Homily for the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost 16th November YOU DID IT TO ME Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; St. Matthew 25:14-30 What you are is Gods gift to you. What you become is your gift to God. --author unknown A saint is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God. --William Barclay An official United States holiday, Veterans’ Day honors men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. It used to be known as Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War One which formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when the armistice with Germany went into effect. But the name was changed in 1954 to honor everyone who has served in the armed forces. Like everyone else in whose families there are veterans, my thoughts turned to the veterans of my family, particularly an uncle who died in World War One and was buried in France and another uncle who spent about two years in a German POW camp in World War Two. Now let me tell you about Martin of Tours, a soldier who became Christian and was serving as bishop of Tours when he died November 11, 397. He was born in the year 330 in what is now Hungary where his father, who also was a soldier, brought him up and made him join the army at age 15. It was as a soldier and a Christian but had not been baptized that he performed the deed which made him a household name. The story goes like this. The vignette is set in the middle of a winter that was colder and harsher than usual, so cold that many people froze to death. Wearing just his armor and a military cloak, he passed through the town gate of Amiens where he met a man with no clothes on praying that passers-by have pity on him, but no one stopped. Martin believed that this man had been reserved for himself, but what could he do? He had just the cloak he was wearing because he had spent what he had on other people in similar circumstances. Grasping his sword, he cut his cloak down the middle, giving one-half to the poor man and wrapping the other half around himself. Some of the by-standers laughed thinking he looked grotesque with his cropped cloak, but others of sounder judgment regretted that they had not done something to help the poor man. That night after he had gone to sleep, he saw the Christ wearing the half-cloak which he had given to the poor man at the city gate. In his dream he heard the Christ say in a loud voice to the angels standing around, “Martin has clothed me in this cloak.” (If you have access to it, I suggest consulting Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 2003 for the November 11th readings.) In next Sunday’s Gospel lesson (St. Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus divides humanity into two groups. He thanks the one group for giving him food and drink, extending hospitality, clothing him, and visiting him when he was sick. Speaking with a single voice, the group asks the Christ when they had done these deeds. Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” I believe we are responding to the Christ who is present in others by what we are doing today. “If you do it to the least of humanity, you do it to me,” says the Christ. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 13:07:50 +0000
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