In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Every day in seminary we always used an additional prayer that was crafted especially for Nashotah House by one of its most zealous students back in the nineteenth century. Looking back this week, I suddenly realized the contents of that prayer are rather shocking. And by “shocking,” I mean that sometimes I look back and think to myself – “wow, did we ever really stop to think about the things for which we were praying?”
I’ll share with you some of that prayer in a moment. But before I do (and I ask you this in all seriousness), do you ever pause and think about some of the things we ask God to do in and through us as followers of Jesus?
Let me just say it this way: If you’re not sometimes utterly shocked by what we say and pray, especially by what we say and do together every Sunday, then you’re not paying the least bit of attention.
As that great American author and apologist Annie Dillard once asked asked:
Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke [when we pray]? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? It [should be] madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
Oh my, did you hear that: be careful! God may draw us out – you and me – and set on us a path from which we can never return.
And that, in a nutshell, is precisely why we’re here together.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for His sake will find it.”
So, try this one on for size. We all used to stand together in that gorgeous chapel, with is Oxford Movement splendor, face the altar and pray:
“That we may be patterns of holiness, simplicity, and self-denial. Bless all who may be trained here; take from them all pride, vanity, and self-conceit, and give them true humility and self-abasement. Enlighten their minds, subdue their wills, purify their hearts…”
Only the Holy Spirit, a faithful wife, and a good single malt can make you consistently pray for such things!
Now, as a quick aside and so you know that sanctification (growing in grace) is an eternal – not an instant – process, you should know that there is obviously more work (abundant work!) to be done on your preacher (Malacy can tell you, if you don’t believe!). In fact, just this week I was thinking about some areas that need lots of work in my own spiritual journey, and I’m sure you think the same thing about yourselves from time to time. But don’t lose heart, beloved. God will complete His work in me and in you. “I am sure,” wrote St. Paul with daring confidence, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” But I digress.
Jesus said:
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for my sake will find it.”
He is saying – directly and plainly – that it is perfectly possible to gain all the things we’ve set out hearts upon and then to wake up one morning to discover that we have missed the most important thing of all. And It happens all the time.
So, in this little homily I simply want us to look – if only for a moment – at this shocking statement our Lord gives us in the gospel according to St. Matthew and then consider whether or not you and I might want to pray about doing something quite so shocking as “losing” our lives as we know them in order to find that true “life” only Jesus offers.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for my sake will find it.”
I just got back from England late Friday evening, and while I was there it felt odd not visiting a friend of mine who took his own life last year. I was saddened by his death, but, you know, I wasn’t terribly surprised. Looking back on his life, anytime something wasn’t going his way – anytime the circumstances were unfavorable – he’d always say (and he really meant it), “Oh well, I must rise above it.” Whatever it was, he’d say that – “Oh well, I shall rise above it.” Do you realize that sentiment may have cost him his life?
The fact is that sometimes we can’t rise above what confronts us; rather, we must be raised! Even our Lord, who was in death’s dark tomb for three days, was raised! Why would we be any different or immune from that need? We, too, then must be raised!
And that’s what Jesus is saying in this little shocking statement. He’s saying there is no other way I can experience what God has in store for my life than by be willing to lose control of it.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for my sake will find it.”
I hope you see the good news in all of this: Jesus wants a relationship with us. Right where we are – whether we’re joyful, doubtful, grateful, angry, depressed – whatever it is, He wants us – every little inch of us (you and me!) – so that He may continue the work He began at our baptisms. And this passage from St. Matthew’s gospel is a bold reminder of that reality.
In a few moments you and I will get a chance to pray and to put into action – to practice what we preach, as they say – this process of losing control.
We will (corporately, but individually, of course) approach the altar and receive the Body and Blood of the One whom we say each week that we follow.
And when we receive Him today on our tongues and in our hearts, guess what? You and I are absolutely free to ask “the waking god to draw us out [of ourselves] [and put us on a path from which] we can never return,”
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who want to lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
12th Sunday after Pentecost
31 August 2014