April 14th, 2024

Prayer before the Sermon:
Lord, you have promised that when two or three gather in your name you will be present with them. We depend on that promise today and pray that you will move among us. Lord, we pray that you have inspired Mike's preparation, that you will enliven his presentation, and that you will empower our application. Amen

Sermon:
Good morning. It is good to back with you. Again, I want to thank Paul, and everyone else, who stepped up to make sure worship happened last Sunday.

One of the things that I really appreciate about our Episcopal/Anglican tradition is that we have ways of making sure that things continue to flow and operate. This is one of the great examples of the kind of church we are.

I am very glad that the Episcopal Church is firmly grounded in the concept and the idea that we are made up of a community. That community operates in the belief that we are all members of the "priesthood of believers."

Now, there are certain things that I get to do as a Priest, but the community of Christ Church is based in the understanding that we all have a role to play, because we all have a relationship with the creator God.

We all come to worship, and we are all actively engaging our faith and our belief. This is not a spectator religion, where one person does it all, and everyone else watches. We come and bring our faith and our belief to bear as we join in worship together. As we worship we believe we draw each other into a deeper experience of faith and spirituality.

As I was thinking about all of that I was particularly struck by the words in our Collect this morning: "Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work"

I don't know about you, but I am intrigued by those words: "open the eyes of our faith." It is one of those phrases we come across in our liturgy that should make us pause and consider. Kind of like another we heard recently "bending the knees of our heart."

Those phrases are beautifully poetic, but I have to think there is more to it than poetic imagery. It got me thinking what it could mean in a practical, usable way?

I took some time and considered that phrase and how it might connect to my everyday life. How can I take this imagery and apply it in a way that when I leave today I will have something I can apply and practice every day?

What I came up with works for me and perhaps it might work for you. What the Collect makes me think of is what happens when we sleep.

Most of us sleep with our eyes closed. Now I know that are some rare individuals who sleep with their eyes open, but most of us close our eyes when we sleep. All of our capacities and abilities as human beings are still there but they are dormant while we sleep. Our automatic responses are in place and we go through a period of time where our body responds and reacts without us being involved. We breathe, we move, we carry on some pretty effective body functions without us even doing anything.

When we awaken we open our eyes and we begin to use all of our capacities and abilities again.
I hope I haven't lost you. What I want to ask, or suggest this morning, is do you think it is possible to have that happen with our faith? Is it possible in some way for us to have faith but for us to be asleep spiritually? When we read the words of the Collect the morning are we being asked to awaken our faith?

"Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work." It seems to me that what that phrase means is that it may be possible to have faith, but perhaps it is a dormant or sleeping faith.

I feel like the words from the Collect this morning are like a wakeup call. A call to not just do things automatically with our eyes spiritually closed, as though we may be asleep. It is a challenge to not just see God in some parts of our lives, but to allow ourselves to see him, in every part of our lives. To open our eyes. To wake up. That "we may behold him in all his redeeming work" in every aspect of our lives.

I have to acknowledge that my thinking has been very influenced by my participating in our Celtic Morning Prayer Service on Wednesday. It is our practice, at that service, to read about whoever is designated as the Saint for the particular day. We take the time to read the background of the Saint and the Collect for that Feast Day from the Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

On this past Wednesday, April 10, we celebrated the Feast Day of William Law, who was a Priest in the Church of England. He died at Kings Cliffe on April 9th, 1761. This was an "interesting" time in English politics and the English church.

Now, all this happened about 300 years ago, so we might be a bit fuzzy on our English history. A quick synopsis: on August 1, 1714, England's Queen Anne died. Anne was the last Stuart monarch. As a result, the German Elector George Louis of Hanover was proclaimed king of Great Britain. The House of Hanover, as it was known, began with George I and ended with Queen Victoria in 1901.
Priests, in the Church of England, at the time had to swear allegiance to the King or Queen. Those who did not were known as a non-juror and they lost their income which was paid by the church.

The Collect for the Feast Day on Wednesday says:
"Almighty God, whose servant William Law taught us to hear and follow your call to a holy life, grant that we, loving you above all things and in all things, may seek your purpose and shape our actions to your will, that we may grow in all virtue and be diligent in prayer all the days of our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory now and forever." Amen.

William Law wrote a book entitled: "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life."
In it one of the things he said and is often know for is this:
“If we are to follow Christ, it must be in our common way of spending every day. If we are to live unto God at any time or in any place, we are to live unto him in all times and in all places. If we are to use anything as the gift of God, we are to use everything as his gift.”

The recorded history, in the Book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, says this about Law:
This quiet schoolmaster of Putney, England could hardly be considered a revolutionary, yet his book had near-revolutionary repercussions. His challenge to take Christian living very seriously received more enthusiastic response than he could ever have imagined, especially in the lives of Henry Venn, George Whitefield, and John Wesley, all of whom he strongly influenced. More than any other man, William Law laid the foundation for the religious revival of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Movement in England, and the Great Awakening in America.

Law came to typify the devout priest in the eyes of many. His life was characterized by simplicity, devotion, and works of charity.

Because he was a Non-juror, who refused to swear allegiance to the House of Hanover, he was deprived of the usual means of making a living as a clergyman in the Church of England.
He therefore worked as a tutor to the father of Edward Gibbon, the historian, from 1727 to 1737.
Law also organized schools and homes for the poor. He stoutly defended the sacraments and scriptures against attacks by the Deists, and he spoke out eloquently against the warfare of his day.

His richly inspired sermons and writings have gained him a permanent place in Christian literature.
I have to say that I found what is said about Law and his approach to his faith and life very inspiring. Especially when we know that his writing impacted the lives of other men that we remember for their faith and spiritual standing. George Whitefield, and John Wesley.
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It is particularly challenging when you think about his stance against the Deists of his time.
Just to remind you: a deist is someone who believes in  single god who created the world but does not act to influence events.

It is very clear that Law saw the need to interact with God as an essential part of his faith and beliefs. It is also clear that he was convinced of God's activity and influence in the lives of his created beings.
I would suggest that Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke 24, which we read this morning makes it abundantly clear that God has chosen to interact and intervene in the events of the world he created. In sending Jesus he is showing his ongoing loving and care for humanity.

"Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

May we pray this day that the words of the Collect for today would come to life for us and that we too could say: "Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work."

Or perhaps we could prayer that we, like the disciples, would know what Luke means when he writes: "Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures" and "that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."
​As witnesses we get to speak about what we see or what we have seen. Are we awake this morning or are we asleep walking through our faith?

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