Palm Sunday 2019 (Lent Series on the Liturgy – 5. The Sacrament of Mission)
Sermon preached by the Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan.
Over these weeks in Lent I will be offering 5 sermons based on the Liturgy – the weekly offering of the church in which God’s glory in Christ, and in us, is celebrated. This is the last in the series.
Each week the subject will be preceded by the word ‘sacrament’. I am using this word in its loosest sense because I do not want to confuse what we are doing with the 7 formally recognized Sacraments of the church. This ‘looseness’ of the word ‘sacrament’ I discovered recently when reading a book on the Eucharist by the great Orthodox theologian, Father Alexander Schmemann.
I am working with the basic meaning of ‘sacrament’, namely ‘the outward visible sign of a hidden invisible grace’. In other words, a mystery revealed.
To recap – in the first week we thought about the nature of the church focusing on the image of the ‘household’ and then into thinking about the Sacrament of the Gathering of the household of faith, and the immediate need for repentance, Kyrie eleison, followed by the outburst of Gloria (except in Lent and Advent). In week 2 we reflected on the Sacrament of the Word, balancing the word of God in scripture, and God in Christ as the Word made flesh. We considered the Sacrament of Prayer, looking at 5 points in the Liturgy when prayer is the task of the household of God. Last week we reflected on the Sacrament of Offering, ending with a quote from Dom Gregory Dix. (full text in previous sermon).
The Dom Gregory Dix quote from last week is a good starting point for us today as we think of the Sacrament of Mission. His was a reflection on the dominical words in the great Thanksgiving Prayer, ‘Do this in memory of me’. These words are recorded in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. The words constitute one of the two ‘great commands of Jesus’. Dix ends his reflection with the words, ‘Was ever another command so obeyed?’
The other ‘great command’ of our Lord is to be found at the end of St. Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 28, 19). In this he commands his followers to ‘go out’ to all the nations πάντα τά έθνη and to do to all peoples what he has done in the mystery of his death and resurrection, namely the creation of the household of faith. The household is created, not through birth right, so quite distinct from Judaism, but by baptism in the name of the divine Trinity. One bishop I once knew used to say that ‘you can be born in a garage, but it doesn’t make you a mechanic’. Christians are not born, they are adopted by the grace of baptism into the household of faith, and Our Lord clearly links baptism with that command to ‘Go out’.
So if, as I suggested last week, the Liturgy revolves around the great offering or anaphora, so the consequence of the Liturgy is to be found in the Sacrament of Mission.
When we read a good novel, we like to move through the plot, the text, the characters anticipating how the book may end, and sometimes we have worked it out for ourselves, other times we are surprised by the denouement. With the Liturgy we have to do quite the opposite.
The Liturgy requires us to look to the end first, to understand fully what the enterprise is all about. In our Anglican Liturgy we are bidden, often by the deacon if present, to ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’ or as an alternative ‘Go in the peace of Christ’. We are sent out.
In the Latin version of the Mass from which some details of our Liturgy derive, says Ite, missa est. In a prosaic translation this means simply, ‘go it is sent’. This got badly translated in the Roman church as ‘the Mass is ended; go in peace.’ In fact nothing could be further from the truth, for in many ways the mass, the Liturgy, is only beginning at this point, for the whole experiencing of the Liturgy is the equipping of the household of faith to witness, not inside a church building, but outside its four walls.
Christ’s people are sent to share with everyone else what has been experienced liturgically. The Liturgy is not some arcane and ethereal exercise that is disjointed from everyday life, but rather the celebration of that which is at the centre of our everyday lives.
Just recall what I said last week about the bringing forward of the bread and the wine. This is not some cultic ritual, but rather a powerful symbol that the earth brings forth, and human hands have made. So the offering is of our whole lives and of creation.
The household of faith is sent out at the end of the Liturgy to do its work in the world, and not just to work through the week sustained by what we have done on a Sunday, but to share faith, and to bring people to faith, and to be the salt and light of the world so that through us others may come to believe. It is in this that we keep the command to go out into the world and share our faith with all people, so that they too may be baptized and revel in the duty and the joy of the faith that has its greatest expression in ekklesia the church of Christ.
Mission is found in the action of God. Much could be said about this, so we will focus briefly on what happens in the 4th gospel, the gospel of St. John the Theologian. In St. John’s glorious prologue he writes of a man being sent from God. This man is John the Forerunner (the Baptist). His ministry is to witness to the true light that God was sending into the world his true Word – Jesus, the Christ. On the lips of our Lord St. John frequently speaks of how Jesus was ‘sent’. As the Father sent me, so I send you. The word used for this in the NT Greek is αποστέλλο – so St. John in his 4th gospel develops the theme of Jesus who is the apostolic Christ, the Word who has been sent into the world.
It follows therefore that the household of faith must also be apostolic if it is to be true and authentic to her Christ. We cannot be the body of Christ or even dare to make that claim, unless we are apostolic, missional members of the household.
We make the claim every time we recite a Creed. We state in the Credo that we believe in ‘one holy catholic and apostolic Church’. For many this use of apostolic will mean an essential and linear direct and unbroken line back the first followers of Christ – the 12 Apostles. This view is not to be dismissed. However to believe in an apostolic church, we have to believe in a church that is sent out to all nations and peoples and to baptize them into the mystical body, which is the household of faith.
Some might ask, but apart from being sent out to create more baptized people, what else is it that we are sent out to do? What does it mean to be the salt, and the light?
Briefly I would like to suggest 2 passages from scripture. One is beautiful but not very precise or detailed, the other is a bit more gritty, and probably not such a pleasant prospect.
First, we are with St. John and the 4th gospel again. Principally we are in Chapter 13. Our Lord, when they are gathered together in a room for a meal very near to Passover, and just before his arrest and crucifixion, picks up a towel, one that was probably already used for washing feet or hands on arrival at the dinner, and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. This is a sacramental moment, in which our Lord consecrates the humble service towards others as a key characteristic of being a follower. In the same chapter he gives his disciples the 11th Commandment. ‘Love one another’.
Secondly, in St. Matthew’s gospel our Lord tells a particular parable. It is too long a parable to quote in this sermon, but it is in the printed text. It is St. Matthew 25, 31-end.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
The shocking outcome of the parable is that unless we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, then we have not served the very Christ around whom our faith and our Liturgy revolve.
The Liturgy ends with the beginning. The Liturgy – the work, is about to begin when we hear the words of being sent out. The Liturgy is about to be interpreted in its real sense through what we do when we leave from here. The Liturgy is the proclamation of the work of the cosmic Christ, the Pantocrator, who has was sent into the world that every person may have life, and have it in abundance.
So as we end this series of sermons on the Liturgy, I would like to end with Isaiah’s great vision in the temple in Jerusalem:
(Isaiah 6, 1-8). In this the Great Prophet is in the temple – just as we are gathered in this holy temple; he recognizes his sinfulness before the Lord the Almighty – just as we have offered our repentance and re-formed our lives on reading scripture, and the hot coals touch our lips in a great cathartic act of forgiveness; he is surrounded by the glory of God in the waves of incense – just as we present our prayer, our offering of our lives in bread and wine; and at the end of this life-changing experience, the Lord God the Almighty, before whom the very pivots of the temple threshold shake, asks a simple question. ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for me?’ (vs 9). The prophet replies, ‘Here am I, send me’.
Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord. In the name of Christ. Amen.
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