Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Fr. Fred Robinson)

This is an exciting day as we anticipate baptizing Calvin Moe! As Calvin grows up, I hope
he’ll be very acquainted with this church building. There’s a whole lot more to the Christian life
than this building, but there is so much about our faith in this very room.

When you have opportunity, you should take some time to look at our stained glass windows.
They tell the story of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus: The Annunciation, the Nativity, the
Epiphany, the boy Jesus in the Temple, his Baptism, the Wedding at Cana, the Transfiguration,
his Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, his crucifixion, the resurrection, the Ascension, and
over the altar, the Presentation.

There is one window, however, that’s the key to all of them: the resurrection window. If it
weren’t for the resurrection, we wouldn’t remember any of the other things. In fact, if it weren’t
for the resurrection, there would be no Church. It’s the greatest miracle of all. It’s the reason we
worship on Sunday, for every Sunday is a little Easter, a little Day of Resurrection.

And the Altar, the central focus of the entire church building, is a symbol of the resurrection.
At the Altar, at every mass, we remember all of salvation history, in an abbreviated form. The
culmination of that salvation history is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the salvation of the
world and on the third day rising from the dead. That sacrifice is re-presented as the bread and
wine are consecrated to become the Body and Blood of Christ. Each communicant receives the
benefits of the sacrifice of Jesus by receiving the Body and Blood of the risen Lord.

How important is it for us to do that? Jesus says it’s a matter of life and death. He doesn’t say
it exactly that way. He just says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his
blood, you have no life in you.”

What does Jesus mean by life? Obviously, there’re millions of people who are breathing,
functioning human beings who have no part in Jesus, many of whom would describe themselves
as leading very fulfilled lives. The society in which we live takes little notice of Jesus, and in
many places he’s openly ridiculed. On the other hand, there are people in the Church, who
receive his Body and Blood regularly, for whom life holds little meaning, and who would even
describe themselves as basically unhappy. Do they have the life Jesus is talking about simply
because they consume his Body and Blood in the Eucharist?

Normally, I’d preach about the Real Presence on this Sunday when given this particular text
for the Gospel, for Episcopalians believe all sorts of things when it comes to the Real Presence of
Christ in the Sacrament, all the way from a very high view, that what we’re receiving is the Body
and Blood of Christ (that’s what we teach in this parish), to a very low view, that Christ is truly
absent in the Sacrament, an unfortunate and unsupportable view, given the teachings of Holy
Scripture and the tradition of the Church Catholic from earliest times.

Yet the concept of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament shouldn’t be seen as an
isolated reality. The risen Christ is present in his Church not only in the Sacrament, but also in
the Word read and proclaimed, and in his people, the Body of Christ. The Sacrament is essential
to the Church, but also essential are these other elements. For one to have the life Jesus is
talking about requires all of these elements.

It isn’t unusual for a person who isn’t active in the Church to say something like this: “I don’t
attend church, but I try to live a Christian life.” What that person doesn’t realize is that you can’t
live a Christian life alone. It’s a contradiction in terms to say, “I’m not a part of the Church, but
I try to live a Christian life.” To be a Christian is to be a part of the Eucharistic community that’s
the Church, as far as that person is able. Of course, when one is sick or shut-in, he or she cannot
be present with the Church in worship, and the Sacrament is brought to that person.

Our life in Christ begins with baptism, when we’re initiated into the Eucharistic community.
That community requires a certain unity of belief, summarized in the Apostles’ Creed. It
requires worshipping with the community of faith every Sunday, receiving the Body and Blood
of Christ in the Sacrament, hearing the Word of God read and proclaimed, and being in
community with other members of Christ’s Body. As St. Luke tells us in The Acts of the
Apostles, “They continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and
in the prayers.”

It requires living a morally upright life, following the commandments of God, and when we
fail to live accordingly, which we all do, to confess our failures, seek the forgiveness of God and
his Church, and return again to following Christ.

It requires sharing our faith with others, to bring others to Christ through his Church. It
requires serving those in need, starting with those in our very midst. And it requires striving for
justice and peace among all people.

If this seems familiar, it should. It’s the Baptismal Covenant, which we’re all going to
reaffirm in a few moments. To have the life Jesus is talking about is to do all of these things, not

out of obligation, but out of love for God. When that happens, we have life, and we have it
abundantly. Of course, we are obligated to do these things, but the goal is to move beyond
obligation to doing them for the love of God.

This may sound to some to be a little legalistic, as if to say if you do certain things, then God
will reward you with certain blessings. In other words, some may think that what I’m saying
implies a kind of works righteousness, that our salvation depends on what we do and not on what
God does. My answer to that is that it all starts with God’s action on our behalf through Jesus
Christ. But God does require a response from us, and the requirement is nothing less than
everything we are.

I’m reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words in Cost of Discipleship concerning grace. He
has a wonderful chapter entitled Costly Grace, but he starts by talking about cheap grace.
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without
confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate……Costly grace is the
gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which
a person must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it
calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a person his life, and it is grace
because it gives a person the only true life.”

To eat the flesh of the Son of man and to drink his blood includes partaking of his Body and
Blood at mass, but it means consuming Christ fully and being consumed by him. As the
Eucharistic prayer from Rite I states it, “that he may live in us and we in him.” That’s the reality
into which Calvin will be baptized this morning and it is the faith that will give him life.