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Proper 6
The Sunday closest to June 15
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Preface of the Lord's Day
I like the term “household.” Many times we refer to the church as a “family,” and that’s OK. We are the children of God. We are the family of God. We often call our priests “father” or “mother,” although that has changed a lot over the past half century. Before the ordination of women, clergy were solely men, and were usually referred to as Father so and so (if they were more high church “Anglo-Catholic”), or the Reverend Mister such and such (if they were more low church “evangelical”).
Broad church clergy tended to be a mix of either Reverend or Pastor. There was greater diversity in Episcopal churches back in those days which has been largely lost with homogenizing effects resulting from the liturgical renewal of the 1970s, not to mention the tectonic changes roiling the Church with the ordination of women and people the church often thought were “beyond the pale” of God’s grace.
Through all this, we are (and remain) the household of God. Messy. Complex. Egotistical in our pride and ashamed in our failings; alternating between submissives and dominators; holier-than-thous and we’re-all-imperfects.
It is in this messiness we pray to God to “keep” us. Hold us tight. Like those disciples holding on for dear life in the stormy tempest whilst their so-called loving savior sleeps ever so peacefully at the stern “upon a cushion” no less (!). Their salvation lies not in the seaworthiness of their boat or strength and skills of the crew, but in their daring to scream at their Lord and Master: “Do you not care we’re about to die?” Roused from his slumber, Jesus rebukes the wind and waves. Not only does the world settle down, but so do the disciples.
Keep us, we pray. Keep us in your steadfast faith and love. Wait a minute. YOUR steadfast faith and love? Not “our” steadfast faith and love?
Nope. Like the disciples, we have no power to save ourselves. We have no power over the wind and waves. We may think we know what to do. We may drop the sail, set a drogue or sea anchor, or bail like heck. But salvation? That is to be found in God’s hands, in God’s keeping. It is God’s faithfulness we look to. It is God’s love that gloms onto us. So our prayer begins and ends with this reality. We are God’s, and it is God who keeps us.
And why does God “keep” us?
So that “through God’s grace” we may have the courage (boldness) to “proclaim God’s truth …”
Which is what?
That we are loved. Not just we in a particular house, home, family, or tribe. But WE … all of us. Having received mercy, we are called to extend the hand of God’s grace to everyone, with mercy and compassion.
How do we do this? If we look at the lessons for this Sunday (June 14, Proper 6), we see that God considers those who listen to and obey the Divine One are God’s treasure (Exodus 19). We are made right with God by Christ’s faithfulness; God’s love has been poured into us by God’s Spirit (Romans 5). And we carry out God’s work by venturing forth to those who are unclean and sick. We extend to the world the same compassion Jesus extends to us. No more. No less. That’s what we’re praying for this week.
Go and do thou likewise.
