“He is the head of the
body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he
might come to have first place in everything.”
Colossians 1:18
I went to see a friend recently who
has come to a certain age, and is in the process of moving from her grand old
house into a retirement community. She’s
made the decision with proper deliberation, and she knows it’s the right
choice. A smaller space means freedom
for her, the ability to age with more dignity and grace. But it’s a challenging and sometimes
sorrowful task to sort through all these things that fill her old house, and to
make those inevitable decisions about what can be taken and what must be left
to others.
She wanted me to see the house in
all its glory, before the packers descended, stirring up the dust and setting
things ajar. She led me from room to
room, and told me the stories behind the furniture and the pictures on the wall. This piece was her grandmother’s and that one
she spotted at a sale in the rain and bought it for a song. The friend who painted that picture has been
gone for years, but this artist went on to become a smashing success. The things we gather together over a lifetime
do clutter our houses and accumulate ever so much dust. But they are the tangible signs of our
memories. They express our
relationships.
My friend seemed most excited about
the things in the house she was preparing to send on to others. A
local museum in her grandfather’s home town had agreed to take a few items that
couldn’t really fit in anyone’s drawing room.
Her son had said he would like to have a cherished collection. She was surprised by that. He’d never shown so much interest when she’d
tried to explain all the parts to him before.
But she smiled when she thought about how he had already decided where
it would fit in his own home. She would
make him notes about where each piece had come from, why it was
significant. He would never be able to
remember all of it, she guessed. But it
reminded him of her, of course. He knew
how much she loved the collection, and that matters.
My friend is sorting through her
legacy. She’s pondering how to entrust
the material signs of her life’s accomplishments to those who will value them,
and continue on what was important to her.
We sometimes say that material things don’t really have any meaning,
that if we were really spiritual people we would rise above them. But that’s dishonest. We all have a physical legacy, and though it
does not in any way determine our dignity or our worth in the eyes of God, it
does mark out what has been important to us, it is a kind of shorthand for the
meaning of our lives. And we have a
responsibility to treat it with care—entrust
is an excellent word for that, isn’t it?
Today’s Epistle lesson is one of the
great purple passages of the Bible, when Saint Paul mounts one acclamation upon
another, as he tries to describe our Lord’s glory, the significance of His work
for us, His all-surpassing power. He
points to the beginning of time, when all things were created through Him. He
is God’s eternal plan, the Word which speaks all things into being, gives them
order and meaning, and holds them together.
He is the One who has freed us from sin and death, rescuing us from the
power of darkness and giving us a place in His own kingdom.
He
is the head of the Church, Saint Paul says.
He is head because He is first, rising from the dead at Easter so we all
might rise in glory. He is head because
He is the source of life and direction for all God’s people. We are guided by His wisdom and act in His
strength. And He is head because we have
given ourselves over to Him, as servants of one Master, who wait on His bidding
and strive to do His will.
Today’s feast acclaims Christ as
King of the Universe, the source and pattern of all human authority, the One in
whom earth’s divided nations will discover their final peace. We announce today a kingdom that will be
revealed in full only when He returns in glory, judges the quick and dead, and makes
all things new.
But even now, while we await His
return, we proclaim Him our master and dedicate ourselves to doing His
will. We are calling this day
Consecration Sunday at Saint Francis this year.
As the letter that many of you received earlier this month explained,
consecration is the act of setting something apart for a holy purpose. A consecrated person or a consecrated thing
is given over to God, set apart to be used in His service. The letter we sent included a section of a
beautiful prayer of self-dedication written by Saint Ignatius Loyola. It asks, “O my God, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve to be served, to give without counting the cost, to
spend myself without expecting any reward but the knowledge that I am doing
your holy will.[1]”
It’s the prayer of a person who has
entrusted Himself to God, who understands that he or she lives only by the
grace and wisdom that comes from the head, from Christ who “has the first place
in everything.” It’s the prayer of a
person who has given what is most important and meaningful into Christ’s hands
to be used for His purposes.
The prayer reminds me of a scene
from the New Testament that is recalled in some of the hymns we sing at this
feast. It comes from St. John’s great
vision in the Book of Revelation, when Christ is seated on His glorious throne,
surrounded by twenty-four elders, leaders of great significance.[2] The elders sing Christ’s praise, acclaiming
Him as holy above all. And then they
fall on their knees and take off their crowns and lay them at Jesus’s feet.
The
crowns point to the authority the elders have borne, the tasks that have given
purpose to their lives, the success they have seen. There is nothing more precious than a
crown. But when they come before Christ
the King, He who is first in everything, they must acknowledge that all they
have has come only through His help. As
one ancient commentator wrote, “By casting their crowns before the throne, they
are ascribing to God whatever they possess of virtue and dignity. For whatever good we seek and acquire by
right is attributed to him from whom [we] receive assistance.[3]”
But
this is also about entrusting their lives’ projects to Him, tending their
legacies. Laying the crowns before Jesus
says, “All my labors are fulfilled in you.
I am returning what is most precious to me, because I know you deserve
nothing less than this.
When we invite you to bring forward
your financial pledges at the close of today’s Eucharist, we’re asking that you
do something that’s really quite a bit like those elders placing their crowns
at Jesus’ feet. The Altar is the throne
of Christ, the place where He appears among His adoring people, under the forms
of bread and wine. We aim to give Christ
our highest aspirations and our noblest thoughts, of course. But we also bring the tangible sign of this
in our financial commitment to His work in this congregation.
Our
money is an important part of our physical legacy. It is a sign of the talents
and opportunities God has given us and the good use we have made of them,
through His grace. We use money wisely
when its use reflects our deepest priorities and most important commitments.
Most
all of you are here today because you have already made a commitment to Christ
and this congregation. Your presence
here shows that you have made the worship of God a priority in your life. This is an exciting day because we celebrate
the work of this sanctuary renovation, the beauty created by many hands. We also rejoice together in the bright future
that lies ahead of us as a congregation.
We are poised to do many new things together, making new disciples,
working to transform this community we serve, growing in our practice of the
spiritual life and our love for each other.
The
monies you pledge to Saint Francis today enable that work at this exciting time
in our common life. You are entrusting
them to us for the sake of Christ and His kingdom, and your vestry and I commit
to using them wisely and carefully. Let
us approach our king in faith and gratitude, acknowledging our true head, the
source of all our blessings. We bring
our crowns and lay them, with thanks, at His feet.
[1] “Prayer for Generosity,” Prayers for
All Christians. http://www.rc.net/wcc/loyola.htm. 1988.
[2] Rev. 4:1-11.
[3] Primasius, Commentary on the Apocalypse
4.10, qtd. in Revelation. Ancient
Christian Commentary on Scripture. Ed.
William Weinrich. Downers Grove: IVP,
2005. New Testament XXII. 68.
No comments:
Post a Comment