Grace: It's Our Way of Life

As Episcopal Christians we
Worship at home daily and together weekly;
Study the Scriptures, our tradition, and what it means to be a disciple today;
Serve our families, our parish, and our world in the name of Christ.

Everything we do is done with an ethic of Welcome
because we are only here by Grace.

06 May 2014

Sermon, Easter 3, 3 May 2014 - Resurrection and the Catchechumenate or Communion, Scripture, Sacrament and Revelation




Sermon on the Road to Emmaus story of the Resurrection as a picture of discipleship. It is a story about grief and remembrance, realization and revelation. It is a story that lays out some basic principles of the resurrection life: companionship, scripture, faith, and sacrament.

There is a section on Christian knowledge and fact. I may choose a different word next time. But our faith and knowledge has a content and makes claims about facts and reality. It is not primarily about our opinions. This is a difficult thing to make a statement about in less than half an hour. But it goes roughly like this:

We live in a time when we trade in opinions that are disconnected from facts. Our politicians have become masters of opinions that are disconnected from facts. Our faith is about reality. We believe that something is true that changes our understanding, experience, and life in reality. It should change the way we talk and act and think. It is not an opinion but rather a statement of reality and fact. If you believe something else, you are wrong. I think that comes across in the sermon.

But part two is vital. I don't think that you being wrong makes you less human, less a desired child of God, or less saved by the cross, or less vital to my salvation and worthy of love. These two things go side by side. Jesus is right AND you are loved by God.

This is what Cleopas and his companion got so clearly. Jesus is alive and so God is king. The loving, dancing Abba of Jesus is the real God of this world, and not Ceasar or his heirs. It is glorious.

Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.