The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Fr. Robinson)

     A new Abbott arrived at a monastery and the monks’ first introduction to him was at Morning Prayer.  The first words they heard from him were chanted, “Good morning.”  So the monks chanted back, “Good morning.”

     The next day, once again they gathered for Morning Prayer, and the Abbott sang, “Good Morning,” and they all chanted back, “Good Morning.”  This went on all week, then on Friday morning, after he greeted them with, Good Morning,“ and all of the monks chanted back, “Good morning,“ one monk way in the back of the chapel sang, “Good evening.”

     There was an awful, tense, silence.  Finally, the Abbott broke the silence by chanting, “Someone chanted evening.“

     When your new Rector arrives, I recommend singing only the expected responses!


“Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” 

     In every parish with which I’ve been associated, those parishes have been filled with hard-working people, “movers and shakers,” people who have lots of “irons in the fire.“  I’ve moved primarily in church circles for so long that I don’t know if I can generalize to the extent that I can say all people are like this, but many of the people I know are busy people, people who do know what work is about.  But what kind of work is it?  Does that work have a clear direction and goal?  Is that work for that which ultimately has meaning or not?

     One of my favorite characters in literature is Sherlock Holmes, and if there’s one characteristic that impresses me most about Sherlock Holmes, it is his determination in solving a mystery.

     In one story, Holmes has a serious illness. He lay dying on his bed for three days. He’d not had anything to eat or drink.  He charged his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, not to call a doctor, not even Dr. Watson.  But on that third day, it was obvious to Mrs. Hudson that Sherlock Holmes was not long for this world.  So she told him that with or without his consent, she was going to call in a doctor.  Holmes weakly responded that if she was going to call a doctor, at least she should call Dr. Watson.

     When Watson arrived, he found that Holmes had diagnosed his own disease and that it was a rare eastern disease that only one man in London knew anything about. He told Watson to go to this man and beg him to come and help him.  Watson did as he was told, making sure he followed Holmes’s instructions not to get near him, so as not to catch the deadly disease, and fetched the expert.

     After hearing how ill Holmes was, the expert, Mr. Culverton Smith, went to see him without hesitation.  When he saw Holmes’s condition, he refused to treat him, however, for he confessed to Holmes that it was he who had arranged for him to catch the disease by sending him a box which, when opened, would prick the opener’s finger and inject the virus into the bloodstream.

     Of course, this confession was exactly what Holmes wanted to hear.  His act of illness now could end, and with Watson, who had been hiding behind the bed, having heard the confession, Smith could be convicted of a similar murder to which he had also confessed.

     The amazing aspect of this case was Holmes‘s willingness to go without food or water for three days in order to be convincing in his act and thus catch the culprit.  Over and over again in the stories of Sherlock Holmes it’s apparent that Holmes has only one aim in life, and that is to solve mysteries.  Any sacrifice is worth making to achieve this one goal.

     It’s this single-mindedness of Sherlock Holmes that is so like the single-mindedness that is required of us in the Christian life, in working for the food that does not perish. We Christians have one goal, and that goal is to follow Christ in all that we think, say, and do.  That’s what it means to call him Lord.  That’s what we have pledged to do by virtue of our baptism.

     Some might think that to be so single-minded about religion is to be fanatic, and no one wants to be labeled fanatic!  But to be single-minded about life is really not that foreign to our nature.  I’d venture to say that most all of us tend toward single-mindedness of one type or another.  It’s called living by a life principle, although we very rarely articulate the principle by which we live.

     Some live with happiness as their life principle.  Some live with familial well-being as their life principle, or their career, or making money, or amassing possessions, or having the respect of others, and the list goes on. But we all tend to live according to a life principle, and we tend to be single-minded in our pursuit of the goal. Unhappily, just because we’re here worshiping today doesn’t mean that working for the food which is imperishable is our life principle.  It may mean that some of the aspects of Christian faith fit in well with our life principle. It’s good for family life; it makes us feel good; it’s good for business, gives us a certain degree of honor, recognition, or power.

     The one thing that most all life principles have in common, however, is that they tend to be self-serving.  When Jesus calls us to work for the food which is imperishable, he’s calling us to accept a life principle that goes against our fallen nature, he’s calling us to a life like the life of our Lord, a life that takes us to the cross.  So he’s calling us toward accepting a principle that is in conflict with the one by which we naturally live, whatever that may be.  Some of what we call hypocrisy is, therefore, inevitable in the Christian life, for the Christian takes on a life principle that’s in conflict with the one by which he or she would naturally live.  St. Paul said, “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

     For us to live with Christ as our life principle doesn’t mean that we have to sell our possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then go live in a monastery.  It means devoting all of our activities, in thought, word, and deed to the glory of God, and seeking to do all things in accordance with God’s will.  We want to strive, by the grace of God, to be able to say along with St. Paul, “For me to live is Christ.”  May God grant us the grace to work for this food that is imperishable, that endures to eternal life.