eight::twentyseven

(A sermon for morning Eucharist at Hopwood Christian Church. For those interested, we meet every weekday at 7:15.)

As God's people, how are we to know and how are we to be known? I suppose many folks would be comfortable saying people know by study and/or by experience. Perhaps such an understanding of knowledge isn't a problem for God's people, after all, it does seem we should study and we should learn from experience to better know how to live in the world. And, yet, listening to today's Scripture readings, I can't help but imagine that as God people we are called to a different kind of knowing.

Much of the time we are tempted by the Western culture to commodify knowledge, a sort of capitalistic gnosticism where we own facts and thoughts in our minds by our own supposed merit and abilities. From Paul, however, we learn that knowledge is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel is made sensical to us by the Spirit, and, even further, it is truly made sensical in the world of senses where the Gospel is lived out in the flesh. Knowledge, for God's people, is a gift and a gift we share in the way we love.

The Spirit of God is ever present in the world, giving life to the trees, to the natural grains and fruits of the plains and orchards and gardens on the face of the earth. The Spirit is present here in this building, in the people gathered here. It is here that we come to know the gifts of God, to taste provision of wheat and grapes, bread and wine, body and blood. The sanctifying Spirit makes this place holy, and makes the people gathered in it holy.

See, here we come to know God, and yes, we come to be known. Our identity as God's people, a family of faith, hope, and love, is revealed in the breaking of the bread, the passing of the peace, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us. May we come to know the greatness of the gifts we receive here: hope, identity, the Spirit, a family, peace, purpose. Let us give thanks to God and go forth into the world with the Good News we taste.

(1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8b-10, Psalm 149, Matthew 23:13-22)