The Rev. Carl Saxton- Participation

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Please be seated.
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So I have to start off by saying, admitting, maybe, confessing perhaps.
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I have struggled with these readings.
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My process usually goes like this.
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At the beginning of the period of time that I'm dealing with a sermon, I read the readings and I sort of let them soak in.
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Then I see what stands out.
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I try to pay attention to what the spirit is saying to me in the readings.
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And then if I need to, I go and I do some research.
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I'll read up on something a scholar has said, or I'll read something another preacher has said, you know, just to fill in the gaps, essentially.
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This time I had double the time than normal to prepare for this sermon because Jimmy was preaching last week.
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So I had two weeks to read these readings, and I thought it'll all come clear.
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It didn't come clear.
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I've struggled with them because this gospel reading is essentially the end of what biblical scholars call the discipleship dialogue?
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No, that's not the right word, but you know what I mean.
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And we've been hearing that for the last three weeks.
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So this is just the very end of that.
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It's like he's summing up what he's been saying for the last three weeks.
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And then in the Hebrew Bible reading, we get the binding of Isaac.
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And that's always a tough reading for me.
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And then there's Paul.
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You know how I feel about Paul.
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And Romans is probably the hardest for me of Paul.
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So I was having some trouble interacting with these readings over this last two weeks.
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But then I thought, okay, let's look and read a little something about what scholars have to say about this part of the gospel reading.
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And I was surprised to find out that these words that we take for granted in here probably meant something very different to the community for whom this gospel was written.
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Anyone who welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will get a prophet's reward.
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And anyone who welcomes a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive the reward of the righteous.
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When you and I hear prophet and righteous man, they're sort of generic.
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Maybe prophet harkens back to the Hebrew Bible for us.
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Picture Isaiah or Elijah in our minds.
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And a righteous man just seems like a good guy, right?
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But lots of scholars think that these two terms, prophet and a righteous man, are actually offices within the church of the Methian community.
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These are people who have standing recognition.
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They are carrying the message of God.
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And then that phrase, in the name of, anyone who welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet, could probably better be translated.
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Anyone who welcomes a prophet because they are a prophet will receive the reward of a prophet, prophet's reward.
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So what is Jesus exactly saying to his disciples and the people who are listening with these phrases?
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I think it's about participation.
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Now, maybe that word's gotten a bad rap the last few years.
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Too many participation awards.
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But I think what Jesus is saying to people is if you want to be part of this thing that God is doing in the world, then you have to be willing to participate in it.
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You have to be willing to step in and be part of it.
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Because the context of this, Jesus is standing with his disciples and a crowd of people.
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And he seems to be speaking to the crowd more than the disciples themselves at this point.
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Because that last line, anyone who even will give a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple will not lose their reward.
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Retranslate that in your head.
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Anyone who gives a cup of water to one of these little ones because they are a disciple will certainly not lose their reward.
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So I started thinking about this participation about being part of it, and went back, back to the reading about Abraham and Isaac.
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Now, this is a tough reading because we don't think of God as saying to people, take your son, your only son, to the top of a mountain and kill him.
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That's not the God that we often think about.
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And there's been lots of theology done around this, about Abraham's obedience, about the possible Christological foreshadowing of father and son here.
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And I've always read it from the point of view of Abraham, trying to imagine what Abraham must feel.
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Here is this child, the child who he has been promised since the moment he left Ur of the Chaldees by this same God who is now telling him to sacrifice.
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That's obedience, that's faith.
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But then I read it thinking about Isaac.
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We don't really know how old Isaac is in this story, but he apparently is used to going off to make sacrifice and worship the Lord with his father on various and sundry mountains.
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And when Abraham says, Come along, son, make sacrifice to the Lord, he goes.
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When they get to the mountain and Abraham lies, the puts the wood of the sacrifice on the shoulders of Isaac, we hear no complaint.
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As they make their way up the mountain, Isaac does ask a question.
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Father, here is the wood and here is the fire for the sacrifice, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?
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And Abraham says, Don't worry, God will provide.
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Isaac doesn't balk, he participates in what God has given him and his father to do.
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And then we win into Romans.
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And can you get which phrase stood out for me in the reading from Romans?
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Anybody?
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For the wages of sin is death, is always the sentence that stands out in that reading for me, because it seems so very harsh.
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And sure, Paul is talking about things eschatological, about the end of time, about the coming kingdom that will be, that those who live their life in sin will not get eternal life.
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But maybe he's talking about right here, right now.
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The prayer book defines in our catechism sin is defined as being so concerned with your own will over the will of God that it distorts your relationship with God, with others, and with all of creation.
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So living completely soaked in sin and being so concerned about what I want more than what God wants means that my relationships with everything, including the very creation, are broken.
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And that, my brothers and sisters, is not life.
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That looks a lot more like death.
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So maybe the wages of sin right now are a life that isn't life.
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I always think back to Jesus in the Gospel of John saying, I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
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Not just then, but now.
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Not over there, but here.
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Not for those people, but for everyone.
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Maybe that's what participating in the grace and love of God in our very lives means.
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It means living a life more human than dead.
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Because I am convinced that one of the things that Jesus came to show us is what we were supposed to be, how we were supposed to be, how life is supposed to look for you and for me.
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Filled with compassion and love and grace and light.
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That's the people we were made to be.
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Those are the humans we are supposed to be.
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And we can only do that if we actively participate in everything that God has for us to do and to be.