Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

10:30 a.m., 13 Pentecost (18C): 7 September 2025

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            One of the joys of our Anglo-Catholic tradition is our focus on materiality. We worship with all five senses—we touch our forehead, shoulders, and chest as we make the sign of the cross; we smell the incense billowing around us and ascending to heaven; we hear the words of the Mass and the sound of music; we see the elevation of the host and the sacred dance of the acolytes and sacred ministers at the altar; and finally, we taste the Body and Blood of our risen Lord, in the form of bread and wine. For some of us, one or more of these senses may be stronger than others, and for others, they may be missing one or more altogether. But no matter how we experience the Mass, we bring our whole selves, our whole being, to God in our worship.

            The sensuality of worship is not unique to our time or our practices, but is ancient—the Hebrew Bible is replete with detailed descriptions of the tabernacle and the temples, not to mention detailed instructions regarding sacrifice and ritual cleansing. So too are we treated to the fullness of description in the New Testament texts—perhaps you can imagine the feeling of the cold mud on your eyes as you hear the story of Jesus healing the blind; or maybe you hear the sound of the whip of cords as he clears the temple of the money changers.

            For Christians who may have a more Catholic element to their faith, the veneration of relics provides an additional level of materiality to their spiritual practice. Relics are divided into two classes: first and second. First-class relics are actual physical pieces of a saint: perhaps a bit of hair, a piece of bone, or some blood. We actually have a First-Class relic here at St. Mary’s: A relic of St. Benedict which once belonged to Fr. Long and Fr. Derijk.

At a parish I served in New York, one of the parishioners was the proud owner of a first-class relic of the true cross. This relic consisted of a small piece of wood—really no larger than a splinter—lovingly placed on a small piece of velvet in a metal case, a small piece of paper inscribed with the text, ex lingnam Crucis DNJC (Domini Nostri Jesu Christi). There’s something incredible about being face-to-face with the cross (or at least a sliver of wood claiming to be the true cross)—it seems so insignificant, so small, so easy to lose—and so easy to forget what the cross represents.

To the audience hearing Jesus in today’s lesson from the Gospel, however, the meaning of the cross would have been crystal clear. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” was a call to die the death of a criminal—the death of one who has been sentenced to death by the state, the death of a non-citizen, a death designed to at once make an example out of you and also to erase you from existence. The cross was a machine of torture, designed to keep the colonized subjects of Judea in line.

We live in a post-crucifixion world. We live as people who know the end of the story. But for those who are traveling with Jesus, those who have joined him as he set his face toward Jerusalem, toward the death only he knew was coming, these words would have struck terror in their hearts. They knew crucifixion. Crucifixion was part and parcel of everyday life in the occupied Roman territories, and it was a death to be avoided at all costs.

But here is Jesus—here is Jesus, that strange man in the desert before whom demons tremble, and by whom the sick and the wounded are healed. Here is Jesus, who turns water into wine, who interprets the scriptures as no one ever had before, and who looks at the crowd following him and tells them to leave everything they have ever known behind to follow him, even to the cross. They knew crucifixion. They might have even known someone who was crucified. They knew the weight of the crossbeam, the breaking of bones, and the slow and painful death. They knew not only crucifixion, but they knew these crosses. These were the crosses their people, possibly their loved ones had been crucified on, their blood soaking into the wood of the cross, mingling with the blood of others who died on that very same tree.

But we know all this. It’s a well-worn path in our Christian life. In just a few short months, we will begin our journey in the liturgical year anew, and we will be led—as we are every year—to Golgotha, where we will stand at the foot of the cross as our Lord and God cries out in desolation and it is then—when we have come to the very place of desolation, to the killing ground, that we will hear the words of Jesus ringing through the ages to us, telling us to take up our cross. But before Golgotha, before the trial in Pilate’s chambers, before the flogging and the denials and the questioning; before all of that will come the garden, when Jesus prays for strength, prays for deliverance, prays that the will of his Father in heaven will be done—and finally, when he chooses to take up his cross, knowing at its fullness what that means.

The path of a Christian is not easy. We are, time and again, tempted by the glories of this life. We will be promised riches and splendor, if only we bow down and worship the powers and principalities which bind us in sin and hold us captive to death. Yet we are invited to make a choice—each and every one of us. We are invited, again and again, to turn from the path of ease and glory, and toward the difficult path, the narrow gate, the way of the cross. Jesus knew that some of his followers were attracted by his charisma, by the promise of a king who would finally defeat the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel to its former glory, by the allure of splendor and riches and glory. But Jesus tells them, and us, this path is a path to be chosen—this is a path which demands our careful consideration, just as the builder calculates the cost of construction before beginning work.

“…and [Jesus] turned and said to [the crowd], ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus hears us crying out for something new. Jesus holds out his hand of grace to us and calls us to a new life in him. But that life requires us to give up the comforts of the world—and yes, even at times, relationships we once held dear. Life in Christ requires us to choose, again and anew, each and every day, a different way of being, a life of grace, a life of compassion, a life of thoughtful relationality with those near and far. Our call is to give up those things which tie us to the old life, the old way of being in the world—a life filled with bitterness and anger, built on the backs of those different than us, those who we are told are a danger to our way of life, to the way things have always been.

We are called to the waters of baptism, to give up the old ways of the world and take up new life in Christ, knowing that our Lord and God has been here before us, that he will guide us and protect us along our way, and that he will bring us safely home into his arms, no matter how long or hard the journey.                                            

Amen.