DOG DAYS DISCIPLESHIP

 Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Jeremiah23:23-29; Hebrews 11:2912:2; Luke 12:49-56]

Here we are: In the middle of a proto-typical, mid-August day.  It’s hot.  It’s humid.  It’s really uncomfortable.  The old descriptor of this time of the year is quite apt: the “the dog-days of summer”.  These days have the capacity to make each of us pant hard and seek out some shade.  And, truth to tell, in terms of our worship today, the last thing any of us want to have to do is to work hard over something like today’s gospel lesson.  And yet, while following Jesus and daring to be his representatives in the world is clearly affected by how we feel (hot, tired, frustrated, wobbly, even fearful), nonetheless, mature discipleship, our commitment to being Jesus’ partners, runs deeper than whether we feel comfortable about being faithful or not.

The point is that what we have in the gospel lesson today is hearing that Jesus himself is stressed – stressed over the prospect of his climactic death in Jerusalem and that while ultimately his crucifixion provides new life, but in the immediate term it is hard work and frequently creates division and uncertainty among all God’s people.  So, in all of this, it is not faithless to wonder: Where’s the Good News?

In the face of all the stress in the world right now, in the face of all the division and confusion in our own country, not to mention the daily challenges and difficulties each of us faces in our day-to-day lives, perhaps in the tensions of our own families, asking where the “Good News” is in all of this is not an abstract question.  Rather, this question comes from the depths of our troubled hearts and souls.  It comes from the images of starving children, cynical and self-serving warfare, and cheap, chest-pounding deliberations.  It’s not just a matter of August’s “dog days”.  Under such circumstances and conditions, for many of us who strive to be faithful followers of Jesus, these are also the “dog days of discipleship.”  So, how can we keep faith and not lose sight of Jesus in these times?

I have two observations, two suggestions to offer, but no answers.

The first offering concerns prayer and praying.  I am not sure how I came across this particular prayer, but its petition immediately struck me as something I needed to memorize and repeat as often as I might need to hydrate myself working in the yard.  The prayer’s petition is this: …may we with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do, and endure what you give us to bear…[1]

As I say, I am trying to memorize this petition because I am struck by what it contains and how it has the capacity to help refocus us.  First off, the prayer asks God to grant us “integrity and courage”.

Nowadays, “integrity” appears to be an old-fashioned term, one whose tune we might be able to name but not its precise meaning.  The dictionary indicates that the meaning of “integrity” is “having a strong and consistent moral compass, always choosing to do the right thing, even when it's difficult or no one is watching”.  In this essential sense, “integrity” is deeper than mere honesty”.  “Integrity” is an expression of that part of our nature, from which “honesty” and other virtues emerge.

As I recall, my first formal encountered with the term “integrity” was as an eighth-grade student in a basic mathematics class, where “integers” were exposed as whole numbers (either positive or negative), as opposed to fractions.  In fact, the Latin root for integrity is “integer”, meaning “whole”, “complete”, “untouched”.  So then, it is that “integrity” refers to consistency both in terms of character and action.

If our moral compass is Christ, if our integrity is rooted in what Jesus reveals, then it is in and through our baptisms that we are given his “integrity”, his wholeness, his completeness.  Writing to the various infant churches under his care, the Apostle Paul conveys this essential truth.  He writes, "[t]herefore, if anyone is in Christ, [that person] is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."[2]  Baptism, which provides the life of Christ to us, is as if we receive a spiritual DNA transplant , in which we are given the integrity of Jesus’ life and his unbreakable relationship with the Father.  Yet, this gift of the God-life-still needs to be absorbed and taken into our life; and this is where the issue of “courage” comes in.

In addition to asking that our “integrity” be strengthened, the prayer’s petition I am highlighting also includes a request for reinforced “courage”.  The word "courage" originates from the Old French word, corage, which itself comes from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart".  Again. most of can spell “courage” but its precise and living meaning seem to have gotten lost in the wind to the extent that “courage” is mostly associated with heroism.  But that is a disservice, which is the reason that  I love this definition of “courage”: “The ability and willingness to do something that frightens us”.  Think of the Tin Woodsman in the Wizard of Oz.  Not a “hero”, just a cobbled-up individual learning how to live beyond his fear.

Asking God for the “integrity” and “courage” we need to be faithful in these “dog-days of discipleship” touches upon a second element in the prayer.  “Integrity” and “courage” are needed to address a very distinct purpose.  The second part of the petition says this: …may we with integrity and courage accomplish what you give us to do…

Even in the dog-days of summer and of discipleship, the petition reminds us that God has given us work to do; but more than the doing, we are asking to “accomplish” what God has given us to do.  There is something for us to “accomplish”, yes; but it is not something we “achieve”.  In terms of the petition, we are implicitly praying a very familiar phrase from another very familiar prayer: …your will be done on earth as in heaven.  We are not called to “achieve” this reality, only to do our part in “accomplishing” what God has willed and set in motion in his Christ.

Now, one last observation for living faithfully in these god-days, and it comes from the epistle lesson: the one your bulletin has already noted as being part and parcel to the celebration of “All Saints Day”.  The words of our epistle paint the picture we very much need to keep at hand to tend our “integrity” with “courage” so we can accomplish what God gives us to do.  Let me read the words once more and ask you to close your eyes and see what these sacred words reveal.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. [3]

It clearly is too hot and too dangerously humid to race around, and we need to be mindful of this. Yet, these words from the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that we need not worry about running the race to win it.  The fact is that, as hard as we have tried, we cannot win the race.  On our own, death always wins, but the Good News is in Jesus’ death and resurrection our Lord has won the race and been crowned the victor.  The Good News, then,  is that in God’s grace and mercy, we are called to join the victorious Christ on the victor’s stand.  Yet, to receive this great, life-changing gift, we must do one thing.  We must cross the finish line.  We must finish the race.  This may mean that we crawl on our hands and knees from exhaustion, but we are called to cross the finish line to join Jesus in his victory – no matter what.  There are no shortcuts, no cheating, no heroism, just finishing as best we can.

Which is where you and I and all the faithful come into play.  We are part of that “great cloud of witnesses” whose gathering in community reinforces one another in following Jesus.  It is key to remember that we don’t run alone or on our own.  We have one another, which is the reason that showing up is so vitally important to our life together.

So, in the “dog days” of summer and most especially in the “dog days” of the soul, I remind you of the prayer’s petition for the integrity and courage to follow Jesus and remember our place in the “cloud of witnesses”.  That we may with integrity and courage accomplish that God gives us to do, and endure what God gives us to bear.

I will close with another prayer.  It comes from the tested soul of the late Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa, Desmond Tutu.  He fashioned this prayer from the prayer of the 16^th century, English seafaring explorer and circumnavigator, Sir Francis Drake.  Tutu entitled his prayer, “Disturb us, O Lord”.  It seems to be a prayer that knew today’s gospel lesson.

Disturb us, O Lord

when we are too well-pleased with ourselves

when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,

because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord

when with the abundance of things we possess,

we have lost our thirst for the water of life

when, having fallen in love with time,

we have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our efforts to build a new earth,

we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord

to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas

where storms show Thy mastery,

where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes

and invited the brave to follow.

Amen.

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[1] Collect for John Mason Neale: Lesser Feasts and Fasts. P. 319.

[2] 2 Corinthians 5:17.

[3] Hebrews 12:1-2.