Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20A, September 24, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of Our Priceless Sacrament, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

It is becoming something of a tradition to begin the Emmanuel Church cantata season with Anton Bruckner’s Locus Iste. This place was made by God, a priceless sacrament; it is without reproach. The Emmanuel Music choir always makes it sound to me like the piece was written for this worship space. Anticipating today, I had the words stuck in my head all week. Is it true? What does it mean that this place was made by God? What does it mean that it is a priceless sacrament, profoundly sacred? What does it mean that it is without reproach?

I’ve been remembering a time in my life when my dad, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, was not working for a particular congregation, and was available to supply for pastors who were away on vacation or absent from their congregations for other reasons. My mom usually attended services at our home church, but I went with him for these visits whenever I could. I loved my dad, and I loved his preaching. Ever the iconoclast, one of the things he liked to do when he visited a church was to take the gigantic pulpit bible, found in most German protestant congregations, leather bound, gilded pages, symbolic in size and material of the centrality of the Word (capital W). He would stand front and center, hold the Bible up, and then he would let it fall flat on the chancel steps, with a noise that made everyone jump. Then he’d say, “What is holy about the Bible is not the fancy binding or the golden edges of the pages. What is makes the Bible holy is our engagement with the Word and the Word’s engagement with us.” It was shocking to the congregations. It was thrilling to me.

What does it mean that this place was made by God? Was it the gathering of people who wanted to start a new parish in 1860 in the newly filled Back Bay, the very outer edge, the furthest left edge of Boston? What does it mean that this place was made by God? What it the cornerstone that God’s own hands laid in 1861 or the 1862 service of consecration? Was it the grand expansion and reorientation of the sanctuary, rededicated in 1899? (Some declared at the time that that was the beginning of the end of Emmanuel Church.) To quote Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, no.” This place was made by God this morning. It’s happening right now.

What does it mean that this place is a priceless sacrament? It means that no matter who you are, what your credentials, how long or short a time you’ve been coming here, and no matter what time you arrived, you are welcome to feast at this table. There is no admission fee, and there is no member discount. If you wish to receive communion, your identification will not be checked. The bread and wine you receive will not be in proportion to the amount of work you do around here or the money you give. The profoundly sacred nature of this place means that simply entering this place and time is a blessing. Because you are here, you are giving a blessing and you are receiving a blessing that cannot be purchased or sold. I will warn you, though, that this is not the same as being without cost – the more drawn in you are to this place, the more expensive it will be, and the more priceless it will become.

What does it mean that this place is without reproach? Without reproach means honorable and honest, humble and hospitable, in a word, holy. Without reproach means without shame or disgrace. Without reproach does not mean without sin. Remember, the Biblical definition of sin is “missing the mark,” (as in archery) and the mark is love. No person, no community manages to hit the mark every time, and we are no exception. Sometimes we fall short and sometimes we overshoot. Sometimes it seems like we aren’t aiming for love at all! And yet, there is Jesus, waiting for us, hands extended in persistent welcome. Jesus knows that most of us have not suffered with him. Most of us have not been persecuted because of our faith. Most of us follow him imperfectly, incompetently, keeping score all or part of the way. And still, and always, each of us is the one lost sheep he leaves the other ninety-nine to go looking for until he has found us. Even and especially when some of us seem to get lost again and again. Most of us have been hired at 5 in the afternoon and paid a day’s wage an hour later so that we can eat supper. That’s what the phrase “usual daily wage” means in our Gospel lesson for today – the amount that will sustain a person for one day. Most of us have much more than we need to sustain us for one day, much more than a daily portion of manna in the wilderness, much more than our daily bread.

Tucked into our Epistle lesson from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, is this plea, “Whatever happens, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” In other words, conduct yourselves with dignity, with integrity, with generosity and mercy – that’s what the gospel of Christ means. You know, Christ is not Jesus’ last name. To say that Jesus was the Christ, is to say that he fully and perfectly embodied the redeeming urge of the divine, the relentless movement toward reconciliation, of shalom (which is to say well-being for all).

This past week, on Wednesday evening after the beautiful Erev Rosh Hashanah service, I stood chatting with some members of Central Reform Temple about the charge and the challenge of Tikkun HaOlam, repairing the world. We were talking about the devastation from hurricanes and the earthquake in Mexico City, the sharply increasing threat of nuclear war, and the devastating violence in our own city and around the globe. Someone said, “did you see the prediction that the world would end on this coming Saturday?” My quick (and flippant) reply was, “ooh, maybe I don’t need to write a sermon.”

But during the reflection time in the Rosh Hashanah morning service, I wondered, “if I knew I only had three days to live, what would I do?” The answer came to me. I would tell my family I love them. I would ask for and extend mercy and forgiveness for things done and left undone, known and unknown, and I would write a sermon. I would read and pray with the appointed scriptures and the hymn texts, the motet and the cantata texts, and I would think of what I want to say to you, beloved children of God, even if I knew for sure I would not get to say the things I’d written. I would do my best to conduct myself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, just like the Apostle Paul, sitting in prison, charged with a capital offense, unlikely to live much longer. I would write about the utter joy and the radical hope of living a life made by God, a priceless sacrament, without reproach.

The truth is that the world is ending, not in the sense of complete annihilation of the planet (not yesterday, anyway), but it is ending. And a new world is beginning. We do not live in the world that our parents or grandparents grew up in. We do not even live in the world that we grew up in. Some things are better and some things are worse. That was true in Moses’ time, in Jesus’ time, and in St. Paul’s time too, by the way. What I want you to do is figure out for yourselves, with the help of community, what matters more than anything when it comes to how to live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Don’t wait to begin, even if it is the end of the day, the end of an age, even if it is the end of the world, because your life was made by God, a priceless sacrament; it is without reproach.

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