I ran across this on the internet. These are things your mother would never say:
▪ “How on earth can you see the TV sitting so far back?”
▪ “Yeah, I used to skip school a lot, too”
▪ “Just leave all the lights on … it makes the house look more cheery”
▪ “Let me smell that shirt — Yeah, it’s good for another week”
▪ “Go ahead and keep that stray dog, honey. I’ll be glad to feed and walk him every day”
▪ “The curfew is just a general time to shoot for. It’s not like I’m running a prison around here.”
▪ “I don’t have a tissue with me … just use your sleeve.”
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers!
The music today was selected especially for the mothers in the parish. We’re truly blessed to have the music program that we have in this parish. I love music in general, but my favorite kind of music is the music of the liturgy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the singing of the psalm, or the prayers, the hymns, or the anthems; whether it’s plainsong or Anglican chant, the Matthias Gloria or the Schubert Sanctus, a 14th century hymn or 21st-century hymn—I love it all! The more singing we have in the liturgy, the more I like it!
Music, especially vocal music, has a quality of mystery about it. St. Augustine said, “The one who sings prays twice.” It’s the language of the soul, and singing is in itself an act of unity. When a text of the liturgy is sung, everyone is, ideally, on the same note, singing with the same cadence. When we sing we’re literally on the same wavelength. That unity is achieved through singing is what gives singing its mystical quality, because it assists our corporate prayer.
Even when we don’t sing the liturgy, we want what is achieved through music to be present in our corporate prayer. Those portions that are said in unison should be said as much together as possible, with no single voice standing out or rushing ahead or lagging behind. Both in singing and in speaking the liturgy, that’s achieved only through repetition, and conscious effort. That may seem like only the mechanics of corporate prayer, but the mechanics help us to achieve a kind of unity that aids our reaching certain depths of corporate spirituality and it makes for better, more effective prayer.
All this talk of unity in prayer stems from today’s Gospel. In our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prays, “Holy Father, keep them in my name…that they may be one, even as we are one.” That prayer, “That they may be one,” goes to the core of the Gospel. The reason for the incarnation; for the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection was and is reconciliation—with God and among his people. And since the purpose is reconciliation, it must mean that at the heart of all of our anxieties, all of our problems, and even in the midst of the very best things that can happen to us, is this dis-ease in our relationships—with God, with one another, even within our own selves.
Christ came to heal that dis-ease, to reunite us with God and with one another. The Church is supposed to be the sign of that unity in Christ. Anybody can look at the Church, however, and see that our Lord’s prayer has not had its desired effect, and it isn’t because God’s grace isn’t sufficient to effect that unity. It’s because of the reality of sin ever with us, and because Satan and the evil powers of this world will take every weakness in humanity to thwart the divine will.
We don’t recognize that disunity for the evil that it is. It’s scandalous that we have a Methodist church on one corner, an Episcopal church on another, a Baptist church down one street, and a Roman catholic church down another. We tend to think, “different strokes for different folks,” but it speaks to the world that we are anything but one.
Of course, we don’t have to look at the Church to find disunity. An article in Newsweek several years ago talked about this problem in secular terms. In “Counting your Blessings: Psychologists take up the Pursuit of Happiness,” the writers state that studies reveal that happiness is linked to relationships. I quote, “What comes up consistently at the top of the charts is not, as many might expect, success, youth, good looks, or any of those assets. The clear winner is relationships. Close ones. Followed by happy marriage. Next comes religious faith, of almost any kind.”
Psychologists are now finally telling us something of what the Church has known for thousands of years. Happiness has to do with being in sync with others, including God. The healthier those relationships are, the happier we will be. But the psychologists still haven’t got it quite right. For relationships to be everything that they can be, the relationship with the Creator must be at the top of the list. Christ is the one through whom our relationship with God is made whole. Only when that relationship is sound do our other relationships stand a chance of being everything they can be.
The strongest sign of unity is Holy Communion. This is what Christians have done since the beginning of the Church not only to signify unity, but also to bring about unity. For in the Holy Eucharist Christ truly has union, communion, with his people. Which brings us full circle to the discussion about our prayer life. We are never more unified than when we worship in the way our Lord taught us to worship. Our unity will never come from human efforts, but only by the grace of God. Therefore, we need to avail ourselves of that grace as much as possible, even in the summer!
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
Seventh Sunday of Easter
13 May 2018