postID: 6965; title: The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
no collect_text found
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
Array
(
[date] => 2018-10-28 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 135833
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2018-10-28 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2018-10-28postID: 7026 (Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7026; date_type: fixed; year: 2018
fixed_date_str: October 28
fixed_date_str (mod): October 28 2018
formattedFixedDateStr: 2018-10-28
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2023-10-29 (2023)
yearAssigned (2023) does NOT match year (2018)
displayDates for postID: 7026/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-10-28
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2018
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-10-28
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2018-10-28 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Array
(
[date] => 2018-10-28 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 135833
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2018-10-28 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2018-10-28postID: 7026 (Saint Simon and Saint Jude)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7026; date_type: fixed; year: 2018
fixed_date_str: October 28
fixed_date_str (mod): October 28 2018
formattedFixedDateStr: 2018-10-28
=> check date_assignments.
dateAssigned: 2023-10-29 (2023)
yearAssigned (2023) does NOT match year (2018)
displayDates for postID: 7026/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-10-28
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2018
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2018
Array
(
[0] => 2018-10-28
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2018-10-28 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
The reading_id [153211] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): John 14:15-31
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
John 14:15-31
✛
The one who lives
Array
(
[0] => 60758
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60758
)
] (reading_id: 153211)bbook_id: 60758
The bbook_id [60758] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
An Episcopal priest was once asked by an Eastern Orthodox Christian what it was that he found so compelling in the Western Christian tradition, derived from Augustine, with its particular focus on sin and redemption, on fault and forgiveness. After all, it paints what can sometimes be a somewhat bleak picture: bearing down hard on “the wages of sin is death”—that kind of thing—and can neglect the weightier matters of, for example, joy, of delight in God’s world. So goes the argument, anyway.
Maybe it’s a matter of temperament. That was the resolution the two Christians came to. There is no doubt that there is something profoundly wrong with the world, but it is just as true—and it is the intention of the world’s creator—that there are other things profoundly, shockingly good about the world. Things wonderful: making us full of wonder. There is goodness we can see sometimes that hints at the original goodness of the world as it was made. There is beauty sometimes that is so beautiful that it is literally overwhelming.
There is something wrong with the world—something called sin—but it was created good and true and beautiful. And it will be good and true and beautiful again.
In the somewhat long gospel reading this evening, Jesus is having a conversation with his disciples, in the context of a discourse that is longer still. I call it a conversation, though in fact Jesus does most of the talking. There are three phrases of his in particular that stand out for me.
The first is when he says to them that, though he must leave them, he leaves them with a promise: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
Then, he gives them encouragement: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Finally, he gives them an instruction: “Arise, let us go hence.”
Let’s go, he says. They seem to have been a small group at that point, Jesus and the disciples, and there must have been a temptation to stay a small group, pure and untouched by the messiness of the world. Not to mention that the opposition they were facing from the religious authorities was growing increasingly bitter, on the edge of violence, seemingly ready to tip over into bloodshed, as it eventually would on Good Friday.
There is something off-kilter about the world; the West is right about that. And it must have been a temptation for the disciples to just avoid it. To retreat. To run for their lives. I would have and I wouldn’t blame anyone else for doing it too.
And Jesus says, Arise and let us go hence. Get up. Let’s go. There are things to be done: sick to be healed; poor to be relieved; prisoners to be visited; a broken world that needs to hear and see the good news of God in Christ. Arise. Let’s go.
For the disciples, of course, the active opposition of the authorities would eventually tip over into bloodshed, killing not only Jesus nit also eventually many of them, including, legend has it, Saint Simon and Saint Jude, whom we remember today. But that brokenness of the world would not defeat the Son of God, who would conquer death itself.
Jesus lives. And, because he lives, we can heed his words as well: Arise, let us go hence. In the fullness of time, we know that the opposition will not be ultimately successful, so the Christian posture is one of active engagement in the world. Because he lives and we will live, we do get up, and go.
Though, to be sure, it is into a world of malevolent powers and principalities that we rise and go hence into, just as it was for them. Yet nevertheless Jesus says to them, and to us, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Well. I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that my heart spends much of its time both troubled and afraid. How could it not? Have you read the newspaper recently? Or read the news on your phone recently? Have you heard the talking heads talking away on TV? Being troubled and fearful seems a reasonable response.
But not to the Christian with a true faith – the kind of faith to which I aspire. The Christ who promises a comforter to his people is the Christ who is alive, today. A world of trouble and fear isn’t new and the stories in much of the New Testament – Acts and the epistles – are about how things troublesome and fear-inducing continued their assault on the early followers of Jesus.
But, because he lives, and we will live, the trouble and the fear are temporary; they are among the things passing away. And so the Christian posture is one of joy: joy at the beginning, joy at the end. In the context of trouble, and in spite of things fearful, we are joyful, because he lives. Because he lives, and we will live, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Be joyful, for he will come, again. That is his promise: that the one who spoke to the disciples in person, who speaks to us today in the word of the Lord, the pages of Scripture, not only has not left us orphaned in his absence, because of the sending of the spirit, but is also the one who is coming. “I will come to you,” he says, with a promise that illuminates the future and gives the present its meaning. We do not worship an inspirational religious leader whom we will not see again; the climax of history is not in the past, but in the future. He is alive. He is coming.
And so, the Christian posture is especially one of praise. Unremitting praise: thanksgiving for the future that is coming and has not yet come. Because he lives, because he comes, we are a people who praise.
As the evening sun sets today, we sing of God who was and is and is to come. Because he lives, our songs are songs of deliverance from death, of freedom from trouble, songs of praise for the living one. The Christian posture in this world is praise, because he lives, and he will come.
The goodness and truth and beauty of the world – the world as it was created to be – will be again, in its fullness, even if today we see it only in part. It will be again because he is alive. On this the Eastern and Western churches can agree.
The future is open and beautiful because the son of God lives and, because he lives, the Christian lives too: we engage with the world; we do so with joy; we sing our hymns of praise. Even at night we sing Alleluia. Even in the dark we raise our voices in song, awaiting the light of the world.
Because Jesus lives, each Christian congregation, worshiping in its own tongue, all over the world and from time immemorial, sings its particular praises of God as the evening comes, with a sure and certain hope in the risen Son. In the world; joyful in the presence of the spirit, with untroubled hearts; looking with expectation at the eastern horizon for the second coming of the one who is himself good and true and beautiful.
So let us go hence, singing, into the world of sin and redemption, of fault and forgiveness; to delight in God’s creation, which was intended for good. Into a world ready for a risen savior, longing for the one who lives. And let us go, not according to our own devices and desires, but in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
