PROPER 9, YEAR C

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Isaiah 66:10-16

Psalm 66:1-8

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

 

A theme running throughout our readings today is that of rejoicing. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah opens with the exhortation: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn for her …” Even though the holy city is lying in ruins, destroyed by its enemies, Isaiah prophesies future restoration, peace, and prosperity, promising his listeners: “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice …”

 

Then Psalm 66 extends this call to rejoice beyond Jerusalem to all the world’s nations: “Be joyful in God, all you lands, sing the glory of his name; sing the glory of his praise.”

 

Finally, in the Gospel reading from Saint Luke, the seventy disciples return with joy from their mission to the towns and villages of Israel, reporting to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” To which the Lord responds: “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

At bottom, authentic Christianity is not all stern commandments and grim duty, but a religion intended to bring us joy. The practice of the faith can entail hardship and sacrifice, to be sure. The seventy disciples likely set out on their mission with great trepidation; and who knows what privations they endured on the road? But in the end, it was all worth it, and they returned rejoicing with great joy.

 

In our pursuit of the Christian life, a question always worth asking ourselves is: Where is our joy? What is it about our practice of the faith, and our life together as a parish community, that gives us cause for rejoicing? 

 

When we’re feeling disheartened, moreover, it’s never a bad idea to try to reconnect with those tasks, activities, pastimes, and relationships that bring us joy, both emotionally and spiritually. When I find myself getting discouraged in my exercise of the priesthood, I try always to remember to ask myself: What is it about my ministry that gives me the deepest joy? And in those rare instances when I can’t think of any positive answer to that question, then I know that I’m in spiritual trouble and need to seek help. It’s a terrible thing to lose touch with the things that bring us joy—but they’re always still there, waiting to be rediscovered and reclaimed.

 

In a parish’s transition from one rector to another, this question is critical to the process of discernment. Not so much: What’s wrong here that needs fixing? – although that question may need attention, too – but above all: What’s right here? Where is our joy? What is it about this parish community’s identity, mission, and life together that gives us cause for rejoicing? The answer to that question is crucially important because it identifies those features of parish life that we most want to preserve and build upon for the future. So, let’s give it some thought and prayer in the coming weeks and months.

 

However we answer that question, we need also to be mindful of our Lord’s admonition in today’s Gospel: “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” In other words, we need always to regard our earthly joys and sorrows in the perspective of eternity, and the infinitely greater joy that beckons us from the life of the world to come.

 

This phrase, “your names are written in heaven,” invokes an image that recurs throughout both the Old and New Testaments of a “Book of Life” in which God records the names of the just and the righteous. Of course, the image is not meant literally; the biblical writers aren’t suggesting that in heaven there’s an actual physical book in which God literally writes our names. Instead, it’s a metaphor for what God knows about each of us; and God knows each of us infinitely better than we even know ourselves. 

So, when our Lord declares to the seventy: “do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven,” he’s effectively telling them that much as they might be tempted to take pride in their spiritual achievements, the ultimate question for them, and for us, is whether our names are written in the Book of Life.

 

How do we know, then, that our names really are written in heaven? The Church’s traditional answer is that God inscribed our names in the Book of Life when we were baptized. When I administer the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, I perform not only a public ceremony at the font but also a crucial bit of administrative paperwork at my desk afterwards. I record the baptism in the parish register, which, if you’ve never seen it, is an impressively large book. I’ve always found recording there the names of the newly baptized oddly moving.

 

And with good reason: the Early Church Fathers saw the ceremonial inscription of the baptismal candidates’ names in the Church’s book as an earthly reflection of their names being written in the Book of Life. In a fourth century sermon, Saint Gregory of Nyssa says to a group of catechumens, “Give me your names so that I may write them down in ink. But the Lord himself will engrave them on incorruptible tablets … the Bishop inscribes you in the Book of the Church that you may know that from now on you are inscribed in heaven.”

 

These words offer us all great encouragement. Now, to avoid any misunderstanding, I’m not saying that the unbaptized are automatically excluded from heaven or condemned to eternal punishment. That’s not the point. God is free to save whomever he chooses, baptized or not.

 

The point, instead, is that for Christians, Holy Baptism, along with the faith and repentance that it signifies, stands as the outward and visible sign of our names being written in God’s Book of Life. The Scriptures do suggest that while we can blot our names out of the book by serious sin—that is, by knowingly and willfully rebelling against God—we can also always repent and return to the Lord, in which case he’ll fully re-inscribe us in the Book. And there’s no greater cause for rejoicing than that.

 

Today, then, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to take stock of everything that brings joy to our lives—as members of our families, as citizens of our country, as parishioners of our church. But we also remember that the true foundation of all joy is our shared hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Above all earthly joys, then, we rejoice that our names are written in heaven.