Preached on Sunday, March 17, 2013 at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Lectionary text that this sermon is based on can be found by clicking here. You can listen to a recording of this sermon on the parish website by clicking here.
The etymologists disagree over the origins of our English word religion. The word
itself is from the Latin -- that much is agreed upon. Cicero believed that the
root of the word was the Latin word lego,
to read; so re-lego, religion, means
to read again, to go over again, to consider carefully. Modern language
scholars disagree. They feel that the root of the word is more likely to be ligare, to bind; so re-ligare means to rebind, to reconnect to
something in the past. Being Anglicans, we can accept both explanations;
because we reconnect constantly to the sacred, to the history of salvation by
rereading again and again our Scriptures when we gather as we do each Sunday.
And
in our Scripture readings today, we find faithful looking back to mighty deeds,
and other who look back and see only lose. We see people looking forward to
death, and what lies beyond death.
Our
reading from Isaiah recalls the past in very explicit terms. This part of
Isaiah believed to have been during the Babylonian captivity, when part of the
nation of Israel was held in captivity in Babylon in order to ensure the
compliance of the remainder of the remaining in Israel but nonetheless captive
to the will of their Babylonian persecutors.
The
Prophet Isaiah reminds the people that their God is the one who brought them
out of captivity in Egypt, and he recalls the very circumstances of that
rescue. It was then, during that mighty deliverance, that the God of Israel
made ‘a path in the mighty waters’ that trapped ‘chariot and horse, army and
warrior’. Isaiah then says, ‘But do not consider the things of old, for God is
about to do new things’. And funnily enough, those new things are quite a lot
like the old things. Rivers and water to drink in the desert, just as in the
Exodus. Drink for the chosen people will be provided so that they might once
again sing the praises of their God, as they first did on the far shore of the
Red Sea led by Miriam, the sister of Moses.
Of
course, the deliverance that Isaiah was predicting was the deliverance and
return of the Babylonian captives. Though he tells us not to look back, he
makes us look back to the mighty works of redemption and release, of liberty
and deliverance that God has done in the past, and he calls us to remember, and
to know, and to believe that such will be our lot again in the future.
And
there is the Apostle Paul. In this morning’s passage from Philippians, Paul
looks back and finds quite a bit to be perhaps a bit proud of. He is -- or was
-- a member of the tribe of Benjamin, of the nation of Israel, born under the
law and blameless under the law. But all of that is now gone; “I have suffered
the loss of all things” says Paul. And we know from his letters, than in his
ministry, Paul has known harassment, captivity, thorn-in-the-flesh suffering,
and eventually, a martyr’s death.
Paul
discounts all that he once may have had, and similarly, he also discounts all
that he may has suffered. For Paul knows that no matter the glories of the past
days or the trials of the past, the eternal life that is to come will outshine
them all. He proclaimed to the Philippians, “I want to share in the sufferings
of Christ, by becoming like him in his death, if it means that somehow I might
attain the resurrection from the dead.”
Whether
we look back into the past like Isaiah and see mighty works of God or whether
we look back like Paul and see loses and suffering, we often find it hard to
let go of the past.
When
we get older, and are perhaps a bit less able than we used to be, we look back
and remind ourselves, and take the opportunity to remind others, of the
prominence and power and prestige that was once afforded us. And then we lament
the decline that lies ahead with dispair.
Or
sometimes we look back and see all our hurts and sufferings and loses, and they
too, can exercise a claim on us, so that we continue to see ourselves as
wounded victims; for years and years, long after the wounds have healed and the
hurt places have scarred over, becoming tougher than could have been otherwise.
Sometimes
in our relationships, we look back at the heady days of first love and then we
come to rue the routine, predictable patterns we’ve fallen into, forgetting all
the uncertainty and nervousness of those first days of love, and in turn
discounting the value of the surety and trust that comes only with, well, with
predictability and forbearance.
Sometimes
parishes look back and see only days of brimming budgets and crowded churches, fully
subscribed Sunday Schools, nightly programs of theological edification and
spiritual power; and they find in the past only the most benevolent priests who
never made a pastoral mistake or penned a boring sermon. And with such a storied,
glorious past, those faithful people look forward and see what can only be
decline and more decline from all that once was in the past…
But
whether we look back and see, as Isaiah does, great deeds done for us by our
Lord God. Or we look back and see, like Paul, all that we have lost, and all
that we have suffered; nonetheless our God calls us forward.
And
as in the past we can expect some hardship, some trials, some disappointment.
Our
gospel reading this morning looks forward to just such a future of trial and
hardship. Today’s reading from the Gospel of John is, in essence, a great
foreshadowing of the Passion of Christ. Jesus is in Bethany with his friends
Mary, Martha and the newly resurrected Lazarus. And at a dinner there, Mary
anoints the feet of Christ with some very fragrant, very costly perfume. So
pungent it is, and so much of it, that it fills the house with its fragrance.
This kind of anointing has a clear referent, it connotes a particular context,
that of death. It recalls the Jewish practice of preparing the body for burial
by cleansing it, and anointing it with spices and ointments. Mary’s kindly,
comforting act in our gospel reading is meant to foreshadow the death and
burial that Jesus will soon undergo.
But
like the Apostle Paul, we can look back through disappointment, and then forward
through even death with confidence and hope and joy. For we know what the
ultimate future holds, what eternity holds. And we can, like Paul forget what
lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal,
for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
Whether
we look back at a past perfect, or a past imperfect, in faith we can all look
forward to a future that will be made perfect in the one who was suffered as we
do, even unto death, so that we might know mercy, redemption and eternal life. +Amen.
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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