there for you when you needed it. How God’s people have walked with you through the good times and the bad.

 Tell them about St. John’s, and invite them here…to discover for themselves…how their stories can connect to God’s story. Go…Listen…Tell. If all of you start doing that every week, dear friends, this church will never be the same!