LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

The V Sunday of Easter + 4/20/08 + St. Paul’s Church, Lake James

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

   The Collect for today was originally written for use on the Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James in the 1549 English Book of Common Prayer.  Our new American Prayer Book assigns it to this Sunday, the fifth Sunday of Easter because its wording echoes the Gospel for today.  In that reading, we heard Saint Thomas – the Apostle often referred to as “Doubting Thomas,” ask his famous question.  When Jesus said that the Apostles knew where he was going and the way to get there, Thomas interrupted Him to disagree, saying, “Lord we do not know where you are going, so how could we possibly know the way?” and Christ replied “I am the Way, the Truth, and Life!”  The question of faith and the doubts of Thomas was the subject of the sermon here three weeks ago (I hope some of you remember it).  Today, we have the same words, but a different emphasis.  The Collect prays that we may perfectly know Jesus to be what He claimed to be: The Way, the Truth, and the Life; that, just as Saint Thomas came to embrace that reality as being true, so we too may affirm that same reality, which, in turn, leads to eternal life. 

    It seems fair to assume that most people who come to worship God here at St. Paul’s Church on a Sunday morning, do so because they do accept Christ’s claims to be who and what he said of himself – that He is the second person of the Holy Trinity, true God and True man. 

     Through the long history of humanity, outward signs have been used to identify particular categories of people.  Sometimes, those signs were intended to separate people from other people.  In Our Lord’s day, lepers were required to carry bells, ringing them whenever others got near them to warn healthy people not to get any closer by shouting “Unclean! Unclean!”  The Nazis made Jews wear yellow armbands with the Star of David on them so that they would not possibly be mistaken for members of “the so-called super race of Aryans.” 

    Not all outward signs are negative or demeaning. Sports fans are apt to wear shirts or jackets with the name of their favorite team or player, and along with members of some other Christian traditions, we Episcopalians are accustomed to see our priests, monks, nuns, and friars wearing distinctive attire as a kind of identifying mark.  The purpose of priestly or religious habits is to let the rest of the world easily identify them as representatives of God and the Church, a witness to all of commitment to certain beliefs and values.  Then again, I think of a notice published in a church bulletin kindly called to my attention by Lynn & Mac Hoffman – it read: “The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind.  They may be seen in the church basement on Friday afternoons.”  What an identifying mark that would be!

    In the Gospel for today, Jesus speaks of another way of identifying his followers – their faith.  Christians, if we take Christ’s words seriously, believe that Our Lord is in the Father and the Father is in him.  In other words, he is truly God.  He also said that his followers could be easily identified by the way they love one another! That’s a pretty overwhelming thought – one which, if we really think about it, could even make some folks sigh and give up any attempt to be Christians because they just know they’ll never be able to live up to that concept.  It can seem as daunting as being given a pair of nail scissors and told to cut a large lawn with them, or given a toy organ and told they were expected to give a recital with it in New York’s Carnegie Hall!  It’s the kind of situation which can breed frustration, fear, and anger, asking oneself why in the world God would ask us to do that when He must know we really can’t – it’s too hard – it’s way beyond us, so why should we be made to feel so guilty if we don’t perfectly live up to that ideal?  Does that sound at all familiar?  Do the commands of God seem unreasonable, impractical, way beyond our ability to obey?  The command to honesty can be mighty inconvenient at income tax time, a businessman may be convinced that, unless he cuts corners here and there, he won’t be able to compete with other businessmen in his field. The scandals which erupt from time to time at colleges when cheating on examinations is discovered, are just a few examples of  what is so prevalent in our culture today.  The values taught by the Christian religion, the things we identify as what God wants, all-too-often come across as nice, but unrealistic, good, but so impractical, perhaps something which would be found in an ideal society but not in the “real world” – the world in which we live. 

    Writing about the idea that Christians could be recognized by the way they love one another, the great New Testament scholar Dr. Lock, said that the only way that idea made sense was when combined with another teaching of Jesus – his command at the Last Supper when he said “take, eat, this is my Body.  Take, drink, this is my Blood,”   because the purpose of the Eucharist is to enable us to obey all the other commands.  Through the strength made available to us in the Holy Sacrament, we can actually learn to love one another, to be honest, and to be God-serving instead of self-serving. That’s rather overwhelming, isn’t it!  The fact is that what we do at the Altar, week after week, and month after month, is nothing less than a re-creating, a re-membering, a putting together anew the people of God, that is all of us.  We are caught up in the pleading of the life, death, and triumph of the Savior.  Through Him and in Him, we are fed with the strength-giving Sacrament of His very Body and Blood.

    Let’s think, for a minute, not just about ourselves as individuals, but as a parish, our beloved Saint Paul’s Church.  We have a vocation, a calling, to be the kind of Christian community which attracts others because in our fellowship, the command to love one another is seen and felt.  What I am saying is that the future of Saint Paul’s is not something which can be left only in the hands of Father Zadig, Father Fitzgerald, or any other priest.  It is up to all of us. For over a hundred years, this church has faithfully sought to be what a parish should be, a group of people who gather to worship God and to serve the wider community.  It has never been a very large parish or a wealthy one, but the number of people whose lives have been enriched through their contact with God and their service to others bears witness to the presence of God the Holy Spirit. 

      As we begin to look ahead, especially through the ministry of the Search Committee, nobody should think that the existence or the health of the parish depends on the presence of Father John or me.  God has richly blessed St. Paul’s through the years past, and will surely continue to do so in the years ahead. 

    Returning to the Collect for today, we asked God to grant that we might walk in the way of Christ. May that be so for each one of us, and also for this parish, that through us, others who now hear God’s commandments as impossible ideals, impractical rules, or impossible

goals, will come to know that, because Christ is the Way, the Truth and Life,  living as a Christian is a joy, not a burden. And when we fall and mess up, as we all do, God’s forgiveness picks us up, dusts us off, and says, “don’t give up – remember I love you!” 

   As the old Toyota commercial used to say, “Who could ask for anything more?”

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

This page last modified on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 07:03 PM