Eleventh Sunday After Trinity
Sermon preached by the Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
At the end of every Eucharist, we pray these words: “Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Through him, we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory.”
The sequence of this prayer is simple: beginning with thanksgiving, moving to offering, asking for empowerment. We thank God for his gifts. We are presenting ourselves to God, that we may be instruments of his will. And we ask God to ‘send us out’, in his own power and for his glory.
I love this prayer, and as I hear it prayed week by week in the congregations of our church, I suspect that you cherish it too.
And why shouldn’t we? Its inner logic draws on the deep wells of the Church’s tradition of worship and on the Scriptures we have read today. In gratitude for the grace we have received, we present “our selves, our souls and bodies,” the whole of our life to God — through Christ — in order for God to do with us as he wills.
I said this way of approaching God is traditional and scriptural. If we attend to St Paul’s Letter to the Romans and its overall arc and argument, culminating in our reading today from Chapter 12, we can see how the apostle spells out this way of approaching God in attitude and prayer. We heard:
“Therefore, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1)
Paul’s appeal by the mercies of God hearkens back to what he has said in previous chapters of this letter. Every one of us relies entirely on the grace of God: who made us, who saved us. We did not grant ourselves life and breath, nor did we bring into being the marvellous order of the universe. God gave them. Nor have we given ourselves the new life, breathed into us by the Spirit of God, nor did we establish the body of the Church, in which we find ourselves and seek salvation. God gave those things; made and established them. They are gifts, mercies.
In Romans, Paul’s appeal to the mercies of God rests upon such truths, particularly upon how those truths have played out in relation to the life and obedience of God’s people Israel. The Lord chose Abraham and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees. And though “he was but one when [God] called him,” the Lord “blessed him and made him many,” watching over his offspring down the ages, granting them covenants and promises.
God granted these gifts and riches to his people, and yet his mercy would not be limited to one nation. The prophets saw how, in Christ, God’s mercy would extend further, sweeping in all nations, including those who had always been disobedient — sweeping in our nations, our disobedient peoplse, for few among us can claim fleshly descent from Abraham. Who would have guessed that this would be so? It is with a sense of surprise and wonder that we should find ourselves inheriting the promises of Abraham’s children: included in covenants to which we had no claim. At this universal mercy, Paul exclaims in chapter 11 of Romans:
O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?
Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” (Rom. 11:33-35)
These are the great mercies by which Paul exhorts us, when he says, “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters…to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” That offering is our spiritual, our rational, our wholehearted and ‘whole-beinged’ worship. Living sacrifice. In Christ, we offer it to God at every Eucharist; in Christ, we may offer it every day, by choosing to live faithfully.
That will look a little different for each one of us. Sure, there are commonalities: we must all establish a pattern of prayer and worship with other Christians; we must all serve our neighbour. We must all pursue lives of ‘faith, hope, love,’ ‘joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, … gentleness, and self control” (1 Cor 13; Gal. 5:22-23). In other words, we must all love God and love our neighbour, fulfilling the teaching of Jesus and growing into his image. But there are individualities, too.
St Paul put it this way (Rom. 12:4-6):
‘As in one body, we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us:’
Prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, showing compassion in acts of mercy.
What are your gifts? What is your function as a member in the one body of Christ? For the perfect health of the body, every member must take its place. You and I must take our places.
This week, as you pray, remember those mercies of God, which have granted us everything. And consider how you might offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Think of those big picture items: loving God, loving your neighbour, living faithfully. But don’t forget the individual character of your offering, the things you are meant to do, as a member of the one body.