A Royal Priesthood

A Sermon for the 5^th Sunday of Pascha (RCL A) 5-22-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5,15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Themes:         Stephen’s martyrdom, living stones, a holy nation, the greater works
Title:               A Holy Priesthood

My dear brothers and sisters, I have a question for you:
Do you know who you are? I mean, do you really know who you are? 

It seems to me that many of the problems of our lives come about because we forget who we truly are.

Martin Luther made it a practice every morning, as soon as he stood up out of bed, to make the sign of the cross and to declare his identity out loud: “I am a baptized Christian!”

It was a way to remember, a discipline of remembrance, so that every one of his days would begin and would be shaped by this remembrance of who he was at the core of his being.

And it was a practice which he encouraged all Christians to adopt.

For this is the truth of the matter, the truth of our lives: God has chosen you to carry on the works of Jesus in this world.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about your relationship with God; how you feel about your faith or about the church. It really doesn’t even matter what you’ve done or what you haven’t done. It doesn’t matter whether you feel ready or adequate for this calling.

None of that matters, because it’s not about you or me after all!

This is God’s choice. God has chosen us to be God’s own special and peculiar group in this world.

But why does God do this? What is the purpose? The apostle tells us clearly: 

 
"In order that we might proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness and into God’s marvelous light!"

Do you see? We have the incredible privilege of participating in what God is doing in the world. The works of Jesus continue, and even greater things are being done today in his name. And we have been drafted to be those through whom God is redeeming the world.

So I invite you right now to listen, my friends, once more to what was written in the name of great apostle Peter.

Listen, and remember!

4 Assistants come forward to a front table now. Each takes a candle in her/his hands.

Reader:          Now we are newborn infants, Reborn in God’s grace.

                        Let us thirst for the pure, spiritual milk

                        So that, by drinking it, we may grow into our salvation.

                        Remember what the scripture says:

                        “You have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Reader:           Come then to the Lord, the living stone,

                        Rejected by men and women as worthless,

                        But chosen by God as precious.

                        Come and let yourselves be used

                        In the building of God’s spiritual temple.

                        Remember what the scripture says:

                        “I am laying in Zion a chief cornerstone.

                        Whoever trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

Reader:           This is what God says about us:  “You are a chosen race.”

Assistants:     Move out to 4 random individuals and give them candles. While handing over the candles, say You are a chosen race. Then they return to the table and take another candle.

Reader:           Listen, my friends, and remember. For this is what God says about us: 

“You are a royal priesthood.”

Assistants:     Move out to 4 other random individuals and give them candles. While handing over the candles, say You are a royal priesthood.

Reader:          Listen, my friends, and remember. For this is what God says:  “You are a holy nation.”

Assistants:     Move out to 4 other random individuals and give them candles. While handing over the candles, say  You are a holy nation.

Reader:           Listen, my friends, and remember. For this is what God says:  “You are God’s own people.”

Assistants:     Move out to 4 other random individuals and give them candles. While handing over the candles, say You are God’s own people.  After giving out this last candle, the Assistants return to their seats.

Reader:           You … and you… and you

are chosen by God,

chosen to proclaim the mighty acts, the wonderful works of Christ

who has called you out of darkness

and into God’s marvelous light! 

Once you were not a people; now you are God’s people! 

Once you had not received mercy; now you have received God’s mercy!

Called out of darkness and into God’s marvelous light! That is who you are! Beacons of light and truth and goodness in this world.

My friends, let us never forget who we are; let us never forget who God has made us to be. Amen.

This symbolic action is adapted from a resource from the Iona Community in Scotland, He Was In The World: Meditations for Public Worship by John L. Bell (1995: GIA Publications), p.97.  He Was in the World : Meditations for Public Worship

 

The Cup of Salvation

A Sermon for Maundy Thursday (RCL A) 4-21-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:         Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 116:1,10-17; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17,31b-35

Themes:     the Passover lamb, the last supper, the washing of feet, servant leadership, love
Title:           The cup of salvation

My dear friends in the Lord: It is a joy and privilege to be here once again on this Maundy Thursday as we re-member together the last evening that our Lord Jesus spent with his friends, his students, his disciples as we know them, just before his passion was to begin.

In just a few days, on Sunday morning, we will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We still have a ways to go before we get to that time of celebration. But Sunday is coming, and when it comes, we will all celebrate and remember our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ.

One of the promises of the baptismal covenant that we will make and re-make throughout the Great Fifty Days is this: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” And we will all answer together: “I will, with God’s help.” Matthew will be making this promise for the first time on Sunday as part of the body of Christ.

With God’s help, we will seek after Christ and serve Christ in all persons. With God’s help, we will love our neighbors as ourselves. Why will we do this? Not because we earn anything by doing this. In fact, we may lose much by serving people in this way. Folks like Donald Trump (for instance!) only become that rich because they stomp on many people along the way. “It’s the way business works”, so they will say in order to justify their brutality and thievery.

No, to serve Christ in others in this way means that we may lose much, because we make the choice never to take advantage of others at any time for the sake of our own selfish gain.

So why do we promise to serve in this way? We could love much in the way of earthly treasures, and we also know that there is no brownie point system in the kingdom of God. You gain no special bonus points with God by loving others, or by serving on the Vestry or the altar guild, by helping and serving the poor.

So, why do it? Why bother with loving others, with serving others?

We do this only because of what Christ has already done for us. When we truly grasp the greatness of the grace and mercy of God poured out upon us through Christ, what else can we do but to show our gratitude in this way? We love because Christ first loved us.

What did the Gospel say? “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”  

For we are what Christ has made us: a community, a fellowship, a nation of servants who act on the basis of love alone. On Sunday morning, at Church of the Ascension, after Matthew is baptized, we will welcome him into the body of Christ by saying:

“We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.”

Tonight, Matthew serves with me in the washing of feet in order to introduce him to this priesthood-life of servant leadership to which we have all been called.

For each and every one of us, our baptism is our ordination – our first and primary ordination into the royal priesthood of the body of Christ. Do you see our bulletin covers? On this cover and on all the bulletins that we use, it says on the front: “Ministers, All Baptized Members.” That is the truth. By our baptism, we are all ordained to be ministers of Christ. What we do and experience tonight is meant to be a call back to the servanthood basis of our ordination, our baptism into life in Christ.

 May God grant us all the grace to grow in our understanding of this life of service and love into which Christ has so graciously brought us. Amen.