Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C
"Pray without Ceasing"
by the Rev. Deacon Nancy Muhlheim
May 20, 2007
May this be in the name of the one holy and living God: Creator, Redeemer and Comforter. Amen.
Good morning! And it is a good morning. In the last several years I have preached on mornings following some cataclysmic world or church event and sort of became known as the Crisis Preacher of St. Mary’s. "Schedule Nancy Muhlheim to preach and you’ll have a tsunami, a hurricane, a major church decision that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comforted."
Well, whew . . . . here I am in the pulpit again and the only event that seems to have changed our lives recently is the joyful anticipation of our new Curate, the soon to be Rev. Bingham Powell, joining us in worship and service a month from now. Alleluia.
So, I reluctantly sat down to write my sermon this past week and wondered if I would have to re-write it at 11 pm last night because of some natural or man-made event of life-changing proportions.
My intent was to tell all of you about the ministry that I coordinate for this Diocese. I wanted to tell you about The Church Periodical Club – a 119 year old institution of the national Episcopal Church - which has been sending books, printed materials, and all sorts of media materials to people in distant places for all these years.
I wrote a perfectly nice little sermon about the Church Periodical Club and was pretty happy with it . . . Until Friday. . .
I’ve learned by trial and error that a sermon cannot be written just once, it is a work in progress until it comes out of ones’ mouth.
So late yesterday, the revisions started to happen in my mind and were communicated to my fingers as they touched the keyboard of my laptop computer. Poof – away with the nice little Church Periodical Club sermon and in marched the better message — I hope — the one about communicating the love of God with all of our words and actions, remembering to be aware of who the receiver of the message is, not just what we have to say.
If we come to church only to confess our sins and be forgiven, we are missing God’s message. If we talk to others about Christ so the listener can hear what WE believe, we are missing God’s charge to us to go into the world and make disciples of all people. We must communicate so that the listener desires to find out for him or herself and to become a spokesperson for God’s message of love. We must speak in language that the listener will embrace and understand. We must act in ways that the observer will be drawn to, not repelled by. If we pray to God that God save us from our trials and tribulations, we are missing the opportunity to find the deeper love of God that stands by us when the rest of the world has turned away or when the earthquakes and tidal waves of destruction and despair assault our state of peace and well-being. If our voice of charity and justice is so loud that we cannot hear the heartbeat of the timid, the frightened, the unbelieving, the under served and marginalized, then we are that clanging gong mentioned in Corinthians, not the fine-tuned instrument that alerts the senses to the gift of love that is the created world.
So what are we supposed to be doing to revere God, to be strengthened by God’s word, to counter the negative influences and the outright evil we see in the world, to serve God and spread the word of Salvation? Just sit there OR do something?
St. Paul calls us to be those people who pray without ceasing.
The world is a scary place. It is also a kaleidoscopic place where fear and trepidation can turn into hope and renewal in a seeming instant. Or, where peace and hope can be turned upside down by the whim of nature or by humankind’s inhumanity or by just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of the lessons chosen for today have both scary and hopeful messages.
In the first lesson, we see Silas and Paul being stripped of their clothing and possessions and beaten and thrown into prison for attempting to proclaim the love of God through Christ in a Roman territory where such action was hostilely received. In attempting to free an enslaved girl they are enslaved. Though they themselves are Roman citizens, their message is heard as too radical and their actions as against the common good. Nevertheless, they make the best of their imprisonment and become implements in planting the seed of faith in the most unexpected place, the heart of their jailer.
In Revelation, that mystical and sometimes misunderstood book, Jesus invites us to join him in his work of redemption by "washing our robes" - being purely devoted to the work of love and truth. He invites everyone who hears the WORD to drink of the water of life – to be fully immersed in the gift of God’s love and to know that it is given freely and without condition. One must merely accept the invitation and also return the invitation by inviting Christ: "Come Lord Jesus!" There is no trick to accepting the invitation for Christ is "the bright morning star" that will not fade away - he is the beginning and the end of everything and will be there waiting for us just as he is there with us and has been there since the beginning of creation. He is all in all.
In the Gospel Lesson from John we learn more about Jesus devotion to both his disciples and to us as he prays for the disciples and for those who will hear what the disciples say and for those who will hear what the hearers say and on and on.
This passage, as many of you know, is from Christ’s address to his disciples just as their final meal together - The Last Supper - was concluding and Jesus was about to be arrested and taken away. The last thing Jesus does, we can see, before he leaves them to die is to pray for them. And not for them only, but for all who will believe in him because of the disciples’ teaching which is to come after his death. That is, the last thing Jesus does is pray for US. He prays that we might remember God’s love for us as played out in the sacrifice God made in giving the life of Jesus so that we might know of God’s love and have our hearts turned to love.
Today’s lessons lead us through several possibilities for living the life God wants us to live and doing the work that God created us for.
But in the end, it all boils down to one thing. Love God and love one another and show that love in all we do and say and think. Pray for each other without ceasing. Salvation is a done deal. God loves us, has always loved us and we are God’s and there is really nothing we can do about it. The Psalm says "For God is King of all the Earth, sing praises with all your skill." Devote yourself to doing God’s work - to simply loving and accepting love and turning away from that which is not loving, that which destroys or deprives or discriminates by leaving anyone outside of the circle of God’s love.
We are birthed in a miracle. We are headed for an eternal life with our creator. In the mean time we are here.
It is a remarkable world we are given at our creation and it is a remarkable prayer that Jesus prays as he is about to be sent out of this world.
On the good days and the bad we are to remember that the last thing Jesus did for us was to pray for us, even as he faced certain death. I believe he is praying for us still. He is the one in all history who we know prays without ceasing, for he is God. John reminds us in his Gospel that just as Jesus prayed for us, we are to pray for each other and for the coming of a perfect world where there is no pain or sadness, no weeping or gnashing of teeth, but perfect peace that passes all understanding. That is the Peace which we pass to each other at each worship service and there is no greater thing that we can hope for each other or offer to each other. In offering each other THE PEACE we are saying "Come Lord Jesus, come into the heart and mind and body of this person and be with him or her as he or she sorts through the good days and the bad days." Essentially it is a prayer inviting Christ to come through us in all that we say and all that we do so that others might be inspired to live in God’s promise of peace.
"Come Lord Jesus," that we might be closer to God, closer to others and closer even to ourselves. That we might come to see how much God loves our neighbors, our children, our siblings, our co-workers: those who are different from us, those who are aliens and strangers to us. That we might allow God to soften our hearts to those we have taken offense with or declared unclean or unworthy. That we might truly leave the judging of others to God for it is not our task or our business. And in fact we are incapable of judging fairly or with unconditional love.
Jesus prays the prayer for his disciples in today’s Gospel because he knows the disciples live in a dangerous place. He knows that the life of the church will be a life lived facing dangerous and scary situations. He knows that the survival of the church will depend on people listening to each other, not just talking about what they already hold to be true. He knows that each disciple must tell the story of God’s love so well and so distinctly and with such conviction and compassion that the story will be retold again and again and again until it echoes throughout the whole world.
So, how can we be the voices in this time, the voices that continue telling the story and continue reaching out in love to tell the story of God’s unending love and our responsibility to continue Jesus’s message of love for God and for our fellow human beings.
One way is to help me today with the mission of the Church Periodical Club.
I often describe the Church Periodical Club by saying that its name is very misleading. It is not a Club and it is not about Periodicals, but it is about the church. It is about continuing the message . . . spreading the WORD.
Founded in 1888, the CPC, as it is dubbed, has from the beginning supplied books, magazines, tapes, videos and computer programs free to those who cannot otherwise obtain them, and has made it their job to raise the money to achieve this.
CPC was founded by Mary Ann Drake Fargo, wife of Mortimer Fargo of the Wells Fargo Express firm. Mary Ann and her friends in the Church of the Holy Communion, New York, raised money to buy and send bundles of books and periodicals westward to missionaries and pioneers via stagecoaches. Today the money raised by CPC funds goes to people around the world who are of every race and national origin and who have applied for CPC grants.
There are two main granting funds. The National Book Fund holds two granting sessions yearly, and supplies materials around the world. The Mile of Pennies fund is directed at children and grants are made year round.
By taking the time to give a small offering to the continuing work of CPC to give grants to people of all ages for the purchase of books and other media to enhance their knowledge of God’s love and work you can help with the work of CPC.
Money put in the extra collection basket today will go to adults and adult ministries. Our Diocese’s anti-Racism Commission has applied for a large grant to pay for educational materials to help end racism here in Oregon and to open the eyes of the hearts of all of us who take the training so that we understand the subtle ways we may be harboring prejudice and impeding the just treatment of all people. CPC gives grants to seminarians to help them fill their libraries with books and other materials which will enhance their ministry. This year the CPC in our Diocese gave a check for $100 to each newly ordained priest or deacon for materials for their own libraries. Your contributions will help do this again in the coming year. Our own new Curate Bingham will receive his check when he is ordained to the priesthood in the coming year.
Every time you are in the Narthex, you can see the large glass jar on the cabinet just outside the double doors into this space. The pennies and other coins you put in this jar are used for books and media for children. Jan Thornton has asked the help of CPC is supplying written materials for the Lillian Vallely School in northern Idaho. It looks like her wish will be granted very soon. A grant of One Mile of Pennies - or $844.80 - will be awarded to a number of applying individuals and organizations which teach and guide children and spread the message of God’s love through Jesus.
In the last year, the people of St. Mary’s have contributed more than $500 to the Church Periodical Club with donations to the Miles of Pennies Jar and in the offering plate on CPC Sunday last May. Wouldn’t it be great if we could top that this year? I’m counting on you to make it happen with your donation today. If everyone was able to contribute just $2 we would have more than all of last year’s total TODAY. Checks, cash and coins will all be counted and we will give you the tally next week. Thank you so much. Please pray for the successful work of the CPC and for each other as we do God’s work in this and all other ways.
Amen.