Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
11th Sunday after Pentecost
Each one of us brings to church a whole variety of concerns. One concern that we all have in common right now is the economy. Not a few prayers have already been offered, I suspect, about the economy. I know that some of us are hurting financially. Redeemer has actually lost some members because they had to move out of the area in order to find work and more affordable housing. People in real-estate and related fields have often found their income stream slowing to a trickle. My heart goes out to everyone who is having a difficult time right now.
We are in the season of vacations, and the news media have picked up on the ways vacations have changed due to the economic circumstances. The Wall Street Journal a week and a half ago had an article about people who are foregoing trips this year and staying home. Some have gotten pretty creative about it. One woman in New York City, Karen Ash, decided to take a week-long vacation. “She’ll buy postcards and souvenirs at a traditional Japanese market. She’ll admire bonsai plants and view Japanese films. She’ll eat raman, ordering in Japanese. And she’ll never leave the Bronx.”
Ms. Ash had planned a vacation in Japan, but rising air fares, “the weak dollar-to-yen exchange rate and difficulty saving travel money while keeping pace with bills forced her to rethink her summer plans. So she’s determined to have the ultimate “staycation,” or vacation spent at home.”
The article goes on to say that some are putting tents in their living rooms to simulate going camping with the kids. The problem with that is that the kids enjoy it so much that they want to do it all the time!
Businesses have sprung up to provide the ultimate staycation. You can have your home refitted to look like a hotel suite, complete with maid service, room service, and mints on the pillow. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
Staying at home and getting away from it all-two realities that seemed incompatible are now working together. I would submit to you that such a concept for Christians is as old as the faith itself. We live in the world, we are fully a part of the world, and yet we proclaim that there is another reality right here with us, invisible, yet more real than anything you can see or touch. To borrow a phrase, you might say it’s the ultimate staycation. But you can be there all the time-at home, at work, at play, and certainly at worship. Jesus called it the kingdom of heaven.
We sometimes get confused and think of heaven as a place that is far away, some place you have to die to get there. While we look forward to the time when heaven will be our only reality, that heaven is available to us right here and now. Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It’s within your grasp. You can be there in the twinkling of an eye. It is a state of mind, a place of the heart. It comes from faith, the relationship we have with God the Father through his Son in the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, who was given to us at our baptism. That reality is available to us all the time.
Jesus says it’s the greatest reality there is. It starts in a life in a very small way, like the smallest of seeds, so small it is almost imperceptible. And yet, if given half a chance, it will become the greatest of shrubs. Do you know a truly loving person, one who is generous to a fault, one who goes out of his or her way to be merciful, to forgive? That one is one whose faith has grown to the extent that it nourishes everyone it touches. You want to be around that person, don’t you? You want to learn from that person, soak up the love that overflows from that person. His or her faith has become a huge shrub, “so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” That person has the ultimate staycation. That person lives a good deal of the time in the kingdom of heaven. That person has begun to approach the life God intends for every person on this earth.
It is the most valuable thing on earth. The person who truly discovers it values it above every possession, every relationship.
I want to be that kind of person. I want to live always in the kingdom of heaven. I’m not there yet, by a long shot. I am not going to confess my sins to you; that is for my confessor! But I surely can identify with St. Paul when he says, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.” To put it in the context of what I am trying to say right now, St. Paul is saying that he wants to live always in the kingdom of heaven, but his sinful nature prohibits that from happening at least some of the time.
I will tell you this. I need the Church. I need fellowship with you. I need the nourishment of the Body and Blood of Christ as often as possible. When we gather together on the Lord’s Day to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, I feel closer to the kingdom of heaven than at any other time. Earth and heaven are joined, and I am renewed. And I pray that that is the experience of every soul gathered.
Karen Ash may think she has discovered the ultimate staycation, but the truly ultimate staycation is not to be found in buying Japanese postcards in the Bronx. It is to be found through faith in Jesus Christ, leading to baptism, nourished by his Body and Blood, and flowing out in loving relationships with others. That is the ultimate staycation. That is the kingdom of heaven.