James 3:13-4:3,7-8 Mark 9:30-37
In all the preparations for returning to our sanctuary for worship, I have had St. Augustine of Hippo on my mind. I’ll tell you why.
Augustine was born in 354 in a Roman province that is now part of Algeria, in Africa. Important for us to know: Augustine was an African.
His mother, Monica, was a Christian. Augustine was raised as a Christian, but like a lot of kids, he didn’t seem to be terribly serious about it. He was a smart, and probably cocky, little guy. He ran around with a rowdy bunch and got into plenty of trouble. In his teens, he became enthralled with philosophy and embraced a religion called Manicheism, which was very popular at the time. Just about killed his mom, but she never gave up on him.
He was willful and wayward and at 17 began a relationship with a young woman, whose name we don’t know. She bore his son – Adeodatus, which means Gift from God. Augustine and this woman never married, but the relationship lasted many years, during which time Augustine never stopped exploring spiritual things. Gradually he seemed to be finding his way back to the church.
He separated from this woman during a time when his faith journey was intensifying – he was discerning a call to the priesthood.
But he wasn’t quite ready yet! Augustine apparently still felt he had some wild oats to sow. During these tumultuous and emotional years, he is famously said to have uttered this prayer: “God grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
Thank God for his mentors, his teachers, friends, and of course Monica, his mother. These are the ones who gave him the steadfast support and wise guidance he needed to find his way to faith.
He followed the path to priesthood and was ordained in 391. It was here, finally, in the church, Augustine put his great intelligence to good use. He was prolific in his thinking and writing, crafting much of the church doctrine that we have today. And it should be said that John Calvin, the founder of our Reformed faith, was deeply influenced by Augustine – this is clear in Calvin’s writing.
Some years after his conversion to Christianity, Augustine wrote the book that he is most personally identified with – The Confessions. It is an account of his faith journey. If you have heard anything about it you probably have heard about the spicy details of his past, all those things he now repents of. But you should also know that it is brimming, overflowing, with gratitude. Augustine cannot adequately express how thankful he is to God, because from this vantage point, at last, he can see things clearly.
He can see that for so many years he was running around here and there all over God’s world, greedily taking what he wanted. His intellectual curiosity took him through explorations of all kinds of things, and his physical appetites drove him in other directions. He was talented, but unfocused. Intelligent but without wisdom. Until he found his way home.
As Augustine writes to God in his confessions, “belatedly, I love you…You were within and I was without…You were with me and I was not with you…yet you opened my deafness…chased away my blindness…I breathed you in and now I pant for you…I tasted and now I hunger and thirst…You touched me and now I burn for your peace.”
The man had a way with words, didn’t he?
St. Augustine has been on my mind because I have been so aware of the importance of finding our way home. And it has two meanings for us now – the spiritual meaning, that God is our heart’s home, is one. But also, a more material meaning, as we have longed to return to our church home, this sanctuary. This is a place we so deeply and dearly associate with our spiritual journeys. Here in these pews we have opened our hearts to God and cried out our deepest fears and hurts and longings. Prayers for God to take away the disease of our loved ones. Prayers full of our hard questions about why things happen that no one ever wants to happen; these things challenge our faith, and we cry out like the father who brought his son to Jesus saying, “Help me in my unbelief.”
We have sat together here and asked God to bring his reign of peace, bring an end to war and pestilence and hunger, as we watched humanity in one place and another wreak havoc and destruction.
We have confessed our own sins, the roles we have played in the pain and suffering in this world, repenting of our trespasses, and seeking God’s grace to help us do better. We have given our prayers of thankfulness for the blessings we have received, the gifts God has bestowed on us, the joy we find in the life God has given us.
And, like Augustine, we have found strength and sustenance and direction from the saints that surround us – those who share the pews with us and those who came before us, whom we remember with thanksgiving and love. We know that we are not, and can never be, on this journey alone. For all the times we have drifted away, and someone called us back. For all the dark and confused times, when someone gave us a light to find our way. For all the times we needed someone to help us know who we are.
Today is a day of thanksgiving. We give thanks for all the faithful, past and present, who have played a role in giving us this sanctuary. We give thanks for God’s steadfast love and mercies, new every day. To recommit ourselves to God, is good and right for us to do.
Today we begin the journey of coming home to God, following in the footsteps of St. Augustine who prayed thusly:
You are great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power and your wisdom is immeasurable. Humankind, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you. We carry the evidence of our sin and the witness that you resist the proud. Nevertheless, we desire to praise you. You stir us to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
Amen.
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Photo: Lana Foley Photography
