Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you. Amen.
Today’s opening collect is a particularly wonderful one. Like all collects, it gathers together – it collects – our prayers and concerns as a people; like all collects of the day, it leads us into worship and connects in some way with the day’s lectionary readings.
And today’s collect borrows from the language of architecture as much as it does from the language of theology – it speaks of the Church’s ancient foundation, built on the teachings of the prophets and apostles, and of the life of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of a holy temple.
There is an agelessness, a profoundness, in the language of architecture, and in the art of architecture – its strength, the beauty of the spaces it creates, and especially the strength and beauty of places of worship, from grand cathedrals and mosques to tiny country churches. We are this morning surrounded by the beauty of Trinity Church, this inspiring space where we move and sing and pray and give thanks in, by its stained glass windows, wood floors and pews, organ pipes, tall columns and beams that stretch across the ceiling, these two chapel sanctuaries on either side of the main altar.
But today’s collect, while it borrows from the language of architecture, does not borrow from the same building materials. Instead of imagining a church built of brick and wood, stained glass and organ pipes, the collect imagines a church that is built of us, resting on a foundation not rock, but of the words of the prophets and apostles, on the cornerstone of the life of Jesus Christ. Let’s listen to those words again:
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you.
Today we celebrate three baptisms, and today’s collect and the readings following it seem particularly appropriate on the day we welcome beloved children of God into the church. These readings give us images, ways of thinking about this life of faith that we have been baptized into, or are about to be baptized into, or perhaps are contemplating being baptized into, starting with that idea of a different kind of architecture, of building – a church made up of God’s faithful people. And the idea that if we are the raw materials that make up the church – not wood, not glass, not brick – if people are the building blocks of the church, then the church is not a church that stands still. It is a church that acts, and lives, and loves, and celebrates – a church that teaches, and travels, and heals, and baptizes.
And today’s Gospel reading tells the story of a church that isn’t standing still. Jesus and his disciples, that earliest church, are on the road, turned toward Jerusalem, traveling through Samaria, and not likely to find friends there – and in fact the Samaritans do not offer a warm welcome. James and John are angry and ask Jesus if they should call down fire on the Samaritans. Jesus tells them, no…and he keeps going. He has work to do, they have work to do, a city to get to – and Jesus’ mission is not about vengeance but about forgiveness. Instead of judging the Samaritans for their inhospitality, he keeps traveling down the road with his companions, and as he meets others along the way, he invites them along – “follow me,” he says. His instructions are a little extreme. To the son who wants to bury his father first, Jesus says, “Let the dead bury the dead, and come with me.” To the one who wants to say goodbye to his family, Jesus says, “Do not turn back, or you are not fit for the kingdom.” These are hard instructions and seem extreme. Drop your responsibilities to follow a man you just met who’s a bit notorious and possibly blasphemous, without even letting your mother know where you’re going? Ignore your responsibilities to go preach a strange new message of love and peace to faraway towns that might persecute you in return? Let go of everything you treasure on this earth to follow a path whose end you can’t predict?
What Jesus is saying is that more important than anything else is this way of love, this call to a new way of living that is grounded in love, not prejudice – in grace, not conflict. It may not mean we quit our jobs to wander from town to town preaching the Gospel, but it does mean that we put Christ’s teachings first in our lives.
Paul writes in today’s reading from Galatians: “The whole law is summed up in a single commandment – ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
And Paul takes it one startling step further: Through love you shall become slaves to one another.
Other translations soften this language a bit.
The Common English Bible reads: “Serve one another humbly in love.”
The King James reads: “By love serve one another.”
And if you go back to the 14th century, the Wycliffe Bible puts it this way, which I like a lot: “By charity of Spirit, serve ye together.”
Follow me, Jesus says, inviting us into a church that does not stay still, that serves together in love. Follow me, Jesus says, on a journey with fellow travelers who carry love and reconciliation, justice and peace into the world. Follow me on a road that may surprise you.
We are invited on this journey at baptism, and every time we renew our baptismal vows, and every Sunday we gather at the table to remember Christ’s journey on the Samaritan road 2,000 years ago. We are invited into a church that acts, and lives, and loves, and celebrates, that teaches, and travels, and heals, carrying with us and practicing those fruits of the spirit. We are invited, in the words of our baptismal covenant, to strive for justice and peace, to respect the dignity of every human being – invited to serve one another and serve with one another, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, for we are first loved by Christ.
Amen.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Third Sunday After Pentecost, Year C, June 26, 2022
Readings: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1,13-25; Luke 9:51-62
