As I was preparing for this morning and looking at the liturgy
and how what I wanted to say in the sermon
linked in and overlapped with the liturgy itself,
I decided to do something different
and change the order of things this morning.
I’m putting the sermon first.
First, the rubric for the placement of the sermon within the Office
allows options, one of which is outside the Office, usually after,
but I want to begin with the sermon today
in order to set the stage for the message
that the readings and canticles and prayers will bring us,
and this is especially important for us here and now
with all that each one of us is dealing with.
So I will now begin with the sermon.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
During my vacation I got in touch with how weary I felt.
It wasn’t just being tired.
not tired from working too many hours
or too much physical exertion
or the lethargy from sleeping in and doing nothing.
Rather I have felt weary,
weary from change, from uncertainty, from fear and anxiety,
from grief, from knowing that things just won’t be the same.
I think a lot of us are experiencing this different kind of exhaustion
that doesn’t come from doing too much or too little
but comes from all these changes and adjustments and uncertainty
that require new ways of living, being, doing, coping.
Each of you can name for yourself what is making you weary.
Go ahead. Get in touch with that right now.
What is weighing you down?
And it’s not just one thing but layer on layer,
pandemic, climate, economy, civil unrest,
not being able to be together at church, with friends,
with family members even.
Weary even from caring for others: spouse, parent, child,
because we often do that better for them than we do for ourselves.
We need to hold ourselves with compassion in all of this.
There are two ways of responding to all this.
One is to lament, and that is a good biblical response.
So many of the Psalms, for instance, are laments.
We can pour out our grief to God, complain to God even,
and, understand this,
those biblical laments also include the element of hope.
Lament – grieving and hoping.
The other way of responding is the temper tantrum,
where the anger and frustration boils over.
How many temper tantrums have we seen lately through the media,
behavior in public of grown adults quite reminiscent of two year olds.
The temper tantrum happens when the lament has not been acknowledged,
whether that acknowledgement is sought from others
or hasn’t been brought to consciousness and acknowledged in the self.
So let’s look at the liturgy of Morning Prayer for today
and see where the words are that can touch us
and help us be with ourselves,
where we can lament and find hope,
where we can be enabled to be compassionate,
and how all this can bring us home to God,
where we can climb into God’s lap for a loving embrace
and hear God’s sweet whispers in the ear.
We begin with the Confession of Sin,
this one from Enriching Our Worship, the prayer book supplement.
God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you,
opposing your will in our lives –
this is a universal and mutually shared fault.
We have denied your goodness in each other
- every time we divide ourselves into them and us -
We have denied your goodness in ourselves
- every time we have shut down compassion within us -
And we have denied your goodness in the world you have created.
We repent of the evil that enslaves us,
the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.
It’s out of our control. We are caught up in a helpless situation
where even while trying to resist evil
we see all around us ways
in which we unwittingly participate to our own benefit.
So we need to get that out in the open and into awareness
so that we can let go of it and be healed
be reconciled with God and self and others.
Then on page 7 there is a new Canticle: a song of God’s strength in mercy.
After our lament, these are words of comfort and hope.
Your care, O God, encompasses all creation!
… your dominion makes way for your mercy …
Although you rule in boundless power,
you administer justice with mildness;
you govern us with great forbearance …
You have taught your people …
that all who would be righteous must be kind.
You have filled your children with good hope
by stirring them to repent for their sins.
And then notice, please, how this canticle flows seamlessly
into the next reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome.
Here is balm for our sin-sickness, here is the prescription:
Let love be genuine – the passage begins – Let love be genuine.
Let love be authentic.
And how do we discern what is genuine, what is authentic?
Read on in the passage:
Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another;
do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;
do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, inasmuch as it lies within you, live peaceably with all.
And the passage goes on.
There it all is – a whole plan of action, a moral standard, a Christian life style.
You should tear out this page from the liturgy booklet
and take it home and put it on the refrigerator door
or tape it to the bathroom mirror
or on the inside of the front door so that every time you go out
you can see these words and remember to take them with you
in your behavior, your action, your praxis.
Let love be genuine,
and then everything else that follows in Romans 12 will be possible.
Because love that is genuine comes as a gift from Jesus
to enable us for effective discipleship.
“We love, because God first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
That’s one of those Bible verses everyone should memorize.
It is because of that love with which God first loved us
that we can be able to take up the cross,
deny the old self so overwhelmed and prone to temper tantrums
and follow Jesus.
Keep that in mind as we come to the prayers on pages 14 and 15 especially.
That beautiful prayer #61 A Prayer of Self-Dedication
and perhaps we can actually pray that prayer with an open heart.
And follow that up with the prayer attributed to St. Francis.
Now let me conclude this displaced sermon
with a reference to the Exodus passage.
Within this familiar story of Moses and the burning bush
is a profound secret about who God is and what God’s Name is.
God says to Moses:
Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “IAM has sent me to you.”
Tell them, “I AM,” that’s all the Name they need.
In fact, not even a name, but simply put, “I AM,” Life, being, consciousness.
In Hebrew it is the word Eh Yeh, the sound of breath.
Breathe in Eh, breathe out Yeh. The sound of breath. Eh Yeh.
That is how close and how intimate God is with you,
for your very breath is what God breathed into you
in the moment of your birth
And it’s never gone away, never left. So keep breathing – Eh Yeh –
and God will carry you through.
Let us now begin our worship.
