Sermon for 19th Sunday after Trinity, 2020

Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Trinity

October 18, 2020

Fr. Tony Melton

THE LORD is King, be the people never so impatient; * he sitteth between the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.

2 The LORD is great in Sion, * and high above all people.

3 They shall give thanks unto thy Name, * which is great, wonderful, and holy. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Spend a moment imagining what the new heavens and the new earth will be like. It is a good thing to dream about. We do know some of what it will be. We know that it will be, in many ways, like the first creation with trees, rivers, mountains, people, society. We know that Jesus will reign in an even more tangible sense than He does now. All of God’s people will worship Him and will receive from Him joy, and righteousness, and peace. 

The new heavens and the new earth will be wonderful, no doubt. We pray in the Our Father that God would make it on earth as it is in heaven. The Church is to have what is called a “realized eschatology”. Whatever is true of the end of time, the Church is supposed to incarnate that reality in this life, in this society, in their families, schools, businesses, and churches. And this is a very important thing to understand as we focus this morning on our core value of “Centered on Communion.” 

The new heavens and the new earth will be Centered on Communion. God will call His people together for the Marriage Banquet of the Lamb. We will worship Him at His Throne. We will travel there to give Him thanks and praise. I don’t know how it will work, but the worship of the Triune God will be at the very center of everything. We will be Centered on Communion. If there is any aspect of this life that should match the reality of the next, it should be this. We should be Centered on Communion. 

The purpose of this brief homily is to explain some implications of this for us as a mission. The first implication of Centered on Communion is culture. Let’s call it a Communion Culture. What culture do we see when we peer into the scenes of communion in the new heavens and new earth? “The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient…be the earth never so unquiet.” It is marked by peace, patience, quietness, joy, there are no mobs, or party factions, no agendas. The culture is marked by the stability and tranquility of knowing that a righteous King is on the throne forever. If we as a mission are Centered on Communion, then we will be centered on the place where the Lord is King. A culture will flow from that. There are other things that churches have as their center. Sometimes, it is the music, or the Great Commission, or social justice. But we will be centered on Communion, and all our other commitments will flow from the joy, peace, patience, stability, and quietness of that Communion. The first implication of Centered on Communion is culture. 

The second implication of Centered on Communion is mission. In the new heavens and the new earth, we will still say, “Let us go up to the house of the Lord.” Our role will always be to usher others into the throne room banquet of God. In evangelism, your elbow is just as powerful as your tongue. Perhaps even moreso, because so many evangelism strategies are not Centered on Communion. The prayer is prayed, maybe they join the church, and participate in a discipleship group. Why? So they can go out and do evangelism. It is missing the key element of Communion. First, God calls us to Himself, and there is a holy transaction. We give God our lives and our praise, and He give us Himself. This is what we see in the reading this morning from Exodus 19. The Hebrews assemble at Mt. Sinai and God says, give me your obedience and I will be your God and you shall be my people. From this Communion, the Church is sent out on mission. This is why the Roman Church calls Communion the Mass, from the Latin word misseo, or “sent.” Communion is so much more than a Liturgy. It is the place where we are most human, where God shows His most obvious love on us. Evangelism is ushering others to this banquet. The second implication of Centered on Communion is mission.

The third implication of Centered on Communion is geography. The image of the new heavens and the new earth is that the Church will be gathered around the throneroom. This is how God structured the Israelites. Why? Because on a very practical level, the further you live from the altar, the more difficult it is to center your life on worship. This does not mean it is impossible. We have families here that drive a great distance to be here, and they live holy lives pleasing to God. But geography matters. After seminary, Vandi and I had the opportunity to live on 950 acres in a large farm house with some friends. It was 70 minutes away from the church one way. So 6 days a week, I was on the road for 2.5 hours. If there was a midweek event at church, then Vandi would drive in with Samuel, too. It was hard. After about 6 months, we moved back into town. This time, we found an apartment that was a 4 minute walk to the church. And we got to see the time of centeredness that can happen when you live close to your parish. Vandi was able to attend Morning Prayer throughout the week. We shared more time with people from the parish. Honestly, this is one of the main reasons why I’m so committed to church planting. It is so that we can all be close to our parish, so that we can all be more centered on Communion. The third implication of Centered on Communion is geography.

The fourth implication of Centered on Communion is holiness. Go back to the Garden of Eden. Except for one tree, everything that surrounded Adam and Eve was gift. Their holiness, in large part, was in the thankful enjoyment of what God had given to them. Sin entered when they took what was not given, and therefore could not give thanks over it. It was not Eucharist, the greek word for thanksgiving. Being Centered on Communion is the commitment that our whole lives will be received from God’s hand, and our whole lives will be given back in thanksgiving. Whatever falls outside of this mutual self-gift is Sin. And whatever falls within the action of Eucharist is holiness. The fourth implication of Centered on Communion is holiness.

I realize that this core value is one that is new to you. I will keep pointing the life of this mission back to the center of the Eucharist because I see that it is central to the life of the Israel, the early Church, the patristic Church, and the new heavens and the new earth. But it is something that is largely lost in the landscape of modernity. It may take years to develop the culture of heaven here. This vision for mission is slow going. Geography takes time to change, either in strategic moves or in new church plants. And holiness often takes a lifetime. “The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient.” But also mission, let us devote ourselves to this. Let us commit to exploring what it means to center our lives around the Altar. And let us go unto the altar of God in heaven, giving all that He commands and desiring only that which He gives. And may God bless us in this journey. Amen.