The Acolytes, Eucharistic Ministers, Choir, and Clergy process in street clothes. Apart from that, the Eucharist continues as usual.
+ In the Love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let’s begin with this morning’s Gospel:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory”― who’s the Son of Man?
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[Jesus]
It’s the only title Jesus ever used to describe himself in the Gospels, and essentially it means “the Human One.”
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king”― who’s the king?
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[Jesus, again; we know this because Jesus goes on to say “to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father. . . .”]
The sudden shift from a shepherd to a king may seem strange to us, but it wouldn’t have been strange to Jesus’ disciples. In the Old Testament, the image of a shepherd is often used for kings, as we see in this morning’s reading from Ezekiel. David was a shepherd whom God called to be a king to shepherd his people.
“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry. . . .”
How many really hungry people do you think come to worship at St. Gregory’s every Sunday? I don’t mean someone who’s skipped breakfast, but someone who hasn’t eaten anything for three of four days.
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[none]
How many really thirsty people do you think come to worship at St. Gregory’s every Sunday? Someone who hasn’t had anything to drink in over 24 hours or so? {{Congregational Response}}
[none]
How many complete strangers― unknown by anyone else in the parish― come to St. Gregory’s on a Sunday?
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[maybe once or twice or three times a month]
How many people who desperately need a change of clothes― and I don’t mean aesthetically!― come to St. Gregory’s every Sunday?
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[none]
How many hospitalized or bedridden sick people come to St. Gregory’s every Sunday? {{Congregational Response}}
[none]
How many prisoners on furlough show up at St. Gregory’s every Sunday? {{Congregational Response}}
[none]
Well, then, on the basis of this morning’s Gospel, the odds of our inheriting the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world by just showing up at church are pretty slim.
So if the hungry, and the thirsty, and the stranger, and the naked, and the sick, and the prisoner, aren’t showing up at St. Gregory’s, what are we to do?
Here’s a bit of a hint from our reading from Ezekiel:
“Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. . . . I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak . . . I will feed them with justice.”
Have any of you noticed any changes in the worship bulletin over the past three weeks?
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[for example, Eight O’Clock Service has been changed to Eight O’Clock Practice, and similarly throughout the bulletin]
Any ideas about why I made the change?
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Have any of you noticed anything a little out of the ordinary this morning?!
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[no one’s wearing any vestments]
Any idea why?
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Final question, at least for now:
Anyone know the significance of the number 168?
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Well, here’s a hint: What about the significance of 168 hours?
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[168 is the number of hours in a week]
Back in October, Meredith and I attended our annual clergy conference, and our speaker, David Lose, a professor of Biblical Preaching at a Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, made the following observations:
“Sunday has become The Performance, The Game, the Big Day. It’s the Pinnacle of the week. It’s “The Christian Hour.” But what about the other 167 hours of the week? By putting so much emphasis on Sunday, we devalue everyday life.
“We have learned to recognize God in the church― in the Word of God, in the Bread and Wine― but can we recognize God out in the world?
“We have to reconsider the purpose of Sunday morning. Worship isn’t The Performance― it’s the rehearsal. Worship isn’t The Game― it’s the practice. Sunday morning is the God-given time when we rehearse and practice our Christian lives in the world.”
And then David Lose suggested a couple of questions:
“What would this morning’s reading from Ezekiel look like if it became true in our lives?”
“What would this morning’s Gospel reading look like if it became true in our lives?”
Last Wednesday we had 390 people in the church for Kathy Christenson’s Mass of the Resurrection. They filled the nave, they filled the chapel, they filled the choir loft, and many still had to stand. I invited our parishioners into the sanctuary so some of those standing could sit.
At least half of the congregation were Kathy’s students or former students.
No one left after the eulogies; no one left after the sermon; no one left when I announced the beginning of Communion; and after the service almost everyone streamed into Founders Hall for the reception.
They didn’t come to the service because Kathy spent an hour at St. Gregory’s on Sundays; they came here for the way she spent the other 167 hours of her week.
And so I have some questions of my own:
How can we improve our one-hour rehearsals or practices for the other 167 hours of the week?
How can we do a better job of imagining how we might take the Scriptures we read in the church out into the world?
How can we do a better job of recognizing God in the world?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I think they’re the right questions.
I hope that in the weeks and months to come, we can begin to answer those questions together, for the sake of the least of these, the members of God’s family.
Amen.
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