A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, July 21, 2013.
"DISTRACTED, ANXIOUS AND TROUBLED”
Homily text: Luke 10: 38 – 42)
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”
These words of Jesus, spoken as Martha complains to the Lord about her sister, Mary, who sits at the Lord’s feet and listens to Him teach (while she goes about getting the evening meal together and on the table), could describe many – if not most – of the people living in our community and nation today….we are an anxious and troubled people. We are also distracted by many things, as the writer Neil Postman says so eloquently in his excellent book entitled, “Amusing ourselves to Death”. We have more ways to amuse and distract ourselves than any previous generation of human beings in history.
These two
sisters, Mary and Martha, set before us two ways of living and being: The one way seeks to focus on the Lord and on
His way and His teachings. The other way
calls us to deal with the everyday cares and chores of daily living.
Chances are
that most of us won’t completely escape living in what has been called a
“Martha world”,[1] as we
cope with the demands and the stresses of everyday living. Few of us would choose to enter a monastery
or a convent and devote ourselves to a life of prayer and study.
And yet, as
we come to terms with the fact that we will be dealing with everyday concerns
and problems, how can we manage to keep our focus on the foundational things of
God?
One very
effective answer is the Church.
The Church
exists to give a time away from everyday concerns and problems. The Church exists to allow us to sit at the
Lord’s feet (figuratively) and listen to His teachings. The Church offers us the opportunity to be
fed from the Lord’s table in the Holy Eucharist as we become one with the Lord
in this glorious Sacrament of the altar.
Let’s
explore some of the ways that the Church does all these things:
Everyday cares and problems are brought
into the Church on Sunday morning, and – along with our very selves – are laid
on the altar for God’s providence and God’s saving help to deal with. As the old language of the Prayer Book puts
it, “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and
bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee….”[2]
A holy space is created within the
Church, by means of its architecture, furnishings, stained glass, altar
furnishings, and the like. Secular
images and visible things that would remind us of worldly things have no place
in this sacred space. The stained glass
blocks out the world outside as the light from without brings to life the
sacred images that are in the stained glass.
The sanctuary lamp reminds us that the Lord is present under the forms
of bread and wine, which are reserved in the Tabernacle behind the altar.
We worship with our bodies as we honor
this sacred space by reverencing the altar with a genuflection or a solemn bow.[3] We kneel to confess our sins, we stand to
hear the gospel read, and to sing hymns.
We sit to hear instruction (as in the homily). We honor the Lord, therefore, by using our
bodies as worship instruments.
Our music is distinctly sacred in its
sound and in its texts. The traditional
hymns we sing are full of magnificent theology.
Singing them unites us with the saints who have gone before us, and who
now stand around the heavenly throne, singing their praises to God.
Silence forms much of what happens in
the liturgy. There are specific times
for silence, and some of these occasions are directed in the rubrics of the
Prayer Book.[4]
Our liturgical worship draws from a vast
storehouse of Christian worship, some of which comes to us from the 4th
century![5] The traditional language rites (known as Rite
I) preserve the 16th century forms that come to us from Archbishop
Cranmer’s pen and mind. The old language
rite brings to life the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
All of
these things are meant to allow what happens during our worship on Sunday
morning to inform and shape the remainder of our lives, Monday through
Saturday. There is no sense in which our
Sunday church experience is meant to be an escape from everyday challenges….on
the contrary, worshipping God is intended to equip us for living, day in and
day out.
At this
point, it’s worth mentioning that several spiritual disciplines will help to
sustain our Sunday morning worship experience as we make our way through the
week. We can strengthen our spiritual
life by: Having a regular life of
prayer, as we thank God for all of His blessings, and lay before Him our
concerns for ourselves and for others;
making it a habit to read the Bible;
praying the Daily Office (Morning and/or Evening Prayer) in the Prayer
Book; attending the educational
offerings of the Church; and using a
daily devotional.
Finally, many
of the things we value as Episcopal/Anglican Christians are exquisite gifts to
the remainder of the Christian family, and to the world:
We stand to
remind other Christians that the faith once delivered to the saints is an
ancient faith, and yet, it is contemporary to all the challenges and problems
of life today.
We stand to
remind other Christians that worship must not be confused with entertainment,
and that the forms and styles of the world cannot be applied to genuine
Christian worship without compromise.
We stand to
remind other Christians that the Church is built around the foundation of Jesus
Christ, and not on the cult of personality of a charismatic leader or pastor. As I am fond of saying, “One function of the
liturgy is to save the people from the priest!”
This statement is meant to be a humorous way of saying that the liturgy
will carry itself, and if done reasonably well, will tend to draw the
worshipper’s focus away from the individual (the Celebrant) and toward God.
We stand to
remind other Christians that formal, liturgical worship is not intended to be a
museum piece, but to state unequivocally that formal, liturgical worship
contains all the drama of the God who loved us so much that He sent His
only-begotten Son to take on our humanity.
May we
approach the sacred things of the Church to be enlightened, forgiven and
strengthened for daily living, knowing that everything we do is done in the
sight of God.
AMEN.
[1] This phrase comes from a book written by Joanna Weaver which is titled, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.
[2] From the Eucharistic Prayer in Rite I, page
336 in the The Book of Common Prayer, 1979.
[3] A solemn bow is a bow from the waist, and it
is equivalent to a genuflection. For
those for whom a genuflection is difficult to do, a solemn bow presents a good
alternative.
[4] The Book of Common Prayer Book, 1979 is the first one to
specify occasions when silence is to be kept.
This is an excellent addition to our liturgical life.
