Proper 21, Year B -- Sunday Sermon

James 5:13-20

“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord … Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

In this passage from the Epistle of Saint James, we have scriptural warrant for two of the seven Sacraments, namely Holy Unction, also known as the Anointing of the Sick, and the Reconciliation of a Penitent, also known as Confession.

In my Confirmation Classes for young people, I pass out a sheet containing a table listing all seven sacraments down the left side, and a series of columns with boxes to fill in the distinguishing markers or characteristics of each sacrament: its outward and visible sign, its inward and spiritual grace, who can administer it, who can receive it, whether it’s repeatable or unrepeatable. More generally, we distinguish between the Sacraments of Initiation – namely Baptism and Confirmation – the Sacraments of Lifelong Vocation – namely Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony – and, of course, the Sacrament of our spiritual food and drink, the Holy Eucharist.

The remaining two Sacraments, the Anointing of the Sick and Confession, are what we might call occasional Sacraments, even though some people receive them more regularly and frequently than others. Nonetheless, Holy Mother Church makes them available to her children on an as-needed basis, when we’re sick or ill, or when some sin or wrongdoing is weighing on our conscience.

The Sacrament of Unction used to be known as “Extreme Unction” because for centuries people normally received it only in extremis, when death was imminent. It was and still is an integral component of the Church’s Last Rites. But one of the fruits of the Liturgical Renewal of the last fifty years or so has been the recovery of Anointing as a repeatable Sacrament of which all Christians may avail themselves, in times of sickness or injury, for purposes of healing. Here at S. Stephen’s we offer the Anointing of the Sick weekly as part of our Wednesday evening Mass.

It’s important to be clear what Unction is and what it is not. Some Christians do have a gift for what is known as prayer for healing. Typically, someone with this gift will lay hands on a sick person and pray – and sometimes with dramatic results that can only be called miraculous. And I don’t want in any way to dismiss or denigrate that type of spiritual gift or that type of prayer. But it’s not the same thing as Holy Unction, which can only be administered by a priest, using oil that has normally been blessed by a bishop. The efficacy of this Sacrament does not depend upon the personal spiritual gifts of the priest administering it, for it is the Church’s Sacrament and does not belong to any individual person; and it is Christ himself who acts through it to bring healing to its recipient.

Now, a basic principle of sacramental theology is that the Sacraments always effect what they signify. And in some sense, when you receive Anointing for healing, then you really are healed even if there’s no immediate physical cure of your illness or injury. The reason is that when we get sick, we need not only physical healing but also spiritual healing. Above all we need restoration of our relationships with God and with one another. How often, when we’re not feeling well, let alone undergoing pain and suffering, do we become miserable and grumpy, tempted to feel sorry for ourselves and to indulge in self-pity? (I speak as the chief of sinners here, by the way.) Illness has the capacity to bring out the worst in us because deep down, often at a subconscious level, it reminds us of our frailty, vulnerability, and mortality. We need spiritual healing so that illness and injury will become not an occasion of sin, but rather of repentance, humility, forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope in God’s promises.

For this reason, James writes, “the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” None of this need involve a physical cure. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. The salvation, the raising up, and the forgiveness of which James speaks may be in this life or in the next. The Sacrament of Anointing brings healing in that it brings us into the presence of God, who even in the midst of present pain and suffering takes away all fear, resentment, and self-pity, and fills us with quiet confidence and even joy.

The Sacrament of Anointing is closely related to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Confession. As some of us may have heard at some point, the Anglican approach to confession is summed up in the threefold tag: “None must, some should, all may.” None must: in the Episcopal Church we don’t normally require anyone to make their confession as a condition of membership in good standing. Some should: nonetheless, to paraphrase the old Prayer Book Exhortation, if anyone cannot quieten his own conscience, let him come to a discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and there open his grief, that he may receive the spiritual benefit of ghostly counsel and absolution. And all may: It’s an incomparable privilege of membership in the Church Catholic that at any time you want you can ask a priest to hear your confession; and many people do, not only to quiet their consciences when they’ve committed serious sins, but also as a spiritual exercise and an aid to spiritual growth, providing a periodic occasion for what the Twelve-Step programs call a “searching moral inventory.”

This week, the Bishop-Elect came to see me here at S. Stephen’s, and of course I took the opportunity to give him the tour of the church. He was delighted to see the confessionals at the back of the Lady Chapel and nave, and he remarked that he often told people that, yes, there are Episcopal churches that do have confessionals and now he can look forward to having such a church in his diocese. He seemed a little disappointed when he asked whether we have regular weekly times for confession and I said no, but he was pleased when I told him that we do schedule confessions and get a good number of customers at certain times of year, such as our Advent and Lent Quiet Days and Good Friday.

So, reflecting on the words of Saint James in today’s Epistle, I commend both the Anointing of the Sick and Confession as sacramental means of grace that Christ makes available to us in his Church for the purposes of healing and forgiveness. It is Christ himself who comes to us in and through these Sacraments as our healer and reconciler. And it rejoices his Sacred Heart when we turn to him in repentance and faith, availing ourselves of these wonderful gifts in which he so freely and generously gives us Himself.

Proper 20, Year B -- Sunday Sermon

Proverbs 31:10-31

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

One of the themes running through this morning’s readings is that of wisdom. The Old Testament lesson from Proverbs praises the good wife: “She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” And in the Epistle, Saint James writes: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.”

Scripture speaks often of wisdom, contrasting it with foolishness. These terms are perhaps somewhat strange to us today. We live in a culture that prizes education, knowledge, and intelligence. But wisdom is distinct from all three.

Several years ago, a bumper sticker appeared that read, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” While I generally don’t have much use for theological, philosophical, or political principles expressed in simplistic slogans on the backs of cars, I did like that bumper sticker. It reminded us not only of the value of a good education but also of the many costs—personal, social, economic, and political—that ignorance inflicts upon individuals, groups, and society as a whole.

Contrary to what some believe, the Catholic tradition affirms the goodness of all learning, scholarship, research, and knowledge. Since God is the source of all truth, and all truth is one, Christian faith has no fear of scientific discovery. Apparent conflicts between science and religion turn out, in the end, to be illusory. Operating within its proper sphere of competence, science does not contradict but rather complements and reinforces the truths of revelation. So, the Christian tradition at its best encourages rational inquiry, critical thinking, and sound learning.

Given a choice between knowledge and ignorance, then, we have no problem choosing knowledge. In the Christian world view, education and knowledge are positive goods, to be encouraged and cultivated.

But knowledge is not the same as wisdom. It’s possible to be relatively unlearned and yet very wise. Conversely, it’s possible to be highly educated, an authority in one’s field, and yet be almost totally lacking in wisdom, a learned fool. King James I of England (VI of Scotland) was called by his detractors “the wisest fool in Christendom” because, they said, he combined great academic erudition with a lack of practical wisdom in affairs of state.

A rabbinical story has it that God once offered a group of aspiring scholars a choice between wisdom and knowledge. If they chose knowledge, they would know everything. If they chose wisdom they would know a few things well. They debated the choice among themselves through the night into the morning. With all knowledge, they could unlock the secrets of the universe; the possession of such knowledge could give them unlimited power and wealth. Yet they felt uneasy about turning down wisdom. So, in the end, they told God that they chose knowledge; but with the condition that they wanted included in this knowledge everything that wise people know. God laughed, and replied that even knowing everything that wise people know wouldn’t make them wise, because knowledge and wisdom are two different things.

Nor is wisdom the same as intelligence. One of the charming features of the 1994 movie Forrest Gump was that the protagonist, played by Tom Hanks, was what we might call “mentally challenged.” Yet in his own simple way he exhibited deep wisdom. Maybe not great cinematic art, but an important point nonetheless. Even those who have neither great learning nor much intelligence are still capable of deep wisdom.

Saint Thomas Aquinas defines wisdom as the greatest of the intellectual virtues, because it exercises judgment over these other intellectual virtues, directs them, and, as a master architect, builds with them. Another way of putting it is that wisdom enables us to use however little knowledge, learning, or intelligence we may have to good effect. Aquinas goes on to say wisdom entails an understanding of the causes of things, issuing in clear judgments about how to live one’s life in accordance with reality. And since God is the ultimate cause of everything, the deepest wisdom of all is the knowledge of God.

Wisdom is best described, then, not so much as a body of knowledge to be mastered, as a way of inhabiting, looking at, and seeing the world and our place in it; a way of understanding ourselves in relation to each other and, above all, in relation to God. Elsewhere, the Book of Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And Psalm 14 defines foolishness as the very opposite of this wisdom when it says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” For this reason, the essence of wisdom has been aptly described as the realization that “God is God, and we are not.”

Wisdom thus defined keeps us mindful of our status as creatures in relation to our Creator. It reminds us of our finitude and mortality; our accountability to God for our thoughts, words, and deeds in this life; and our sinfulness and need of the redemption and salvation that only God can provide.

Apart from wisdom, education, knowledge, and intelligence tend to breed pride and arrogance. How often are we tempted to look down on those whom we categorize as uneducated, ignorant, or stupid? Wisdom, on the other hand, produces humility. With the gift of wisdom, we begin to recognize our own limitations, and especially the limitations of our knowledge. Conversely, we begin to recognize and appreciate the simple wisdom of those whom we might otherwise be tempted to dismiss as of no account.

As a new academic year gets under way, those of us engaged in scholarly pursuits at one level or another do well to ask ourselves the purpose of the knowledge that we are accumulating. Without wisdom, we seek knowledge as a means of power and control—over other people, over society, and over creation itself—because we put ourselves in the place of God. With wisdom, we learn to seek knowledge as a means of service to God and our neighbor.

In today’s epistle reading, Saint James describes wisdom as the opposite of jealousy and selfish ambition: “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” The most important point here is that this wisdom is “from above.” It’s not so much the fruit of study, learning, or experience as a sheer gift of God’s grace. It’s not so much something we achieve as something we receive.

While education, knowledge, and intelligence are positive goods in themselves, wisdom makes all the difference as to whether we use them well, to our soul’s profit, or badly, to our soul’s destruction. Regardless of how much or how little we may know, regardless of how intelligent or lacking in intelligence we may be, we do well to ask for this gift of wisdom, which helps us grow into a right relationship with the God who has made us for himself.

Saturday in Proper 19 -- Homily at Mass

I Cor 5:35-49

Luke 8:4-15

The theme common to both our Epistle and Gospel readings this morning is sowing. In selection from St. Luke’s Gospel, our Lord tells the story known as the Parable of the Sower, some of whose seed fell along the path, on the rock, and among thorns; but some of which fell into good soil and grew, yielding a hundredfold. And in the Epistle Saint Paul writes of death and resurrection as the sowing of our physical body in weakness to be raised up a spiritual body in glory.

At first glance it might seem that these two uses of this image have nothing in common. The Gospel parable is about the preaching of the Word and its results, while the Epistle is about our own death and resurrection in Christ. One might say that there is a causal connection between the two images: the sowing of the Word produces a harvest of converted souls in this world, the death of whose physical bodies produces a harvest of resurrected bodies in the world to come. But that would be a bit forced.

Instead, I want to suggest that both images call for a common attitude or disposition: namely, trust in God. One assumption it seems plausible to make about the sower in the parable is that he doesn’t really know where the good soil is. He scatters blindly, aware that some of the seed will fall along the path, or on the rock, or among the thorns, but trusting nonetheless that the critical amount will fall into the good soil.

So it is with us, as we try to be obedient to our Lord’s call to preach the Gospel and minister in the name of Christ to others. A good portion of our efforts may seem wasted. But the parable teaches us to trust that even though we don’t necessarily know where the good soil is, much of the seed we scatter is reaching it nonetheless, where it will produce an abundant harvest.

And if we’re called to cultivate such an attitude of trust with respect to the results of our efforts to share in the Church’s mission, then how much more with respect to our own death. Thus Saint Paul writes that “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” Moreover, just as the plant or flower that grows up surpasses in size and splendor the seed from which it springs, so the resurrection body infinitely surpasses in glory the physical body from which it is raised. Just as we have borne the image of the man from dust – that is, Adam – so we shall bear the image of the man from heaven – that is, Christ. In this way, Saint Paul exhorts us to approach the inevitable reality of death as a laying-down or sowing of our physical body so that we may be raised with Christ to eternal life in glory.

This morning’s readings call us, then, to trust in God – to trust, first, that at least some of the words we speak and the deeds we perform in Christ’s name will be seed sowed in good soil; and to trust, secondly, that our own death will yield resurrection to eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In both cases, we sow the seed trusting God to bring it to an abundant harvest in his kingdom.

Sunday Sermon -- Proper 19, Year B

Eric Gill, Second Station: Jesus Receives the Cross, Wesminster Cathedral, 1915

Mark 8:27-28

And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."

Some commentators observe that in this passage Jesus violates the rules of successful advertising. Most advertisers begin by telling you how wonderful their product is, and only later tell you the cost, in the small print. Or if they do advertise the cost, it’s to tell you how low it is and what a great deal they’re offering you.

We live in a consumerist culture that conditions us to expect the instant gratification of our desires, however we choose to define them, with a maximum of ease, comfort, and convenience. Experts on church growth tell us that in order to attract and keep new members, we need to make church as user-friendly as possible.

In order to fulfill this imperative, some churches build huge parking lots, so that parishioners don’t have to circle around looking for a parking space. Some churches go farther and try to make their worship accessible and easy to follow. Since traditional hymns are considered too difficult and old‑fashioned for contemporary people to learn and sing, these churches replace them with repetitive jingles sung to the accompaniment of guitars, electric keyboards, and drums. The prayers, responses, and song lyrics are projected onto a wall above the altar as the service moves along, since contemporary people supposedly find it too difficult and intimidating to find their way around a hymnal.

I don’t mean to be totally scornful and dismissive of such approaches to church growth. Perhaps the only real chance that many people have of entering the life of any church is through just this sort of “seeker-sensitive,” “user‑friendly” religion. And the results can be impressive. Churches employing these techniques are often packed. Clearly, they’ve tapped into a powerful current in our consumerist culture, by offering to satisfy the ubiquitous demand for ease, convenience, and comfort.

Yet any form of Christianity that’s too easy, too convenient, and too comfortable will have a hard time coming to terms with our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “If any one would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Here Jesus tells both his disciples and the multitudes the cost of discipleship up front. He’s just told Peter and the Twelve that in order to fulfill his own messianic vocation he must be betrayed, suffer, die, and on the third day rise again; and now he warns the disciples and the multitudes that to follow him they must be willing to sacrifice everything, even their very lives.

What’s the purpose of all this self-denial and sacrifice? The first point to get clear is that Christianity is not what some of its detractors make it out to be, a masochistic religion preaching self-denial and sacrifice for its own sake. Yet at the heart of our faith lies the paradox summed up in our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “Whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

To put it another way, when we pursue our own happiness and fulfillment as ends in themselves, we inevitably end up frustrated and disillusioned. Conversely, when we forget our selves and our own needs, and instead seek God and his will for our lives, in the short term we may incur some painful sacrifices, but in the long term we shall end up in possession of infinitely greater happiness than we could ever have attained by pursuing our own self-interest.

This point is not some piece of esoteric mysticism. From our own everyday lives, we’re all familiar with the principle that any worthwhile goal requires self-denial and sacrifice.

Look, for example, at the athletes in the Olympic Games in London this summer. Did you see the enthusiasm, the sheer joy and delight on their faces as they entered the stadium in the opening ceremonies? Yet most of them have spent years in arduous and grueling training to get there. They have undoubtedly made enormous sacrifices. There must have been times when instead of going for a pre-dawn six mile run it would have been more inviting to stay in bed; when instead of going to the gym to work out it would have been more comfortable to watch TV. Yet, “no pain, no gain.” And in the end, competing in the Olympics brings those athletes a degree of joy, fulfillment, and happiness infinitely surpassing any comforts they could have gained earlier on by indulging their immediate desires earlier on to the neglect of their training -- a degree of joy, fulfillment, and happiness that indeed makes all their sacrifices totally worthwhile.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord tells us that this same principle holds true for the life of faith. So we must beware of any presentation of Christianity that makes it seem too easy, too convenient, or too comfortable; or that seems to gear it too much towards the immediate fulfillment of our own needs and desires.

The Catholic faith is a tough religion that makes demands of us, challenges us, and stretches us, in a variety of ways: intellectually, to keep on learning the truths of the faith as expressed in scripture and tradition; morally, to examine our lives, repent of our sins, and grow in virtue; spiritually, to deepen our knowledge and love of God through disciplines of worship and prayer; and indeed even financially, to give of our treasure, time, and talent for the spread of the kingdom of God. For we’re not here for the satisfaction of our consumerist desires, but rather to be remade into a new creation in Christ – and that’s a process of change and growth that can be uncomfortable and at times even painful.

When taking up the cross and following Jesus seems too hard for us, as sometimes it will, we read on a little further in the Gospel to where our Lord foretells his coming “in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” For, again, the purpose of all Christian discipline, self-denial, and sacrifice is precisely to prepare us for glory. Think of the glory of those Olympic athletes entering the stadium magnified to an infinite degree. And even now, in our worship, in our music, in our prayers, we catch glimpses of the glory that awaits us, the glory for which we were created, the glory that indeed makes all our present sufferings totally worthwhile.