Tonight at Evensong we’ll be reading nearly the whole beautiful chapter of Revelation 21. We heard a snippet of it as our second lesson this morning: And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes."
 
That’s where we’re going, at least if we know and take seriously the Christian account of the universe. We are going to a place where heaven and earth will be married, where the wounds of this age will be healed by the mercy of the next, where love for every human being will be at home in every human being, where we no longer dread what we’re going to see when we turn to the day’s news because we and the world will have been made whole by Jesus Christ. If we know and take seriously the Christian account, that’s where we’re going.

The past few weeks have taken us through what we’re calling the Cycle of Gratitude. But while that’s the title of this year’s stewardship theme, the main point of the Cycle of Gratitude is that it is ongoing and never ceasing. We happen to be taking the time to notice it more this month, but it’s not in fact confined to a single season. The point is to sustain our attention to what is always the case, that is, what we say every week at the Offertory: that all things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.

​So far, we’ve meditated on this cycle as it pertains specifically to the people that we are grateful for in our lives, the things we take for granted, and even those hardships which we can now see as the source of growth. This week, the final week, we are turning to this parish to consider those things about Emmanuel itself, this particular space, this particular congregation, that cause us to give thanks to God for his good gifts. We’ve got purple slips this week, a color that represents the last color of paper available in the supply closet for me to chop up. And as with the previous weeks, I want you all to begin thinking through those things about Emmanuel Memorial which lift your hearts in thanksgiving. It could be something large-scale, such as our privilege to worship in a beautiful Gothic Revival sanctuary, a space that speaks to a lasting history inextricably tied to downtown Champaign. Maybe it’s our established liturgy that you know will always be here for you, even on those days when the most you can do is pray on auto-pilot. But it could also be that as you look around the room, what you see are the faces of a congregation without which you could not have made it through a hardship in your life.

Today, I want to talk about what baptism demands of the Church, as we’ll soon be baptizing little Rylie into the Body of Christ. But I also want to talk about the Gospel passage appointed for today, as is our responsibility every Sunday as preachers governed by a lectionary. We don’t get to pick the readings -- clearly, considering today’s Gospel -- but it is nevertheless our job to receive it with humility and sincerity and preach the truth contained therein. What does the Spirit have to tell us in this Gospel, for this situation in which we find ourselves as this particular parish? That was one of the main questions asked by one of the lecturers at the conference I attended last weekend in Dallas and it’s stuck with me since. Today is the momentous occasion of a baptism, and while our Gospel may not initially appear to harmonize with it, we’re going to dive in anyway! God’s truth always coheres in Scripture, so here we go!

After our meeting on Monday, a few of Emmanuel’s vestry members were talking about “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” the movie about Mister Rogers. I don’t know how many of you got to see it when it was at the Art Theater; but it is so moving to spend 90 minutes with the straightforward goodness of this man. I was a regular viewer of Mister Rogers Neighborhood growing up, and I always felt like he was talking right to me. I had no idea that he chose and emphasized the word “neighbor” because of the unique way it’s used in the Bible, but I liked very much the idea that he proactively was seeking me out to be his neighbor. “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you. Please won’t you be my neighbor.”
 
I even wrote Fred Rogers a fan letter, and he – or actually WQED-TV in Pittsburgh, I’m sure – mailed me back a postcard with his face and signature on it. Of course I was a little kid, and it went completely over my head that in addition to putting on a zippered cardigan and having a cute trolley, he was also dealing on a personal, compassionate child level with issues like racism and the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the Vietnam War. But I’m sure that the way Mister Rogers helped preschoolers feel valued and listened to in the middle of those tumultuous events had an effect on me without my knowing it. The movie goes behind the scenes: the low-budget studio, some outtakes, and interviews with the adults who worked with Fred Rogers talking about how this unassuming man just simply loved them for who they were, and how soaking up that compassionate individual attention still has effects in their lives.

After a brief summer break we are back into the gospel of Mark. Today’s passage occurs at the mid-point of this gospel. The first half of Mark contains the stories of Jesus using his marvelous gifts. He is a teacher and a healer and a worker of miracles. These are wonderful, amazing stories. This half of the book also describes the mounting tension between Jesus and the established religious leaders of the time. Then the second half of Mark is the story of the road to Jerusalem, Jesus’ passion and resurrection. In the first part Jesus is quite public with what he does and speaks to large crowds of people. In the second, Jesus speaks primarily to his closest followers to prepare them for the time when he will no longer be with them on this earth. Today’s reading is right in the middle of the two sections; it is the hinge or turning point that connects the two parts, finishing the focus of the first and moving ahead into the focus of the second.

Specifically there are three things going on in this particular passage. First is how Jesus is perceived by others, including the famous question answered by Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” The second is Jesus predicting his future passion and the third describes the life of a disciple as a paradox: those who want to save their life must lose it and those who lose their life for Jesus will find it.

​I want to take a closer look at the reading commenting briefly on three perspectives of it. The first is as one of the original disciples might have experienced it. The second is as someone in the community for which Mark wrote the gospel might have heard it and the third is as we hear it today. 

I got a number of questions last Sunday about the hangings and vestments we have up now. We use this set regularly in the fall here at Emmanuel, but it made me realize it’s been a couple of years since we talked about them and about the message they were created to embody, and in any parish a couple of years is a long time. So I thought I would tell the story again.
 
All this fabric art that adorns the space was given as a gift to Emmanuel and commissioned from the Sarum Group, the workshop of an artist from England named Jane Lemon. She came over and lived and prayed with us to learn who we were, and out of that came this set of vestments and hangings, which are meant to be an artistic statement of our vocation as a parish, a picture of Emmanuel’s unique call from God. She also made us a purple set for Lent, but I’ve never heard of another parish that has a set like this one, a piece of liturgical art that deliberately holds in front of us who we are meant to be and how to get there.
 
So let me unpack it a bit. Take a look at the altar – and if it’s too far for you to see well, there are postcard images of it in all the pews today as a gift to you. I’ll say more about that later, but for now let’s look at the art. As you can see, the life of God streams down from the tabernacle where we keep the Holy Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus among us. You notice the rays of Jesus’ power coming forth, glistening with bright life. Where do they land? They land on us, the people of Emmanuel, pictured as that field of wheat below. The art reminds us every time we look at it: For us, everything flows from Jesus and his presence; we have to start by drinking in that presence; to start anywhere else is to fail before we begin.
 
You also notice, though, that that divine life Jesus is pouring out to us has competition. The field is studded with red poppies, which Jane Lemon intended to be symbols of passivity and indifference. Christ is trying to share his love and power with all of us, but the field also has sleepy poppies who aren’t awake to it yet. Still, slowly, as Jane Lemon wrote in her artist’s statement, “The wheat overcomes the poppies.” Jesus gradually does his work.

Here we are about to wrap up Ephesians! Lots of you have commented that this time we’ve spent together on this epistle has been very meaningful. A couple have even told me this series was the deciding factor in their making it to Mass on a particular Sunday. It just goes to show that when we open up Scripture and pay specific attention to what the text says, people discover how powerful and useful it is. I’m telling you, the Bible is really worth your time.  We’re near the end of the Epistle today, with this famous section about what makes for spiritual strength. I do want to unpack this passage a bit, but I also want to give a quick recap of where we have been together.

You’ll remember that Ephesians is like most of Paul’s letters in that it falls into two major sections. The first is a section setting out in some way what God has done in Jesus Christ. Paul wants to get us situated up front in the truth of what has happened to us, who is the God who has done this, why he did it, and so on. What is true? What is reality? Paul starts with telling us or reminding us of things like that, because he knows all too well that most of us base the way we approach our lives on some other reality than Jesus. And when some other reality is the lens you’re using as you read, you won’t really be able to receive what the text is getting at. You’ll see it colored through some other lens and miss the point. Now, of course Paul lived 2000 years ago. The other lenses taken for granted in his day were things like the crushing power of empire, the availability of a smorgasbord of spiritual options, entrenched economic injustice, deep ethnic divisions – you know, all the usual stuff we’re still dealing with. So he starts by saying: No, remember, that’s not ultimate reality. What God has done in Christ is ultimate reality.  In Ephesians, that section is chapter 1-3, and we were there for three weeks.
 
And after Paul has made that point very clear, only then does he go on to say: Given that what God has done in Christ is ultimate reality, here’s how it looks when that reality works itself out in your life and your church and your neighborhood and your culture. Here’s what will be different if you – and we – live as if Christianity is real. And that’s the second half of the letter, chapter 4-6, and we’ve been here for three weeks too.

There are two more weeks, counting this one, in our journey together through Ephesians, and we’re continuing in the section that Deacon Chris two weeks ago called the Therefore: the second half of the letter. Everything in the first half, Ephesians 1-3, is trying to help us grasp the extent of God’s action Jesus and to begin to receive the benefits of his work. Everything in the second half, Ephesians 4-6, assumes that we have grasped what Jesus has done for us, have received it, and are now grounded in it as the root of our identity and the meaning of our lives, and then it says, “So, given that, now what?”
 
There’s always room to take in more of the first half, of how what Jesus has done grounds and defines you, of course – but Paul is assuming here in the second half that his readers are in Christ already and thus already have a new force motivating them and guiding them. So none of what Paul writes is general advice that you could just follow regardless of whether you are a disciple of Jesus or not. No, all the “therefore” sections of Paul’s letters are essentially a picture of what the life of Jesus looks like as it works its way out in those who are rooted in it, those in whom he dwells. Your roots are in Christ, his life is living in you, therefore….what does it look like?