To Know Christ and Make Him Known

Towards the back of the Book of Common Prayer you’ll find a section entitled Prayers and Thanksgivings. It’s a great resource for use in your personal prayers. Listen to this General Thanksgiving. It’s just the last paragraph that I really want to focus on, but first I want to share the entire prayer:

"Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen."

That’s a prayer to live by. Day by day. In all that we do. Within the church and in our vocations and activities beyond the walls of the church. Hear again that last paragraph. "Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things." Grant that we may know Christ and make Christ known. That is our mission. That is our calling. At the most basic level that should be the standard, the objective, against which we measure everything we do.

Paul’s writings to the early Christians in various communities give evidence that conflict and confusion about Christian practice and mission have been a part of church life from the beginning. Most of us, especially clergy perhaps, sometimes wish that this were not so, but ultimately it is in the open engagement of different perspectives that mission is discerned. In a sense, the church on earth is in a perpetual state of adolescence… testing, seeking our identity and vocation, striving towards maturity as the Body of Christ. The crucial part of this process of growing up, though, is always to remember the goal. To know Christ and to make Christ known. To know Christ better in our own lives and to make Christ better known to others and to the world.

One of the debates that Paul was in the middle of as he wrote to the Christians in Rome concerned the keeping of the Sabbath. On one side were people who felt that the Sabbath day should be set apart, more highly esteemed, more holy, than other days. These were probably Christians strongly influenced by Jewish practice. On the other side were people who felt that all days were equally worthy of esteem, equally holy before God.

A similar dispute arose over the eating of meat, especially since much of the meat available in the markets had initially been slaughtered for heathen sacrifices. On the one side of this dispute were those who abstained, again probably influenced by Jewish teaching. For them abstaining was not only a theological position, it was an honoring, a cherishing of the historical roots of early Christianity in Judaism. On the other side were those people who felt these issues were irrelevant to Christianity and chose to eat meat.

Paul has something to say in the midst of these disputes and any others like them that might come before a parish or a vestry or any church body. First note what he does not do. He does not lay down a list of right and wrong practices for every potential life situation. He does not provide a user’s manual for Christians, topically indexed for "meat", "Sabbath", "paint color appropriate for church doors", "sexuality", "usage fees for church undercrofts." He does not lay down that sort of prescriptive guidance. But Paul does give advice. He says to Christians, in every situation, ask yourself why. Why are we doing what we are doing? What motive, what objective, lies behind our position, our action? "Let all be fully convinced in their own minds," Paul says. Think it through! The question for Paul is whether or not something is being done "in honor of the Lord." In honor of the Lord. That’s what matters. It isn’t always as easy to determine as we might hope. But that is all that matters in every decision or activity that lies before us. Does it honor the Lord? Does it serve to help us know Christ and to make Christ known?

Paul would have had little sympathy with those people who observed the rituals of the Sabbath simply out of historical habit or for the sake of the rituals themselves. On the other hand, nor would Paul have tolerated people who ignored the Sabbath out of indifference or busyness, losing the singularity of the Sabbath in a sea of secularism. For Paul, it is the faithful conviction to honor the Lord that is paramount. It is OK to set this Sabbath day apart from other days, if you do so in honor of the Lord. Do not do it out of a sense of obligation or tradition or superstition. Honor this day to honor the Lord. On the other hand, if you do not keep the Sabbath in any special way, it should not be out of indifference. It should be because you see all days as holy, all days as the Lord’s, and you fervently seek to honor the Lord in everything you do every day. The test for your practice is in its motive: Does it honor the Lord?

It is possible, Paul seems to imply, to faithfully hold differing views on some issues of Christian life if those views are truly rooted in the honor of the Lord. That is Paul the pastor and church leader. And it’s a very important perspective for us to hold on to. In the parish and in the broader church. A diversity of practices can all honor the Lord.

Yet it is also true that in many cases, a faithful, conscientious, focus on honoring the Lord, on seeking to know Christ and to make Christ known, will guide our paths in one way over another. And Paul, the theologian, seems ultimately to have some advice on the issue of keeping the Sabbath. Is the Sabbath to be kept in a special way as holy to the Lord, or are all days equally holy?

This is an issue that confronts us as Christians 2000 years after Paul was writing to the Romans. Overall, especially within the context of all of Romans, Paul asserts that all days are holy. He does not diminish the status of the Sabbath as the Lord’s day, but over and over again, he raises all other days to the same status. Paul, and the New Testament, see a broad uniformity and continuity in the Christian life. Less distinction between days or activities that are specifically set apart for the Lord. A continuity, comprehensiveness, in the Christian life that comes by seeking holiness in all days, in all activities. When all our lives are entirely lived in the presence of God, no time will be more sacred than others, because all alike will be dedicated to God’s glory. The present momentum of our modern culture is to make all days the same and continuous by robbing all time and activities of God’s presence. Christians then struggle to find small islands for worship or sanctity in this secular sea. And that is hard enough. But the New Testament promotes an even higher calling, challenging us to hallow everything by lifting every day, all that we do, into God’s presence and keeping it there.

In the midst of this morning’s reading from Romans, Paul takes this theological reasoning to its ultimate conclusion. "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s." Yes, those are Paul’s words. They are also the opening proclamation of the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer. Paul’s words remind us that no part of our lives is set apart as more holy than any other part. And no part is less holy. There is no time in life, or in death, when we are not the Lord’s.

Therefore, let us always pray, "Grant us the gift of your Spirit, [O Lord,] that we may [always seek to] know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen."

Amen.