Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:4-13
Matthew 22:1-14
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“O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, For in perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, Things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1 |
Good morning!
I want to begin this morning with a word of thanks to Sister Pat Gillespie and to you for this opportunity to preach at this most important event in your lives and in the life of this parish, and in the lives of Rob Cavanna and Randy Welsand. What a privilege and a joy this is to be included in your service today.
More especially, I want to thank you for YOUR involvement in MY life and my recent healing: I am Roger Phillip’s brother-in-law and a recently retired priest of the Diocese of Texas.
A year ago, I was just beginning an aggressive chemotherapy prodigal combating multiple myeloma: bone cancer. At that time you began praying for my healing. And we believe - and I declare to you in great humility and thankfulness - The Lord has healed me! Your and our prayers have been answered and I am delivered from bone cancer! Alleluia!
IT WORKED! Thank you for your contribution in those prayers.
Knowing that so many people across this wonderful land - people like you - people I had never met - were praying faithfully for me is a wonderful encouragement and a great comfort.
And in the broader sense of faith, not just from the perspective of the recipient, but from that of an active intercessor for many others, to say to you as a eye witness that “Prayer Works!” is a great joy to me and should be a great word of encouragement to you. It is a miracle!
And speaking of which, let’s hurry along so that we can observe yet another miracle. Rob/Randy is sort of sitting on pins and needles waiting for me to conclude this sermon which I’ll bet you is going to go in one ear and out the other. The reason being that he is about to be the celebrant in another miracle - the changing of ordinary bread and ordinary wine into the real presence of Christ - the body and blood of Jesus. And we’re going to watch him do it … if it works.
(Now I have his attention!)
The scriptures in general have always been a comfort, but the readings for today are particularly comforting:
Isaiah 25:1
“O Lord you are my God;
I shall exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
You have done marvelous things,
things planned long ago.”
Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through him who gives me strength.”
Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
But the passage from Matthew somehow seems out of joint with the rest: It’s the parable of the Wedding Banquet that Jesus taught when he was right in the middle of his confrontation with the Pharisees and chief priests.
The parable is about a king who invites folks to his palace for a wedding banquet but nobody comes. In fact they abuse and even kill the servants who bring their invitation. The king sends his army out and smashes the offending and unworthy guests and then tells other servants to go out onto the street corners and gather up whoever they find and bring them to the palace for the banquet. Later, as the king mingles with the guests, he spies someone who isn’t attired in a wedding garment. He asks the man how he got into the place with no wedding garment, and the man is speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Now the commentaries tell us that presumably the king has not only brought folks in off the streets, but has provided them with proper attire. But apparently, this fellow is just doing his own thing; perhaps making a casual fashion statement when the king spots him and says, “THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK! Out you go!”
So, Randy/ Rob - you’re about to celebrate your first Eucharist in a regular church service - decently and in good order - with appropriate words and manual acts - you are going to call upon the Lord to change the common elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. And I am wondering if you have - or if anyone in this congregation has ever wondered, “IS IT GOING TO WORK?”
Quite frankly, I asked myself that question when I prepared to celebrate the Eucharist for the first time.
I did the expected sort of reading and re-reading of the liturgy, especially the rubrics, fearful that I would skip something I shouldn’t, or include something I should have on that occasion omitted. I was sure the “rubrics police” would get me for some act of negligence.
I even practiced the manual acts, having been woefully undertrained in such matters at Virginia Theological Seminary -where even the elevation of the Sacrament was considered “high”.
At Virginia there was no genuflection, no crossing, no incense, no sanctus bells, no nothing! I had to take a quick course in knot tying in order to put on my rope cincture!
So I practiced - I even got caught by my wife Amy in front of the mirror as I practiced making the sign of the cross!
I wanted my first celebration to LOOK RIGHT - to SOUND RIGHT - to BE RIGHT! I wanted it TO WORK when I celebrated.
Since then I’ve wondered if others ever questioned if what they were doing was going to work.
It’s not recorded in Scripture, but,
Did any of them wonder, “Is what I ask God to do going to work?”
So, Randy/Rob, is this going to work? Will these elements become the Body and Blood of Jesus because you have prepared yourself?
No, you know yourself, just as I and all other priests know themselves, to be unworthy vessels ; we can never be perfect enough to be worthy of this wonderful privilege. And thankfully, fifteen hundred years or so ago the Church decided that the efficacy of the sacrament is not dependent upon the sanctity of the celebrant.
Well then, is the form important?
This passage from Matthew would seem to indicate that conformance does have its place.
These people are brought into the wedding feast - the good and the bad - anyone who could be found. They were gathered from off the street corners - and they came as they were. And presumably they were provided with appropriate festal attire. But one fellow doesn’t put on his “glad rags” and does his own thing in the duds he came in with. The host is incensed - had him bound up and tossed out. Conformity does seem to matter.
So, Rob/Randy, is this going to work? We can see you are attired appropriately. We will watch your actions and follow your words. I am sure you will have the liturgy and the form correct…but will it work?
Now I have to tell you that you are going to make some big mistakes doing this consecration thing…if not today, then sometime. Sometimes everything will go wrong.
My friend Father Nick Dyke, St. Andrew’s Bryan, was once celebrating as a guest in a congregation that used a light sherry for communion wine. In the rather dimly lit sanctuary, everything looked fine as he poured wine out of the ewer into the large gold lined chalice. He added a spritz of water and proceeded with the consecration. But when he went to communicate himself and took a sip from the chalice, he realized that there was nothing in it but water! He figured that the acolyte had mistakenly handed him the same water ewer twice. So, he called a “time out” and instructed the acolyte to go pour the water out and to start over.
This time Father Nick made sure that the ewer marked with V filled the chalice and that the ewer marked with the A followed it. And he started the consecration over again. But again, when he communicated himself, he encountered nothing but water! He thought, “Oh my gosh! I’ve performed a reverse miracle! I’ve changed wine into water!” Seems the real culprit was the altar guild lady who couldn’t tell sherry from water in the gold lined vessels. Nick had the acolyte go into the sacristy and bring out the bottle of wine so he could pour it for himself! Did it work? Eventually, but the congregation hadn’t a clue as to why they had to watch something done three times!
So while technical preparation is good, and form is important, what about your faith? Is that important in the working of this miracle? Jesus said: “I tell you the truth. If anyone says to this mountain ‘go throw yourself into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it , and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:)
So it’s the faith of the celebrant coupled with form that makes it work?
I don’t think that’s it, either. Jesus never had trouble with faith or form, but look again in Mark at what happened when Jesus went to his hometown and preached. The people there knew him, his siblings, and his mother and father. They asked: “Where does this man get all these things?” “What’s this wisdom that has been given to him that he even does miracles?” And they took offense at him. (Mark 6:)
Jesus said to his disciples: “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” And he could do no miracles there except lay his hands upon a few sick people and heal them. AND HE WAS AMAZED AT THEIR LACK OF FAITH. So, it’s the faith of the recipient that makes it work?
No, remember that Jesus instituted the sacrament of His body and blood before the crucifixion - the elements became what He proclaimed them to be long before his disciples understood or had faith in what He had done.
No it can’t be the faith of the recipient that’s operative, for ours is too transient, too shallow, and too imperfect. We’re sinners.
No, it won’t work if we are dependent upon the faith of the celebrant - he’s a sinner, too. Or the form he uses, for it’s flawed by man’s influence, and he’s going to mess it up anyway.
No, it works only when we acknowledge that faithfulness of the God who meets us in all our imperfection with his perfect faithfulness. As Isaiah said, “for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things things planned long ago.”
That’s called “prevenient grace” - that love and power of God that precedes all that we think we prepare for. It’s that power of the Holy Spirit that prepares our hearts and minds Who draws exactly who He intends to be present Who provides the celebrant the preacher the congregation with His faithful Word and Sacrament prepared long ago.
Randy/ Ron, I know God planned this moment long ago. I know you have prepared for this moment by study and much prayer, and the Bishop has set you aside for sacramental ministry.
Are you ready? Is this going to work?
Before I ask the congregation the same question, let me first ask each person here if you are prepared to meet the Lord Jesus at His table.
Will you all please close your eyes and bow your heads and answer these questions silently?
Then I would ask you in the congregation, are you ready? Is this going to work?
Let me close with a story told by the Russian author Alexander Solzenitzen, about a Eucharist he attended while a prisoner in the Gulag. On that occasion, in that terribly cold, dank and barren prison, an Orthodox priest who had been sentenced to that camp years before, conducted the entire service entirely from memory. Without any vestments, any Bible, any written liturgy, any vessels, or any elements, the old priest conducted the service with all the words and manual acts of a service held in the most ornate of churches. And though the eye of man could perceive nothing in his hands, he fractured bread and elevated an unseen chalice and paten and then knelt at an unseen altar. The priest turned and declared to them all, “The body of Christ! The blood of Christ!” Solzenitzen said he watched the tears of joy on the faces of the faithful who held out scarred and grimy hands to receive what only the eyes of faith could see, and sip from an unseen chalice what only the soul could taste.
Solzenitzen says that there was no bread or wine to be changed into the body and blood of Jesus, that day, and yet a miracle did occur. What he experienced in that Eucharist was a changing point in his life.
It’s still changing lives. Because it works!