Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Sermon from 5/2/2010
Easter 5—May 2, 2010
Rite 13 Ceremony
The Rev. Ellen Tillotson
Trinity Episcopal Church, Torrington CT
St. Francis de Sales was once approached by a disciple who said to him, “Sir, you speak so much about the love of God, but you never tell us how to achieve it. Won’t you tell me how one comes to love God?”
St. Francis replied, “There is only one way and that is to love Him.” “But you don’t understand my
question. What I asked was, ‘How do you engender this love of God?’” And Francis said, “By loving Him.” Once again the pupil came back with the same question. “But what steps do you take? Just what do you do in order to come into the possession of this love?” And all St. Francis said was, “You begin by loving and you go on loving and loving teaches you how to love. And the more you love, the more you learn to love.”
—Elizabeth O’Connor in The Eighth Day of Creation (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1971), p. 67.
What was it, do you suppose, that made Christianity so compelling in its early years? A marginal movement started in a backwater of the Roman empire, a sect proclaiming that their leader was crucified and raised, the most ignoble of deaths and the unlikeliest of outcomes sewn together—what was it that cause Christianity to spread and the number of its followers to mushroom? A few dozen at the death of Jesus, a group on the fringe of Judaism, by the year 400, it was the foremost religion of the Empire.
We know now that it wasn’t by the gifted preaching of the apostles that Christianity grew, even though the Bible portrays them as baptizing dozens at a clip after a sermon in the marketplace. Nor was it the healings. It wasn’t even, as many of us sometimes teach, Constantine’s conversion and making Christianity the official religion of the emperor, as before that happened, Christianity already was the faith of ten percent of the population, a critical mass. Sociologist Rodney Stark believes that Christianity grew through relationships, one person to another. First among family groups, then among women who converted their spouses—Christianity treated women and men alike, giving women a greater social status with Christianity than they knew in Roman society. It provided a “better, happier, more secure way of life” for its adherents. “When epidemics struck, Christians, unlike those in the pagan culture, would care for the sick and t eh dying. Whereas the gods of the pagans were indifferent—and impotent[[the Christians proclaimed a God who cared.
“And then, Christians lived this faith in god by loving one another. In this way, Stark says, the Christians ‘revitalized’ the Roman Empire.
“Drawn like moths to light, converts came to Jesus Christ and discovered the New Creation.” (Synthesis)
Christianity spread because the lifestyle of its followers made it compelling to their friends and neighbors. The joy they showed, and the inner serenity, the service of one another and of the sick and dying among them drew others. Christians living out the commandment of Jesus to love drew converts to the faith, and there they discovered a more powerful and meaningful life than they or anyone could have imagined.
And this wasn’t merely love as a ‘good feeling’. It wasn’t kindly thoughts or good intentions unfulfilled. This was love the way that Jesus showed it and talked about it to his followers, the kind he said they should show and by which they would know him present among them. This was real, costly, go-out-of-your-way love. Sacrificial. Asking something of us—our time, our effort, our resources, our ‘bother’ so that another may live and thrive. It is the kind of love that is so difficult that only the grace of God makes it possible even to attempt.
It’s about being gentle with one another, and compassionate because we are all in the same struggling human boat in this life. It means reaching out when you are secure and when you are not, to those who are hurting. It means seeing every other person, every one, as a precious child of God, and conforming our lives to the notion that service is more to be desired than status or power.
This Christian love is also about calling out one another’s best, helping each other to use our talents and our gifts for the sake of Christ’s work in the world, not to waste them or to use them primarily for our own ends, or to build ourselves up in the eyes of others.
What made them grow from a few hundred to the most influential group of people throughout the world and in all time so far is the quality of their lives lived—for others, for service, for love. When Christians cause a scandal it is because we don’t live up to the high calling of Jesus’ commandment to us to love and serve others. It is when we mistake the faith for a set of ideas and forget that it is, first, a renewed and conscious relationship with God and with Jesus who taught and showed us the measure of God’s love for this world on a cross of shame.
Today we celebrate Rite 13, a ceremony of passage for (6? 7?) young people as a part of our Journey to Adulthood program here at Trinity. We pledge our support of them in this wondrous and difficult time of adolescence. We pledge our support of their parents as they navigate these waters with their children. We offer our supportive love by volunteering as leaders and shepherds in this program, by supporting them as they move toward the pilgrimage that is the capstone of their experience, by making room among all the programs and ministries of Trinity Church, for their growth in the faith, for their persons. It is one of my favorite days in our church life, as we watch these young people whom we have known all their born days and then some join us as adults and friends—companions equal to us in our walk as Christian people. We celebrate their gifts today, and pledge to help those gifts find expression in our life together. In love, we pledge to help them change the world for Jesus’ sake and in his name.
I often say that the great gift that teenagers have to offer us all is their keen sense of justice and their low tolerance of hypocrisy. They can tell from across the room if your actions match your words, and they aren’t shy about letting you know when you’ve let them down. But they are also good at forgiveness, at caring for one another without negative judgment; they are masters of the second chance, the new start. It’s why I have loved working with teens since the time I was a teen.
Rhythms of Grace
Caring for the community
A new commandment I give to you, Jesus said, not a suggestion, not an idea for a better life, a commandment by which you will show that you are my followers. It’s the one law set in stone, for Jesus. Love. Active, other-serving, pride-destroying, difficult, costly, glorious love. Going the second mile, offering the other cheek, putting our needs subservient to those of others, learning to honor those whom the world puts aside or even punishes. Love as a verb—in the doing, never resting, always seeking the good of the other. The world will know we are Christians by the love we share here and, most of all, the love we show to those outside these doors. Love. AMEN
Rite 13 Ceremony
The Rev. Ellen Tillotson
Trinity Episcopal Church, Torrington CT
St. Francis de Sales was once approached by a disciple who said to him, “Sir, you speak so much about the love of God, but you never tell us how to achieve it. Won’t you tell me how one comes to love God?”
St. Francis replied, “There is only one way and that is to love Him.” “But you don’t understand my
question. What I asked was, ‘How do you engender this love of God?’” And Francis said, “By loving Him.” Once again the pupil came back with the same question. “But what steps do you take? Just what do you do in order to come into the possession of this love?” And all St. Francis said was, “You begin by loving and you go on loving and loving teaches you how to love. And the more you love, the more you learn to love.”
—Elizabeth O’Connor in The Eighth Day of Creation (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1971), p. 67.
What was it, do you suppose, that made Christianity so compelling in its early years? A marginal movement started in a backwater of the Roman empire, a sect proclaiming that their leader was crucified and raised, the most ignoble of deaths and the unlikeliest of outcomes sewn together—what was it that cause Christianity to spread and the number of its followers to mushroom? A few dozen at the death of Jesus, a group on the fringe of Judaism, by the year 400, it was the foremost religion of the Empire.
We know now that it wasn’t by the gifted preaching of the apostles that Christianity grew, even though the Bible portrays them as baptizing dozens at a clip after a sermon in the marketplace. Nor was it the healings. It wasn’t even, as many of us sometimes teach, Constantine’s conversion and making Christianity the official religion of the emperor, as before that happened, Christianity already was the faith of ten percent of the population, a critical mass. Sociologist Rodney Stark believes that Christianity grew through relationships, one person to another. First among family groups, then among women who converted their spouses—Christianity treated women and men alike, giving women a greater social status with Christianity than they knew in Roman society. It provided a “better, happier, more secure way of life” for its adherents. “When epidemics struck, Christians, unlike those in the pagan culture, would care for the sick and t eh dying. Whereas the gods of the pagans were indifferent—and impotent[[the Christians proclaimed a God who cared.
“And then, Christians lived this faith in god by loving one another. In this way, Stark says, the Christians ‘revitalized’ the Roman Empire.
“Drawn like moths to light, converts came to Jesus Christ and discovered the New Creation.” (Synthesis)
Christianity spread because the lifestyle of its followers made it compelling to their friends and neighbors. The joy they showed, and the inner serenity, the service of one another and of the sick and dying among them drew others. Christians living out the commandment of Jesus to love drew converts to the faith, and there they discovered a more powerful and meaningful life than they or anyone could have imagined.
And this wasn’t merely love as a ‘good feeling’. It wasn’t kindly thoughts or good intentions unfulfilled. This was love the way that Jesus showed it and talked about it to his followers, the kind he said they should show and by which they would know him present among them. This was real, costly, go-out-of-your-way love. Sacrificial. Asking something of us—our time, our effort, our resources, our ‘bother’ so that another may live and thrive. It is the kind of love that is so difficult that only the grace of God makes it possible even to attempt.
It’s about being gentle with one another, and compassionate because we are all in the same struggling human boat in this life. It means reaching out when you are secure and when you are not, to those who are hurting. It means seeing every other person, every one, as a precious child of God, and conforming our lives to the notion that service is more to be desired than status or power.
This Christian love is also about calling out one another’s best, helping each other to use our talents and our gifts for the sake of Christ’s work in the world, not to waste them or to use them primarily for our own ends, or to build ourselves up in the eyes of others.
What made them grow from a few hundred to the most influential group of people throughout the world and in all time so far is the quality of their lives lived—for others, for service, for love. When Christians cause a scandal it is because we don’t live up to the high calling of Jesus’ commandment to us to love and serve others. It is when we mistake the faith for a set of ideas and forget that it is, first, a renewed and conscious relationship with God and with Jesus who taught and showed us the measure of God’s love for this world on a cross of shame.
Today we celebrate Rite 13, a ceremony of passage for (6? 7?) young people as a part of our Journey to Adulthood program here at Trinity. We pledge our support of them in this wondrous and difficult time of adolescence. We pledge our support of their parents as they navigate these waters with their children. We offer our supportive love by volunteering as leaders and shepherds in this program, by supporting them as they move toward the pilgrimage that is the capstone of their experience, by making room among all the programs and ministries of Trinity Church, for their growth in the faith, for their persons. It is one of my favorite days in our church life, as we watch these young people whom we have known all their born days and then some join us as adults and friends—companions equal to us in our walk as Christian people. We celebrate their gifts today, and pledge to help those gifts find expression in our life together. In love, we pledge to help them change the world for Jesus’ sake and in his name.
I often say that the great gift that teenagers have to offer us all is their keen sense of justice and their low tolerance of hypocrisy. They can tell from across the room if your actions match your words, and they aren’t shy about letting you know when you’ve let them down. But they are also good at forgiveness, at caring for one another without negative judgment; they are masters of the second chance, the new start. It’s why I have loved working with teens since the time I was a teen.
Rhythms of Grace
Caring for the community
A new commandment I give to you, Jesus said, not a suggestion, not an idea for a better life, a commandment by which you will show that you are my followers. It’s the one law set in stone, for Jesus. Love. Active, other-serving, pride-destroying, difficult, costly, glorious love. Going the second mile, offering the other cheek, putting our needs subservient to those of others, learning to honor those whom the world puts aside or even punishes. Love as a verb—in the doing, never resting, always seeking the good of the other. The world will know we are Christians by the love we share here and, most of all, the love we show to those outside these doors. Love. AMEN
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