Great Servants

Sermon for the Patronal Feast of St James the Apostle, 2010 -- the 157th anniversary of the founding of the parish.

SJF • July 25 2010 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

How fitting are these words for us to hear, we gathered here on this festival of Saint James the Apostle, our Patron! For although I have the privilege and responsibility to bear the title of Minister in a formal way, yet each of us is a minister in this place — and a minister beyond this place. Each of you has a ministry to carry out as much as I. I have spoken many times before of the responsibility each Christian bears to witness to the saving gift of Christ, to witness to the truth that is in you as you go about your daily life in the world at large.

This is a vital ministry, a life-giving and life-saving ministry, particularly in our day when the church has ceased to be at the center of society. When this parish was founded 157 years ago, those who gathered to begin that noble work were not such as we: working people, tradespeople, students, craftspeople, laborers. No, they were the cream of their society, men — and in those days they were as the founders all men, though women played a very important part, of which I will soon say more — but men of wealth and influence, captains of industry and commerce, leaders in trade and politics, mayors of cities, diplomats, and generals and admirals in the army and navy.

And yet all of them served — however high they were on the scale of earthly achievement, they did not think themselves too high and mighty to soil their hands with the hard work of providing a place for the people of God to worship. They did not flinch from digging deep into their own pockets to provide for a parish that would stand the test of time, stand for more than a century and a half, as a testimony and a tribute to their devotion and their ministry. And I want to name just a few of them, from those early days.

Gustav Schwab, one of the wealthiest men in this Borough in his day, chaired the building committee for the construction of this church, paid for many of its appointments, including all of the stained glass windows in the sanctuary, from his own pocket, and worked long hours diligently to serve the people, without any reward. Truly he was a Minister who served.

George Cammann, of whom I’ve spoken before: a renowned physician of this City, the chief physician of the Home for Orphans and Foundlings, did not think to profit from the stethoscope that he invented, but made it free to the public domain, so that anyone could manufacture it, thus spreading the reach of this powerful tool for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Truly he was a great servant of all people.

Franklin Edson, the Mayor of the City of New York, served this parish as a vestryman for 21 years, taking time from his civic work to attend meetings and serve on committees with diligence and skill. Truly a Minister who served.

William B. Ogden, the first Mayor of Chicago and president of the Union Pacific Railroad, who loved Saint James so much that he loaned its name to the cathedral he founded in Nebraska, who was baptized and confirmed late in life, at the age of seventy-one at this very altar rail, who died and was buried from this place the following year — truly he was a great servant to the people.

Closer to our own time, some of you here will remember those gentle spirits Ralph, Ken and Gladstone, true gentlemen and gentle men, who served in this sanctuary and sang in this choir — or our dear Rita and Rosetta, just last year taken from us to serve in a greater choir.

And who can forget Florine, or Rhena, Mervis, Katherine, or Noel, Viola, Maggie, or Jane, or Mercedes, or Ira, or the names of so many other women who did so much to build up this church, to keep it going when others were ready to let it go. Recall that it was the women of the church who provided it with the chalices from which we still take the sacred blood of Christ, and the magnificent paten upon which rests his consecrated Body, when they dedicated those gifts in 1853. All of these, and so many others whom time will not permit their naming, were Ministers who served, great servants of the people.

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In this is one of the great mysteries of Christ: that whoever seeks greatness must do so not by exaltation but by service, not by putting oneself forward, but by putting oneself to work, not by standing prominently on the street-corner making an empty show of religion, but by stooping down to wash the feet of the poor, to bend one’s back under the cross of service day by day, that alone makes one worthy to bear the name of “Christian.”

Our Lord came not to be ministered to, but to be a minister to all; he came not to Lord it over us, but to raise us up by his own descent to the very depths. His was a baptism of pain and suffering that he knew he must undergo, his a death in which he knew he must go under: even unto the grave, even unto hell itself, to free from bondage all imprisoned there since the day our ancient parents fell from grace. For only in giving his life as a ransom for many, only by drinking that bitter cup of betrayal and death, only by this full and perfect sacrifice of himself once offered upon the cross could he be sure that nothing would be lost: to catch us all from falling, to lift us up from where we had already fallen, he would place himself beneath us all, beneath us as a servant, and a savior, to catch us as we fell, and to raise us up with him.

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Each of us is challenged to do the same: not seeking exaltation and glory, the best seats at the banquet and the roles of power and prestige, but instead diligently to seek for the opportunities to serve that present themselves to us day by day and year by year. To ask oneself: Is there some church committee or group that needs my help, that needs the skill I have, the gift God gave me, and yet which I am not using for God’s purposes? Am I storing up my treasure in a barn, or burying it in the field instead of putting it to work as God would have me do?

Or is there some opportunity for me to witness to the love of God to those with whom I work, by showing them the faith and joy of one who serves the Lord? Dare I pass among the byways of the outer world and keep such grace as I have known in this place secret? Dare I let it be said of me by those with whom I worked, after I am gone, “We never knew he was a Christian”?

Or is there in my neighborhood some task to be accomplished that needs my help, some task in which my hands might make the difference, and making the difference, further or complete the work? Do my friends and neighbors know me as one to whom they can turn for help, for comfort or for aid? How do I witness to my Lord to those among whom I live?

Or is there even in my own family someone from whom I have been estranged, some kith or kin with whom I have not spoken through some grudge or past wrong yet unforgiven or unrepented? And might my reaching out bring the balm of healing to that wound, in a true ministry of charity and love, a ministry commanded by our Lord, who urged us to forgive, even as we are forgiven?

These are the ministries that God places before us as he placed them before the disciples James and John. We do not know who will find themselves in the exalted seats of honor in the kingdom of God when he comes in glory to judge and rule the world. But we do know that the baptism of Christ is the baptism into which we have been baptized; that the cup from which he drank is offered to us still to drink from; that the cross he bore is offered to each of us day by day to bear — or to refuse. God offers us this choice, and offers us the promise that those who do God’s will on earth will truly find their reward. May we always choose to follow our Lord as ministers and servants, ministering to each other and to those whom God places on our path, that we may do the will of him alone to whom we now ascribe, as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and for evermore.+

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Front Row Seats

SJF • Proper 24b 2009 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”+Last Sunday and next Sunday we heard and will hear Gospel passages in which people ask Jesus various things. Last week it was the rich young man asking what he had to do to gain eternal life. Next week it will be blind Bartimaeus asking for mercy. This week we hear Mark’s account about two of the earliest disciples, the fisherman brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee, asking for front row seats — the seats of honor next to Jesus in his glory.

This Gospel has particular relevance for us because James is our patron saint, for whom Saint James Church is named. As you may know, the only stained-glass window of Saint James in the church is now walled up behind the altar — and we can only guess it is because when the altar was moved against the end of the church and raised on three steps, it cut the figure of Saint James off at the waist and people thought it looked a little odd.

Our patron saint is not completely without representation in the church, however. In the row of icons at the altar (which I reproduced in today’s bulletin) he is there at the far left, and his brother John is at the far right. So, in a way, at Saint James church at least, James and his brother John do have the honor of being to the left and right of Jesus.

But it is important to note that in most churches with icons, those places are taken by Peter and Paul, and in all churches with such an arrangement of icons, the most honorable seats in this portrayal of the heavenly banquet belong to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist. In other words, the church has long understood Jesus’s response to James and John as indicating that those seats of honor were reserved for someone else — for the one whom every age would call Blessèd, and the one who was “the Forerunner” and first proclaimer of the Lamb of God.

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Now, I don’t know about you, but I can well understand the other disciples getting annoyed with James and John when they rushed to the head of the class. We’ve probably all known people who put themselves forward, in the process of putting everyone else down. People might call them the “teacher’s pet” or a “crawler.” There is something offputting about this kind of ambition — an instinctive sense that it is inappropriate to push forward and try to take the front row seats, the best seats, the seats of honor.

Indeed, Jesus elsewhere advises against this sort of behavior: telling people to take the lowest seats at the banquet so that they might be honored in being asked to come up higher, rather than taking a high seat and being embarrassed to be asked to move down lower. Apparently James and John did not think this applied to them — they were, after all, part of the inner circle, along with Peter, who had been invited to go with Jesus to the mountaintop, and later those three would accompany him to the garden of Gethsemane. Maybe the trip to the mountaintop went to their heads!

Whatever the reason, whether pride or self-satisfaction or because of earlier signs of favor, James and John clearly overstep in their request for prime seating, and Jesus gently corrects them, and the other disciples as well, when they get bent out of shape in this unsavory contest of “who does Jesus like best.” Jesus doesn’t settle the issue and say anything about who will be seated where — and as with the seats at the banquet advises taking the position of a servant — of one who serves.

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As with all Gospel passages, however, there is more to this account. Notice what Jesus does predict concerning James and John. They will drink the cup that he will drink, and undergo the baptism with which he is baptized. And this is where our row of icons comes in again: for although the images of the saints and angels are ranged at the altar where we celebrate the earthly foreshadowing of the heavenly banquet, they are also ranged at the foot of the cross.

This is the cup that Christ would drink, the baptism with which he would be baptized: a cup he would earnestly entreat his father in Gethsemane to pass him by — while James, John and Peter were sleeping. But in union with his father’s will he accepted it, accepted death on the cross for our salvation, in union with us his brothers and sisters.

The prophet Isaiah had spoken centuries before of this suffering servant of God — the one upon whom the iniquity of all of us wandering sheep long since gone astray, would be laid. “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Or as an old prayer has it, “By his cross and passion we come to the glory of his resurrection.”

Christ knew that this was what lay before him — the bitter cup and the baptism of death. James and John would indeed share in this with him — James would be the first of the apostles to die for his faith. And his brother John, though he lived to old age, would know the bitterness of exile on the island of Patmos.

And all of us who bear the name of Christian, if Christians we are, share with our Lord in his sufferings as we share in solidarity with all human suffering: doing our best to alleviate it as servants of the one in whose image every human being is made. This is the way that Jesus commends to his apostles, and through them to us: not to lord it over others as their masters, but to serve them as Christ served us and gave himself a ransom for many.

The Christian life is not about climbing the greasy pole to success, of clambering to attain a front row seat, to elbow others out of your way to get the places of honor. Rather it is about the ministry of service that stoops to wash the feet of the poor, that gives itself and spends itself for the benefit of others and their well-being.

But the Christian life is also not about envying those who do succeed or gain seats of honor and privilege, especially when that honor comes unexpected and as a surprise even to the one so honored. I think of some of the recent reactions to President Obama’s Nobel laureate. I very much doubt this is something he expected and he appears to have received it with grace; and I can’t help but hear in the voices of some of those who have said he doesn’t deserve it, the envious echoes of those other disciples.

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Neither pride nor envy are attractive human traits. Jesus would have us avoid them both. And the surest way to do that is to do as he said: to serve as he did, even if it means a bitter cup and a painful baptism. Few if any of us will be asked to go as far as the apostles and martyrs; but we can do our bit in patience and humility, in service to the least of our brothers and sisters.

And so, away with pride and envy. Our Lord and God has seats prepared for us, and though we know not where exactly they will be, we know that they will be with him, and that should be enough to satisfy us. What need is there for ambition when we have such promises from the living Word of God himself: that living, active word, sharper than a two edge sword that judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart; before whom nothing is hidden and to whom we must render an account; but one who is also able to sympathize with our weakness, as he has borne our griefs. With this Word of God for us, what can stand against us? As Martin Luther wrote,

That word above all earthly Powers,
no thanks to them abideth;
the spirit and the gifts are ours
through him who with us sideth:
let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still,
his kingdom is for ever.+