8th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 10C (a teaching on the laity)

Pentecost 8—Proper 10C July 14, 2013 Today is the last in a series of four homilies that Scott and I have preached on the ministers or the four orders of the church. We’ve used the catechism in the back of the Book of Common Prayer as a guide for these homilies, and it is important again to mention that the order we have saved for last is actually the one that the Prayer Book positions as first, and therefore, most important. It is the laity, from the Greek word laos for people. Turn to page 855, and let’s look again at what the catechism has to say: Q. Who are the ministers of the Church? A. The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons. Q. What is the ministry of the laity? A. The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; and to take their place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church. Q. What is the duty of all Christians? A. The duty of all Christians is to follow Christ; to come together week by week for corporate worship; and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God. It is easy to forget that one of the most memorable of Jesus’s parables begins with a timeless question that could easily be asked by any one of us today: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The story then moves from that question, on to another question—‘who is my neighbor?” But notice, the story from Luke and the parable answer neither of those questions. In fact the story and the parable show us how we are missing the point when we ask those questions—what must I do to inherit eternal life, and who is my neighbor. Here is what another writer wrote about this passage from Luke’s gospel that gets at the heart of this misunderstanding that affects so much of our life of faith. He writes, “This is where the lawyer in our Gospel lesson didn’t get it. The ‘way to inherit eternal life’ is not formulaic. It is a way of life that lives into eternity now. It is living our lives with the knowledge that everything is spiritual, and so our whole lives are spiritual expressions of our love for God (with all that we are and all that we have)…Jesus’s parabolic Samaritan doesn’t ask who his neighbor is; he lives into being a neighbor to all, especially to the one in need.”i. Eternal life is now; it is already happening. The Bible and our Prayer Book give us the tools for how we can live into it more fully and completely. It tells us that the way of eternal life is found in “bear[ing] witness to [Christ] wherever [you] may be; and, according to the gifts given [you], to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; and to take [your] place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.” Notice, again here, the order. The church is listed as last and your work in the world is listed as first; so which one is more important? Here’s another way of thinking about it. How does your faith connect to the life you live outside the doors of this church? A small group from our church went to a conference a few weeks ago. It is the Bishop’s Annual Stewardship Summit or BASS, and the speaker was the Rt Rev. Greg Rickel, Bishop of Olympia. Bishop Rickel told us that he has a theory that the church should be like an airport. Nobody goes to an airport to stay. They go there; they hang out for a while, and then the leave, to either go home or get to where they are going. Rickel says the church should be like this, too. Another priest from that same diocese posited that the goal of the church is to gather people together, to create a space where we can all be transformed, and then to send everyone out into the world to do their ministry. I realized just this week that there is a disconnect in my own life and ministry at times. It is so easy to slip into the thinking that eternal life is something we have to work to inherit as opposed to something we are already given, that we just have to seek to discover. I was on staff at Camp Bratton Green this past week, with a whole host of third and fourth graders. I love this age group of kids, because they really get into camp. Many of them are experiencing it for the first time. The downside of this is that many of them often get homesick, understandably so, since this is the first extended time that many of them have been away from their families. This year, we had several girls in our cabin who got very homesick the first night, and the counselors were trying to talk to them and do all the stuff they had taught us about in staff training on how to deal with homesickness. But it just wasn’t working. And because homesickness can be contagious, it looked like we were about to have an epidemic on our hands. So they came to me as a last resort. I tried talking to the different kids, tried to keep them busy, until I also was stuck. And then it occurred to me. You just might have a particular gift that could be of use in this situation. So I told each of the girls, “You know, I’m a priest. So why don’t I say a prayer for you, and then I will give you a blessing, because that’s something that priests can do.” So I prayed with each of them, and I made the sign of the cross gently on their foreheads and offered them God’s blessing, and each and every one of them went on to bed. For me, in that moment, I tasted eternal life, when I was able to use my gifts in the world to help someone else. But, you know, it almost didn’t even occur to me. And I think that is our biggest impediment to discovering eternal life. It is not paying attention—to our own lives and our own gifts, how God might be calling us to use them, and also not paying attention to the needs and lives of others. Beginning this fall, this parish is going to offer some opportunities to help you in that endeavor, helping you to claim your work as your vocation, helping you to discover what your gifts are and to also discover how God is calling you to live more fully into your calling as God’s people—“bear[ing] witness to [Christ] wherever [you] may be; and, according to the gifts given [you], to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world; and to take [your] place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church.” It is no accident that every week, our deacon, whose role is to be the embodiment of the ministry of servant hood and whose job it is to connect us to the needs of the world outside our church doors, leads the dismissal for our worship. The dismissal is the call to service in the world. It is the challenge to go out into the world, and find and claim eternal life, to discover it in what you are already doing. It is about claiming your life and your calling and your ministry to others as holy. In closing, let us pray (this is a collect: For the Mission of the Church BCP p 816): Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. i.From Steward’s Stirrings by The Rev. Canon Lance Ousley, Diocese of Olympia.