Loading...Homily 7 August 2016
F. William Rohm
12th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, Track 2
“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Please be seated.
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be always acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer.
Amen
Good Morning.
This morning we are worshiping in the service of Morning Prayer. As most of you know, I have recently completed a course to become a Verger in the Episcopal Church. Part of this course involved learning the history of our various services. Before I begin my reflections on today’s scripture readings, I will say a bit about this service.
One of the most ancient practice in our church is morning prayer. That is, prayer after the form and pattern we learned from Jesus. The form of morning prayer is derived from the Psalms. The pattern has a long and interesting historical evolution to the current practice of providing a formal services in the Book of Common Prayer for Morning Prayer.
The custom of morning prayer is directly related to Christians, culturally, historically, and spiritually. This service is truly a fascinating connection to Jesus.
Jesus' disciples and the earliest Christians prayed in groups or solitary settings. Collectively, the Psalms formed what is often referred to as "Jesus' Prayer Book." Likewise, the heart of what we do today when we pray individually and communally, is found in the Psalms.
Over the centuries, our prayers formed life and worship at the heart of the Church. As the books of the Bible were codified, a routine of prayer developed. Then, codified services emerged in Latin across the Western Church and were used until the Reformation.
The 1540's, gave us The Book of Common Prayer, using three main objectives in its composition:
First, the book should be written in English so that those of the "common" folk who could read would be able to understand its contents easily.
Second, the people should be able use this prayer book to pray and converse with God directly, without a priest's presence.
Third, the Bible along with the basic books of services would be available, in English, and readable by more of the population.
Thus, the structure and content for holy life was put directly into the hands of each individual. Our prayer book has been revised several times down the ages only in custom of culturally advancing language
Morning Prayer exists to give us a strong sense of continuity through the ages, using the same lessons, psalms, phrases, and prayer sequences in an all-inclusive version to commune with God, praying as is done around the world using a liturgy, now more than 500 years old, which is fully rooted in Jesus' practices with his disciples.
With that bit of history, we’ll move forward to today’s lessons.
Those of you who are astute Episcopalians, and therefore recall that it is customary to preach on the Lectionary readings for the day, may be wondering why I opened with a verse from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Actually, to my mind, it ties together all of the readings of the Word you’ve just heard this morning.
Some years ago, my son bought me The Life Application Bible. I find this version particularly useful because in addition to Scripture, it includes a lot of side commentary on the times and background of the written Scripture. Regarding the well known verse on faith, hope, and love, it tells us “In morally corrupt Corinth, love had become a mixed up-term with little meaning. Today people are still confused about love. Love is the greatest of all human qualities, and it is an attribute of God himself. Love involves unselfish service to others; to show it gives evidence that you care.”
The King James Bible uses the word charity instead of love in First Corinthians 13:13. It reads “And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
So the type of love Paul is talking about is tied directly to giving of ourselves both back to God, and to others in our community, our state, our country, and the world.
Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Our scripture reading today from Hebrews talks about Faith.
“By faith Abraham obeyed.” It says. Abraham was an amazing man of faith when you look at his life. He followed God across a desert not knowing where he was being led, and stayed there in a foreign land. By faith he and Sarah had a child at a very old age. And he was willing to sacrifice his first born son if God required it.
We follow Abraham some more in our Old Testament reading. This time what struck me was his hope for the future through his faith in God. In this reading, God brings Abraham outside at night and says, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then God said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” And Abraham had faith and hope in the Lord. And it happened just as the Lord promised.
Which brings us to our New Testament reading for today and the topic of charity. Jesus tells us time and time again, including in this passage, to sell our possessions and give to the poor. Jesus bundles love, charity, and stewardship all together throughout His ministry.
His Great Commandments were all about loving God and loving our neighbor. And when Jesus is asked about who our neighbor is, it wasn’t the guy who lives down the street, or the buddy you went to the pub with, or someone from your Synagogue. Instead it was a beat up stranger of a different faith and race found laying at the side of the road who we were to expend resources of time talent and treasure on with no thought of payback or compensation, but because we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
If we concentrate our resources in our business and material possessions, our thoughts will center on these areas. If we direct our resources toward other people, our thoughts will be concerned with their welfare. Where do we put our time, talent, and treasure? What do we think about the most? How should we change the way we use our resources in order to reflect God’s values more accurately?
My nephew wears a bracelet all the time that carries the text, “What would Jesus do?” In this case we know. And Jesus said in our lesson for today; “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Amen
