The Lord said "I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy.
Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them; and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people and I shall be their God, in truth and in righteousness."
In the name of God, +Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen
In the Holy Gospel of Saint Luke read today, we have heard,
"The Child Jesus [He was twelve years old] tarried behind in Jerusalem. After three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.
All that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
He said: How is it that ye sought me; wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."
The innocent child listened, learned, and taught. In fact, He was already at this innocent age going about His Father's business.
We recall our petitions in the Collect this morning:
"...Receive the prayers of the people which call upon Thee, that they may both perceive and know those things which they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same."
We also prayed that our Father "Manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles."
Finally, we asked that we, who "now know thee by faith may have the fruits of thy glorious Godhead."
I hope not to seem impertinent, to say that when I first came to you in Rangoon two years ago, I felt to be very much the little child being introduced to a new land, to a new culture, to a new world. Just as did the child Jesus, I listened, I learned, I grew. In my case, it was not my stature that increased; rather it was my perception of the Faith. I have subsequently discussed with many people the profound effect that first visit had upon me.
How is it possible, I asked, for a then 59-year-old, so late to find a whole new, strong, vigorous, lively faith? Why had I not found it in my customary Church and home?
One part of the answer to this question is habit: we get so used to the people, the objects, the events, the ideas with which we are surrounded every day, that we not only take them for granted; we lose consciousness of their very existence.
As if it weren't bad enough that we lose consciousness of the things around us; even the people we are with every day lose their special vitality; they become - if we are not very careful - mere objects like a chair or a sandal. We, by familiarity, lose awareness of humanity.
It is thus my coming to Rangoon and to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity two years ago which enabled the shades of habit and familiarity to be lifted. Is it the novelty, for example, of for the first time walking barefoot to the Altar of God, which gave me a new profound awareness that we are, as we approach the altar, coming to the very doorway of eternity? No, the bare feet in themselves do not make me or you holy. However, as we note that we bare our soles, so we are reminded that we must also bare our souls, that God may come into them and heal them.
You might recall that I had injured my foot in Mandalay when I first came to you: this handicap forced me to look ever so much more carefully at where I was going; forced me to observe with special intensity all I came upon. No, the injured foot did not give me grace; by it, however, I was granted an unique perception of all I came to know in Rangoon.
The longyi which I began wearing: did it give me magic power or some special strength? No, but learning to wear an altogether new type of clothing made me especially conscious of clothing, of environment, of material possessions.
So we see that no individual event or phenomenon or person is responsible for the growth in spirit which I was granted by my visit to Rangoon. However, the sum total of all these people, these things, these experiences, is that I have been given new vision, new insight, new consciousness, of the love of God for me, for Deacon David, as a redeemed member of the body of Christ.
And, of course, as this new knowledge enlarged my spirit, it necessarily led to my seeing in each person I came to meet a pointer to my Lord and my God, another window to God's eternal majesty.
Now I come to the matter of the Rangoon Roof: my friends and acquaintances at the Church of the Advent in Boston demonstrated exceptional charity through this past year: rarely would I get into conversation with anyone - Churchman, fellow passenger on a bus, fellow employee at MIT, family member - without shortly bringing out my tattered pictures of the interior and exterior of this cathedral, launching into a lengthy description of you people who have become such a large part of my life.
The Church of the Advent is - relative to most of the church in South-East Asia - extremely affluent; we spend more in one Sunday on our floral arrangements than you do in a year. However, like so many of the habits I alluded to above, things come to be taken for granted at the Advent, as everywhere.
It was thus something of a wonder that the Rector and Vestry not only allowed me to make the people of the Advent aware of your need for repair of your roof - they not only allowed me to put an article in our parish newsletter requesting funds - not only that, they committed a large part of the needed funds from the Church of the Advent. I do not recall ever before having seen my people at the Advent reaching out to their brothers and sisters half way around the world in such a substantial way.
So, beloved family of Holy Trinity, we see that the new perceptions brought by coming to a new place not only enlarged me, Deacon David; they by extension have brought induplicable new awareness and grace to hundreds in Boston. They do not hear my reference to "my other family in Rangoon" with jealousy; they are aware we are being brought to a new grace because of you.
Now, I've talked with Liz Shepherd and Fr. Oak about the significance of the Advent's gift to you. Perhaps we are owed some thanks; however, I adamantly insist that - by presenting a first opportunity for the Parish of the Advent to reach out to Rangoon - you have given us much more than the dollars we got to you. Without your generous welcoming Deacon David to be part of your cathedral family, we would never have gotten this special awareness that Jesus Christ is here and now among us.
Another point about giving and receiving: I made some small efforts to assist the son of my guest house owner here in Rangoon to find an appropriate college, gain admission, and get his student visa: Linn is now happily settling into his college studies in California. Well, as a result of that, the family has been showering kindnesses on me ever since my arrival here. I was embarrassed; I was going to move out of the guesthouse, so uncomfortable was their generosity making me.
Happily, I was reminded of a saying by Kahlil Gibran: may the recipient of a gift not make his thanks so great that he diminishes the generosity and good will of the donor. Further, on reflection, I came upon another awareness that I hope we all can be occasion for growth:
I was worried about the magnanimity of my hosts in Rangoon; I was uncomfortable receiving their gift. Now here's the point:
Am I or are you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, are any of us, consciously aware of, embarrassed by, overwhelmed by that most staggering gift we have all received - the gift of Redemption, Reconciliation, and Salvation brought us by God the Father having sent His only begotten Son to dwell among us?
Is it not possible that familiarity and habit, alluded to above, play an insidious role in our coming to dwell in Christ? Could it be that, because we recite the Creed constantly, because we intone the Pater Noster frequently, because we end every prayer with, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" - because all these things are constantly repeated, we take them for granted, we depersonalize them, we turn them into objects?
Do I feel as great an awareness of gratitude when I receive the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ as when a person gives me a longyi? Do we come into the temple of God as aware of what a great gift this is as when we go to a human banquet at the Royal Garden Restaurant on Kandawgyi Lake? May the grace of new insight given Deacon David be useful to all of us!
Some help is given us in Saint Paul's epistle to the Romans, which we heard this morning, in how we are to prevent taking God and His Gift for granted.
In his letter to the Church in Rome, Saint Paul gives us direction on how we are t respond to this gift of God, this incomparable bringing to us of his Son. Saint Paul instructs us: "By the mercies of God present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."
Paul continues, "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God,
... Not to think of {our} selves more highly than we ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith. We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."
Again, from Saint Luke's gospel:
"Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."
May each one of us similarly - by the free flowing Grace of God -increase in wisdom, that we may grow to the fullness of the glory to which we are called.