We are still in the season when we celebrate Jesus’ birth, but the Gospel for this day advances us 12 years. Perhaps the reason why this reading was chosen for today is its emphasis on the family of Jesus. We begin with the holy family making their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the feast of the Passover. The reading ends with Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the temple, where he tells them that he must be in his Father’s house. Thus, the scene changes from a story about Jesus’ earthly family to a story about Jesus’ spiritual family. Jesus understood God to be his Father, and all people to be his brothers and sisters. We celebrate Christ’s birth because, through him, we are able to call God Father and are united into one family.
The Church is a family. Jesus said that his brothers and sisters are those who hear the Word of God and obey it. Yet, the understanding that many persons have of the Church is that it’s an institution, something to which people go to receive a certain commodity, like we go to a store to buy certain goods. “I go to church because I get something out of it.” Certainly, all of us worship together not just because we have an offering of praise to give to God, but also because somehow as a result of our worship we find meaning for our lives. But it’s wrong headed to say we go to church in order to get something out of it.
First, we really don’t go to church. We are the Church. Wherever we are, there is the Church. Second, the object of our worship is not ourselves, but God. If we are here merely for what God can give us, then we are here for the wrong reason. The reason for worshiping is first of all what we give to God.
Compare what it means to be a member of the family of God to what it means to be a member of a biological family. First of all, just as in our families at home, our church family is human. It’s made up of fallible, sinful people. Each of us probably has a picture of what the Church should be like. Yet, even if the Church were an ideal community, whose ideal community would it look like? My idea is different from yours. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 to 1944, once described a person who expects such things of the Church as one who says: “I believe in the one holy infallible Church, of which, I regret to say, that at the present time I am the only member.” We are bound together because God has made us a part of his Church through our baptism. The focus of the Church is not ourselves and what we are achieving, but God, and what he is achieving.
The second way that the Church is like our biological families is that responsibilities are shared by all. We are responsible not only to God, but also to one another. When a member of our spiritual family does not share his or her part of the work of the Church, the whole family suffers; but when all persons share in the responsibilities, not only is the work accomplished, but also the whole Body of Christ is strengthened.
The children’s storybook, High Water at Catfish Bend, tells about a group of animals that were flooded out of their homes and marooned on a mound. The raccoon tells the story. “Well, we were on the mound pretty near six weeks, the way I remember. We all did the things we know the best. I did all the washing, because that’s a raccoon’s specialty, and the frog would always fetch the things in the river, because he was the best swimmer. The fox used to sweep up the place every morning, because his tail made the best broom, and the snake did all the polishing up, his skin was so slippery. The rabbit didn’t have sense enough to do anything by himself, so he just helped everybody.”
As a part of the family of God we all have responsibilities; and when everyone accepts his or her responsibilities the whole body is strengthened.
Finally, we are like a biological family in that there are times when the whole family needs to be together to nurture relationships and remain healthy. Likewise, there need to be times when our spiritual family gathers together. We gather each Sunday for our spiritual family’s meal, to receive the Body and Blood of Christ anew which nourishes and nurtures us. We are still the Church when we are alone, but it is only by regularly coming together, “continuing in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers,” that our life when we are alone has meaning. How easy it is for us to take for granted the grace God has given us by letting us come together in the fellowship of other Christians.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together, writes that “It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, the gift of the kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed.” Bonhoeffer became involved in a plot to kill Hitler, was arrested by the Nazis, put in a concentration camp, and finally executed. He realized how dear Christian community is, because he knew at any moment it could be taken away.
God came to dwell among us in his Son Jesus Christ. Through Christ we are all made brothers and sisters, with God our Father—one family. Our spiritual family is human, and therefore fallible; all persons in the family share responsibilities; and the greatest of our responsibilities and privileges is the regular times which we have together in worship and fellowship as the Body of Christ.
Sermon preached by the Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
2nd Sunday after Christmas
3 January 2016