Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2009

Series: Duties of the Laity in the ACNA, Part 1

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

 

To Worship God in a Church every Lord’s Day

 

This past June the Reformed Episcopal Church became one of the founding members of a new confederation of orthodox Anglicans here in America and in Canada called The Anglican Church in North America. The bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church, especial Presiding Bishop Leonard Riches and our bishops Royal Grote and Ray Sutton, were instrumental in the shaping of the Constitution of the ACNA and of the Canons that set the boundaries for what it means to be part of this new coming-together. According to the Constitution, each member jurisdiction – for example, The Reformed Episcopal Church, or the Anglican Mission in America, or the various individual dioceses that have come out of the Episcopal Church and aligned themselves with this new federation – has the right to establish and maintain its own governance, its own constitution and canons, within the framework of the broader Constitution and Canons of the ACNA. The ACNA Canons do not override the individual jurisdiction’s canons, but provide the framework for our mutual recognition, our mutual support, and our mutual mission together as biblically faithful Anglican Christians.

 

But what does this mean to us as we sit here in the pews this morning, or as we leave here today and go about our daily lives? We might understand how this could affect me as a member of the clergy. But what does belonging to the Anglican Church in North America mean for you as lay people? Well, the Constitution and Canons of the ACNA don’t just outline the rights and responsibilities of the member jurisdictions and the clergy; they also lay out the kind of behaviour that is expected of all its members – clergy and laity alike – as Anglicans who have self-consciously united under the authority of the Holy Scriptures – the Bible. In other words, what the canons tells us is, if we are truly going to be biblically orthodox Anglicans, here’s what it’s going to look like; here’s what’s going to be expected of each our members.     

 

Canon 10, entitled “Of the Laity,” identifies ten “Duties of the Laity” as those that represent, really, the minimum standard, and the broadest scope, of what it means to be biblically faithful Anglican Christians, whether you’re of the Charismatic stripe, or the Anglo-catholic, or the traditionalist – all of which make up this new thing called the ACNA. I will read them to you first in toto, and then today I’m going to begin a ten-part series of sermons in which I’ll be expounding each one these ten duties and their practical implications as we try to live out lives as faithful Anglican here at St. Stephen’s.    

 

Canon 10, Sec. 2

It shall be the duty of every member of the Church:

 

1.      To worship God, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, every Lord’s Day in a Church unless reasonably prevented;

 

2.      To engage regularly in the reading and study of Holy Scripture and the Doctrine of the Church as found in Article I of the Constitution of this Church;

 

3.      To observe their baptismal vows, to lead an upright and sober life, and not give scandal to the Church;

 

4.      To present their children and those they have led to the Lord for baptism and confirmation;

 

5.      To give regular financial support to the Church, with the biblical tithe as the minimum standard of giving;

 

6.      To practice forgiveness daily according to our Lord’s teaching;

 

7.      To receive worthily the Sacrament of Holy Communion as often as reasonable;

 

8.      To observe the feasts and fasts of the Church set forth in the Anglican formularies;

 

9.      To continue his or her instruction in the Faith so as to remain an effective minister for the Lord Jesus Christ;

 

10.  To devote themselves to the ministry of Christ among those who do not know Him, utilizing the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives them, for the effective extension of Christ’s Kingdom.

 

Those are the ten duties the ACNA recognizes – and I say “recognizes; it does not impose them. It recognizes them – as the ten marks that will characterize anyone who truly desires to identify themselves as biblically and historically faithful Anglican Christians. That’s a voluntary decision. Belonging to the Reformed Episcopal Church, and thus now belonging to the Anglican Church in North America, is a voluntary decision. No one is forcing us to be part of this Church. But if we are going to be part of this Church these are the “rules of the games,” so to speak. These are the rules of the gave that our membership means we’re agreeing to play by. Okay? So let’s take them one at a time so we can understand them.

 

The first duty, again, is: To worship God, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, every Lord’s Day in a Church unless reasonably prevented.

 

Now the first thing we should note about this duty is that it’s nothing new. The Reformed Episcopal Church has a very similar statement, which you can find in this pamphlet entitled “Joining the Church,” under the heading “Conduct Expected of Members,” that “All member are expected to attend Sunday worship services unless providentially hindered.”  The ACNA statement doesn’t really add or take away anything from that one. So nothing new.

 

But of course there’s nothing new about this duty in the greater sense that it didn’t first come down to us with the formation of the ACNA, or even of the REC, but with the formation of the nation of Israel. It comes down to us as part of God’s ten-part outline of the duties of His people: His Ten Commandments. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” The Fourth Commandment is where we get our duty to worship God in the Church every Lord’s Day.

 

Now I know that this is one of those commandments – one of those duties – that some of us sort of chaff under. We might even complain a little bit. “How can God really expect us to be in Church every Sunday?” Usually weren’t not so bold as that; usually its more like, “How can the Church really expect us to be in Church every Sunday? Who do they think they are?” We like to try to distance our complaints from the real authority behind the commandment.  Or we might try to find a little wiggle room in the commandment by reasoning with ourselves that God isn’t quite as strict with this one as the others. Surely God is much more interested in us not killing each other, or stealing each other’s stuff, than He is about us dedicating a day, or even a portion of a day, to His holy worship.

 

Or we might even be theologically sophisticated enough to say, “You know what, that was the Old Testament; we Christians are under the New Testament.  That was the Law; we’re under the Gospel. Doesn’t St. Paul say in Romans that we’re “not under the Law, but under grace”?

 

I think we all know that it’s only this last argument that’s at all serious, so let’s just deal with that one.

 

Yes, as Christians we are no longer under the Law, but under grace. But does that mean that we are lawless – that we have no law? In the very next verse in Romans Paul asks, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!” or, “May it never be!” Well, what is sin? “Sin is lawlessness,” says St. John (1 John 3:14). Sin is by its very definition disobedience to God’s law. To not be under the Law but under grace means we’re not under the condemnation of the Law, but we’re under the grace of God for the forgiveness of our many transgressions of the Law. That’s a world of difference from being without the Law altogether.

 

Being under grace also means we’ve also received God’s gracious provision for us to be able to keep the Law – His Holy Spirit. I mean, one of the marks of being a Christian – one of the marks that we are in fact living under the New Testament, the New Covenant – is that we have the Spirit of God living in us as the power source for being holy as God is holy, in terms of our obedience to His Law.  Way back in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, the Lord tells us what the New Covenant will look like. He says, “This is the covenant that I will make with [them] after those days… I will put my law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33).  The great difference between the Old and the New Covenants isn’t that the Law goes away in the New Covenant; it’s that the Law of God is no longer outside of us, written on tables of stone, condemning us for every slight transgression, but giving us absolutely no power to keep it. Now the Spirit of God has written the Law on our hearts through the work of regeneration – through His work of making us re-born to God so that our desire is to obey God. And not only that, but the Spirit of God indwells us to be that continual power-source for keeping God’s Law.

 

But what Law? What Law has been written on our hearts? What Law does the Holy Spirit empower us to keep? It’s very easy say, “The Ten Commandments.” That’s the most obvious answer. But why just these ten? Why do we isolate these ten commandments out of all of the commandments of God we find in the Old Testament? I mean, what about the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament? I don’t see many of us ritually burning our clothes if we happen to find a little mold or mildew growing in them. If the Law of God has been written in our hearts shouldn’t we keep that one too? What about the dietary laws? How many of us just can’t wait to get a piece of that wonderful juicy ham on Easter Sunday? Should we give that up to obey God’s Law?

 

It seems like so many of the laws of the Old Testament have just sort of passed by the wayside. And maybe the 4th Commandment is like that. Maybe, as we don’t have to circumcise our baby boys anymore, we don’t really have to keep holy the Sabbath day.

 

Well, this is very important for us to understand, isn’t it?

 

Jesus said that none of the commandments simply pass by the wayside. He said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle [not one of the smallest letters or brush-strokes] will pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-18).

 

The key idea there is the idea of fulfillment. Jesus came to fulfill the Law. That’s what He said. Jesus came to fulfill the law of circumcision. He did so on the cross, when He was cut off from God – when he suffered the curse which circumcision represented. But circumcision wasn’t just taken away by Christ’s death; it was in a sense resurrected and transfigured into the sacrament of baptism. That’s what Paul says in the book of Colossians, so that now when we are baptized we’re baptized into Christ’s death – into His circumcision on the cross – so that we receive the blessing of what circumcision also represented – being cleansed from the pollution of our sin and being made anew as a children of God.

 

Jesus came to fulfill the law of the Passover. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. He was the ultimate Passover Lamb whose blood causes the curse of death to pass us by. But the Passover doesn’t just go away; by Christ’s fulfillment of it, it gets changed and transfigured into the sacrament of Holy Communion. That’s what Jesus was doing in the upper room the night before His death, so that now when we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we partake of Christ our Passover Lamb, in the House, under the Blood. 

 

Jesus came to fulfill the law of the Sabbath. He came not only to give us rest, but to be our Rest – our eternal rest. He came to open up to us our entrance into God’s eternal day of rest. But the Sabbath doesn’t just go away. That seventh-day, end-of-the week, looking-forward to the coming rest, gets transfigured into the first-day, beginning-of-the-week participation in our rest. That’s what we’re doing here today.

 

No longer is the cessation of labor the way we keep the Sabbath,  but it’s by coming to Church on the Lord’s Day to partake of our rest – to partake of Christ who is our rest – here at His altar.

 

Do you see? The 4th Commandment does still apply; we do still need to keep it, only in its New Covenant, transfigured form.

 

That’s why the Church, whose charter from Christ is to keep us all accountable to our Christian duty, can tell us that our #1 duty as Christians – never mind the Anglican part – is to worship God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, every Lord’s Day in a Church. It’s what we were made for. It’s what we were remade for by the New Covenant. The whole purpose of the New Covenant is to bring us in to the reality of what the Old Covenant merely pointed forward to, and that includes our Sabbath rest – and that is opened up to us here a the Lord’s Table.

 

Now are there times when we just can’t make it here? Absolutely! That’s why the canon says, “unless reasonably prevented.” But being reasonably prevented is a far cry from saying, “You know, I’ll just skip it this morning. I think I’ll just sleep in, or do this or that instead.” We all have to judge in our own hearts what “reasonably prevented” means. But do you remember the Parable of the Great Banquet? The master made a great banquet and sent out his servants to call those he’d invited. But they all together began to make excuse.  “I’ve just bought some land and I need to go and see it. Please have me excused.” “I’ve bought some oxen and I need to go test them. Please have me excused.”  “I just got married, so I can’t come.” When the Lord makes His banquet for us… when the Lord makes Himself present to us, and invites us to partake of Him, and to partake of our eternal rest in Him, what shall we say?   “Please have me excused?”

 

As biblically faithful Anglicans – as faithful Christians – let us do our duty to come to the Lord’s Table on the Lord’s Day, for I hope you see, that in the end it’s not a duty at all; it’s our greatest privilege. +