The 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 5B

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

June 10, 2018

St. Matthias

           I spent the past week at Camp McDowell with 110 middle school students.  It was great.  We had a blast.  We canoed on Clear Creek and took hikes to the cross and talked about how God loves us even in our awkwardness.  And let's face it, every middle schooler is awkward to some degree.  Most adults are too.  There was steal the flag, arts and crafts, and we even walked on water - in the swimming pool - one night during Compline.  We believe that was a first for Camp McDowell.  And we saw God throughout the week - in the faces of kids and counselors alike.  Did you know that if we are all created in the image of God, then God must look like all of us - like everyone in the world and more?  That’s what you think about when you go to Camp McDowell.

           And now that I am back I think I still am glowing with the joy of that week.  It is the same kind of feeling that stays with me through the week after Sunday worship at St. Matthias or Saturday’s when we share Beans and Rice or just about any other day when we do anything together to serve our Lord.  This is the peace that passes all understanding, the love that never ends, the light that shines in the darkness.  Call it by a thousand different names but IN all and WITH all we know that when we gather and we pray and we proclaim WE BELIEVE that God is here and a risen Savior calls us his own and the Holy Spirit fills us with God’s grace.  

           The Apostle Paul says in his second letter to the Christians at Corinth - Just as we have the same spirit of faith - we also believe and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also ... and will bring us into his presence.”  I used to think that this scripture and others like it were talking about what happens in Eternal Life and that this life is all about waiting.  Waiting for God to show up someday and take us all home to heaven.   And in the meantime, this life didn’t have very much to offer.  It was like the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot where the whole plot centers on 2 men waiting for someone named Godot who never arrives.  Do we spend our spiritual lives just hoping that Jesus will come?  But since then, I have seen Jesus.  In fact, I see Jesus everywhere I look - when I pay attention.  I specifically saw Jesus this week in a middle school student named Thomas.  Everybody liked Thomas.  He was taller than most, had a great smile and always looked like he was having a great time at whatever he was doing.  But what was most amazing about Thomas was that he shared his week at summer camp with everyone.  Thomas was the one who sat at the table with the shy 6th grader who looked maybe a little homesick. All the girls wanted to walk with Thomas from one place to the next and sit next to him in chapel and be his partner in the canoe.  And then you would see him walk with the girl whose beauty was clearly on the inside or ask the boy who didn’t have a partner if he could ride with him.  After a while of watching, it struck me.  This was what Paul was talking about when he said that God raises us up to His presence.  When we reach out to the person who could use a friend, when we feed the hungry, when we invite someone to ride in our canoe, then we are living in God’s presence and we will see Christ in others and we are raised into the presence of God.  

Paul tells the Corinthians that as Grace extends to more and more people then we see more and more the Glory of God.  This morning there are 15 or so of us here and we see the Glory of God in the fellowship we share.  What if there were 30 of us?  Would we not see even more  - the Glory of God.  We have gone from feeding 100 to 200 to now over 250 families with Beans and Rice and more and I can tell you that next Saturday morning we will see the Glory of God right here at St. Matthias.  The Christian life is so much more than sitting around waiting for God to do something.  God is already here and working and our challenge is to do more and more so that we begin to see our Savior in more and more people. 

           This is the work of the Daughters of the King.  Today we celebrate the commitment of new members of the DoK.  Throughout the world we see the cross of the Daughters as the outward and visible sign of God working through His Church to serve others.  Their Rule of Service is supported by the Rule of Prayer and together God’s grace is made real in our world. 

Prayer without work is empty words,

Service without prayer is labor lost.

And we are to join together with the Daughters in the work of the Kingdom.  We are to serve God by loving others and when we do, we will see always so clearly the Glory of God right here and right now.  We will be raised to God’s presence.  We cannot wait.  There is no need.  So sit with the lonely, pray for the sick, pay attention to the image of God in everyone you meet, and invite someone to sit in your canoe.  Amen.