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The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2008

Genesis 21:8-21, Romans 6:1b-11, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw

I never cease to amaze myself as to how many things I can find to keep myself busy just to avoid doing the one thing I must get done, such as putting together the Sunday sermon. This has been one of those weeks. I got very creative this week keeping rather busy when I should have been sitting and typing.

It’s not like there was nothing in the propers to commend themselves for exploration. Our Genesis reading is perfect for looking at the three great Abrahamic faith traditions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity and exploring those common threads in our fabric of faith.

The Letter to the Romans is a wonderful starting point for a conversation on grace. If grace is so great, why not sin even more in order to get even more grace! That was the argument that got Paul going in this section of his letter to Rome.

But that last sentence from our Gospel reading kept coming back into my mind: Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. What does that mean? But perhaps better still, what would that look like?

I don’t know if we can tell what that means or what it looks like in this lifetime. For me this is one of those passages whose full meaning will not be known during this earthly pilgrimage, only hinted at from time to time. Our gradual hymn, Will you come and follow me, today hints very broadly at what this can look like in this lifetime when we do choose to follow Christ. But we cannot know in full and in detail what this can look like, be like.

Paul was absolutely right when writing to the church in Corinth that, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood, (I Cor. 13:12).

I fully believe that our final judgment will be less about what we did, or did not do, as it is about how we lived into our full potential as children of God. Christians have seemingly forever been speculating and arguing about what heaven is like and who will be there and who will not be there!

There is a wonderful story about Bishop Jack Spong, retired bishop of Newark, in a debate with a fundamentalist pastor. They could not agree on what would keep a person out of heaven. The pastor looked at the five commandments of Puritanism as key:

To the pastor any of these would keep a person out of heaven. To Bishop Spong none of these seemed to be roadblocks to the so-called pearly gates. Finally the pastor said, Well, let’s just agree that we’re all trying to get to the same place. Bishop Spong said he could agree to that but he thought that we Episcopalians are having a little more fun getting there. (Those Episkopols) I do not often agree with good Bishop Spong, but here I do.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a friend of mine and father of another friend. It was a very moving service of a life well lived in the church and the community. There was much to celebrate in Jack’s life. Including for the first time ever in the Episcopal Church, I sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic as the processional and Swing Low Sweet Chariot as the offertory.

As I drove home I came to the realization that we will only find the real and true sense of what it means to find our life lived for Christ’s sake when we stand before the throne of God. Until then we get hints and snippets of what it could be like. The Holy Eucharist is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet. We do see through a mirror dimly for it is definitely not the banquet in its fullness – a piece of bread and sip of wine – but it points to the promise in the Resurrection, that heaven is our final destination. During the Eucharist we do join with angels, archangels and all the company of heaven to proclaim the glory of God’s name and the faith of the church, a foretaste of our heavenly banquet with the saints in light.

This is perhaps best expressed for me in a short reflection I heard on a contemporary Christian musical CD I have. I was very touched by it, especially in what we have hinted at today in thought, word, and song about losing our life for Christ’s sake and then fully finding our life in Christ.

When we get to heaven, I believe God will say:

My beloved child, you are most welcome.  Thank you for remembering me during the beautiful life you lived.

Thank you for bearing witness when it was unpopular to do so.  Thank you for keeping the faith when you were made to feel you were not entitled to my grace.  You knew better, and you held on to what you knew to be true. Thank you for making the world a better place for your loving presence in it.  Thank you for the compassion you showed others in My name.  Thank you for sharing your gifts, wisdom and talents tirelessly with others.

Thank you for the beauty, the grace, the humanity and good will you added to the world during your time in it.  Thank you for meeting injustice head on and for doing all you could to create justice.

Here, you need not leave some part of you behind like dust off your shoes when you enter.  You were created in my image, so all of who you are is welcome.  How could it be otherwise?

Welcome to the choir of angels whose hearts leapt in joy upon word of your coming.  You are My beloved child in whom I am well pleased.  You are most welcome.  Come...rest.

(Phil Hall, Passage, …for the journey)