Author: John Drymon

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A quick note on today’s liturgy. While the hymn -board says that today is the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, you will have probably realized that the propers we are using are not those appointed and the vestments are not green but white and [if you were at the 10 o’clock service] the hymns are all Marian in theme. That is because today, the 15^th of August is the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and while all but a few feasts which occur on a Sunday are to be transferred to the Monday after there is one of those rubrics buried in the Book of Common Prayer of which I’ve availed myself today: “When desired, however, the Collect, Preface, and one or more of the Lessons appointed for the Feast may be substituted for those of the Sunday,” as long as it is in one of these long “green seasons” after Epiphany and Trinity Sunday. Because we only have the opportunity once every seven years to observe this, the feast of the greatest of Saints, on a Sunday, and (selfishly) because I have a particular devotion to our Lady, I’ve opted for us to observe the feast today. That out of the way, on with the sermon proper.

My dad once told me that when he was a teenager he was particularly affected by the then new Beatles song Let it Be. One day, inspired by the song, he said to my grandmother, “Mom, don’t you think everything would be better if we just let it be?” To which she responded, “what do you think this house would look like if I just let it be?”

Yet those words “let it be”, despite their apparent passivity, are the words by which God’s will is accomplished in this old world. It is by these words, which in the context of our Lady’s utterance of the same are anything but passive, that men and women are brought into the active work of God’s plan of salvation. They are words that to utter imply that their speaker must realize his or her own fallibility and imperfection and God’s own infallibity and perfection. They are words by which the Christian places his or her trust in God’s overwhelming providence rather than human ingenuity. They are, in short, the words by which the world is saved.

And it is one particular utterance of these words by which the seminal and singular event of all human history came to be. St. Luke tells us that an angel appeared to Mary and said “behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name ‘Jesus’. He shall be great, and be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God, shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Our Lady responded by saying fiat. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to word.”

It is only after Our Lady’s full, active submission to her Father’s will rather than her own that she is emboldened to sing the greatest hymn of praise ever sung, which was our Gospel reading for today: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”

It is through Our Lady’s submission that Our Lord was given the chance to live a life of submission himself, a life and death given wholly not to his own will, but that of the Father. This the writer of Hebrews knew well when he wrote that Jesus had said “See, I have come to do your will,” And then explains “[Christ] abolishes the first [covenant] in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

So must we all respond to the call of God. Just so must we—like Mary and like her Son—say fiat to God. So must we pray “thy will be done” and mean it. So must we put aside our pride and pettiness that we, like Mary, may say “he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his name.” It is only through humble submission, by saying fiat, “let it be, O God”, that we come to greatness and to glory. We cannot magnify ourselves, we can only fool ourselves into thinking we have done. God, however, has promised to “exalt the humble and meek.”

It is a great sadness to me that as products of the Reformation, even we “the most Catholic of Protestants,” seem uncomfortable with talking much about our Lord’s Mother, except when we trot her out around Christmastime every year. Perhaps it is a latent Catholophobia, or perhaps it is a latent misogyny, or maybe it’s just because we see her example and know that we cannot live up to it.

I am not here suggesting that we must all adopt every Marian dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. In case you’re wondering there are four big ones: that Mary is the Mother of God, that she remained a Virgin, that she was assumed bodily into heaven at the end of her life, and that she was conceived (though naturally of her parents Joaquin and Anna) without the stain of original sin. For what it’s worth, the first of these (that Mary is rightly called “the Mother of God”) is universally accepted by Christians as it was defined by the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in A.D. 431 and confirmed at Chalcedon in A.D. 451. (As an aside, before my friend and great theological rival, whom I’ll not name, moved away I would have relished the opportunity to have an argument at coffee hour about Nestorianism’s status within Christendom based on what I just claimed.) Both the Perpetual Virginity and Assumption of Mary were generally believed by the Fathers of the Church, I personally accept both claims, but as they cannot be proved by Scripture alone, they are not enjoined on the faithful and I may be in the minority of Anglicans in believing them. The Immaculate Conception of Mary (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus, which should not be controversial as it is plainly taught in Scripture and the Creeds) is a tough one, it may solve some theological problems while creating others, and I don’t know what I think about it.

Anyway, I’m not saying any of you have to buy any of these dogmas (except the first one, of course). And I’m not saying any of you need to start praying to the Virgin Mary; I do, every day when the church bell rings the Angelus at noon and six, but that’s a matter for personal piety. I am suggesting, though, that it is worth considering the role our lady played in salvation history, honoring her faithfulness, and emulating her fiat,her willingness to say “yes” to God not counting the cost.

From time to time one is asked what one’s favorite verse or passage of scripture is. I used to vacillate between different ones, but for the past several years (perhaps the last decade) I have steadily kept the same verse in my mind and heart. It is from St. John’s passion:

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

What began with Mary’s “yes” found its consummation for the Virgin and for the beloved disciple, John, in Christ’s gift of a community of love and fellowship and prayer. Our Lady, type of the Church, and we the church’s daughters and sons, have been given to each other that we might love that which is lovable, find beauty in that which is beautiful, and find a home with each other, the household of God, in this world and the next. There can be no greater gift than this, and it begins with the love of a mother for her son.

In that vein, I close this morning with a prayer which means a great deal to me. Some of you know that I have a particular devotion to Our Lady under a particular title. I am, as it happens, a priest associate of the Holy House of Our Lady of Walsingham, a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Norfolk, England where she is said to have appeared in the eleventh century, and to which I’ve made pilgrimage and celebrated the Eucharist- one of the most meaningful moments of my life. This is a prayer to which I’ve returned over and over, presented here in a slightly de-anglified version for our American congregation; I pray it may be even a fraction as lovely and meaningful to you as it has been to me though the years. Let us pray.

O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, your divine son, dying on the cross, confided us to your maternal care. You are our mother, we desire ever to remain your devout children. Let us therefore feel the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ. Make your name again glorious in those places once renowned throughout the world by your visits, favours, and many miracles.

Pray, O holy mother of God, for the conversion of this land, restoration of the sick, consolation for the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed.

O blessed Mary, mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham, intercede for us. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You might have heard the old cliché, “you should disagree without being disagreeable.” It seems like good advice, but perhaps not as strong as it could be, considering how such an approach has been known to lead people into false friendliness and even duplicity, rather than a frank and charitable conversation about differences of opinion.

It seems to me that Paul has something to say about this in today’s epistle? “Putting away all falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors.” Hatefulness, with a saccharin candy-coating of sweetness is not the Christian response to discord, because it doesn’t take into account that, as Christians, “we are members of one another.” We’re in this together, whether we like each other or not. We’re part of the same family, but not just of the same family, but of the same body, and the only way for a body to function is organically, each member in harmony with the other.

And yet, we don’t always do this. We are told by the Apostle only to do and say “what is useful for building up [the body]” yet the history of the Church and of society is riddled with stories of discord and political intrigue and schism. We still have trouble as a society getting over grudges and loving our neighbor, whether we respond aggressively or passive-aggressively. We all have tremendous trouble following Paul’s very practical advice: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”

“Do not leave room for the devil.” There is nothing more diabolical, more devilish, than division in Christ’s Church. That is precisely the work that sin does; it tears brothers and sisters apart from each other, and ultimately it attempts to break apart the very body Christ. We can hide the effects of such evil by being disingenuously sweet to our brother or sister, but that only means that the diabolical program of division is the more insidious.

Now, I have to temper all of this scary stuff with a fact which has been a great encouragement to me and I hope to you who care deeply about the life of the Church. While the story on the national and international levels may be one of division between between political ideologies and religions and races and classes, and while this spirit of divisiveness can and often does infect the church as much as the larger society, I have been so impressed by what I’ve experienced in a handful of congregations I’ve been a part of including this parish. The degree of mutual love and regard with which the members of this parish seem to treat each other is remarkable. The work that we are able to accomplish and the healthiness of our church here is a real gift, it’s more rare than you might think, and it’s largely because there are so many mature people here that seem to genuinely love each other. I don’t think this is a naïve assessment, because I’ve also seen plenty of churches with profound dysfunction. Of course, no group of fallible people is without its internal squabbles, and my spectacles aren’t so rose-tinted that I don’t recognize where some of those are, even among us. Even so, I feel truly blessed to be a part of a congregation that has in many ways already learned to “put away falsehood”, to “be angry but not sin”, to “live in love as Christ loved us.” In a world where people can’t seem to conscientiously disagree with each other while retaining mutual respect and appreciation of each other, the church has, believe it or not, been doing a better job of modeling Christian unity to the larger culture than it has in certain periods of histpry and that we can be the most powerful witness of reconciliation in the world precisely because of our disagreements.

But if I just said “keep up the good work”, that would not be a very compelling charge with which to end a sermon, and it wouldn’t be entirely honest, because each of us has moments in which we need to work at truly loving our neighbor. Many of us have trouble with anger, and do let the sun set on it. Paul said “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you,” but O how much more easily is this said than done. C.S. Lewis said that the way to get there, to start truly loving one’s neighbor, is to act as if one does. “Fake it until you make it.”

It seems to me that the solution is more difficult and requires more reflection, though. I think we need to meditate more carefully and more intentionally on the fact that we have all been baptized into one body, that we are all one family whether we like it or not. Just like a family, our life together as fellow Christians means that we get close enough to see each others’ blemishes; but just like a family we are called to recognize that God has put us all together for a reason. God has thrown us together because God is known in relationship.

In fact, in a sense, God is relationship. God is not a lone person, but three persons living in unity. And even though God has a profound, mystical relationship within the Godhead, he has expanded his love such that we can be in relationship with him too. And even more than that, God has given us gifts like the Sacrament of Marriage so that two people can create a community of love like that between the persons of the Godhead. And even more than that, God has given us the Church, so that all people everywhere may have the opportunity to live in that same love. Ultimately, the Church is not a tool for self-improvement, but a means by which God’s love can be shared. It is a gift, and like any gift it must be cherished. And in recognizing what a great gift it is, I think we can ultimately come to realize our own responsibility in nurturing the life of the Church by truly, genuinely loving each of our brothers and sisters and then leading lives which express that love. In doing so, Paul tells, we become “imitators of God”. God is love, and a godly life is one lived in love. In doing so, in becoming more grateful, faithful, loving people we may like Christ himself, present our own lives as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So, those of you who were here last week will remember that I left you with a teaser. I know how frustrating that can be. So, as promised, here is part the second.

But first, a reminder of the ground we covered last week. A large crowd had just been fed by Jesus and decided they wanted to make him king and would do it by force if need be. They had misunderstood the message Jesus intended to communicate by feeding them. Instead of promising to feed people with regular old bread as their earthly king, Jesus meant to communicate that as the King of Heaven he would provide heavenly food, spiritual sustenance, to all who would believe in him. The difficulty the crowd had—and that we have—is in seeing past our immediate temporal concerns in order to focus on enduring spiritual matters; and the question I left you with was about how we might attain the sort of focus and vision which permits us to see things through the lens of eternity.

So that’s where we are, and that’s obviously where the crowd remained at the beginning of today’s Gospel. “Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus addressed them, “you are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” And then he gives them the same charge I mentioned last week: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” In other words, try to see past your immediate concerns to that which will sustain you forever.

Now, when we think about someone who we might think has achieved this shift in focus, this appreciation of things eternal, we might be tempted to envision a caricature, and think that this is the ideal, an ideal we’ll never reach. I envision some old monk living as a hermit, totally detached from the world, spending twenty-four hours a day meditating on the divine mysteries. In fact, this caricature does not have a solid touchstone in the Christian tradition, because even those few who become hermits do so after spending years in a community with other monks, and they still rejoin that community regularly for Mass.

In any event, it does not seem to me that this is the proper method for focusing on enduring, heavenly things (at least for the vast majority of us) and I don’t think that this is what Jesus is getting at. The Christian worldview is not world-denying or body-denying. It does not reject the physical world as something we have to get beyond so that we can float about in a disinterested state. Rather we are saved in the world, and it is through our ordinary, physical, contingent existence that we find the sustaining savour of heavenly, spiritual, enduring things.

And there is one gift which we are given in the midst of this old world which more than anything under the sun accomplishes this shift in focus, and ultimately the transformation of our whole lives, that we might be a holy people. And it is found in ordinary, physical, contingent stuff. Bread and Wine. Nothing can be more common, more ordinary. On their own, just plain bread and wine sustain us and gladden our hearts. But when we raise them up before God the Father, when we give thanks for them and for the gift of His Son’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, they gain a whole new power to sustain and gladden in a very different way. They become the Body and Blood of Christ—not just in a manner of speaking, but truly—and they give us a taste, quite literally, of all that matters, of all that endures.

We have many gifts from God, many things for which to be thankful, some of them miraculous. The children of Israel were miraculously given manna in the wilderness, but in today’s Gospel Jesus said it gets even better than that. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus puts it even more bluntly: “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.” Though the children of Israel ought to have been thankful for the manna, though we must remember to be thankful for all the gifts, small and great, which we receive from the beneficent hand of our Lord, the gift for which we may be most thankful is the gift of the Eucharist, for its power to sustain is eternal.

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” When I administer Communion and say “the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life” I’m not using a complex metaphor. I think most of you know that I’m not opposed to complexity or metaphors. I’m not a literal thinker or a fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination. But on this matter, I’m being pretty direct, because I think it’s a matter on which Jesus was being pretty direct and the Church throughout its long history has until fairly recently been pretty consistent in affirming that. And of course, you’re welcome to disagree and I’m sure we can maintain the fellowship of enjoined on us by Christ in spite of it. Anyway, when I say it’s the Body of Christ, it’s because I think it is (and, of course, because that’s what the prayerbook says to say it), and when I say “keep you in everlasting life” it’s because I live in the hope that the sustenance we gain from regular reception of the Holy Communion really does have the power to preserve us, Body and Soul, into eternity.

But in addition to its mystical power to sustain, the Eucharist, if we will receive it worthily and mindfully, does succeed in refocusing our attention to heavenly things, to things which endure. This is because in eating the Bread and drinking the Wine we are partaking in the heavenly banquet. As one friend of mine put it, probably more verbosely than he needed to do, “at the altar, we receive a foretaste of the eschatological convivium.” For all the wordiness of that phrase, it simply means that in the midst of this life we are given a taste of the life of the world to come every time we eat this Bread and drink this Wine. If we are attentive to this fact, I strongly believe that our weekly or even more frequent reception of the Eucharist will help us to “pass through things temporal so that we lose not the things eternal” as last week’s collect put it. So, may we all be thankful for Christ’s greatest gift to the Church, the Eucharist, and may we be as eager to receive of its benefits as the crowd that day on the shore of Galilee who said “Sir, give us this bread always.”

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.