Sermon for the Feast of St James/Eighth Sunday after Trinity
“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem”
In the mercy of God’s “never-failing providence,” today is the Feast of St. James the Apostle as well as the Eighth Sunday after Trinity. The occasional intersection of the major Saints’ Days with our Sunday celebration of Christ’s Resurrection is, I think, most instructive. The commemoration of the Saints provides an illustration or example of what it means for us to participate in Christ’s redemptive work.
In the Maritimes, St. James is, we might say, a favourite saint. There are an enormous number of Churches, Anglican and otherwise, dedicated to the honour and memory of St. James. It is a feature of our Maritime and sea-faring traditions. St. James is one of the disciples whom Jesus calls from fishing to become a fisher of men. The Collect alludes to his calling. The Lesson from Acts indicates the radical cost of that calling. James is put to death by Herod the king. The Gospel teaches the meaning of that calling. It has to do with our going up to Jerusalem with Jesus.
Jesus explains exactly what it means to go up to Jerusalem. It means his passion, death and resurrection. What this means for us is seen in the lives of the saints, namely, our participation in Christ’s redemption of our humanity: drinking of the cup of which Christ drinks and being baptized into Christ’s baptism. We are consecrated to God by virtue of our incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ. Suffering and glory are all part of that story. As Paul tells us in the Epistle for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, “we have received a spirit of sonship.” We are “the children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ”. But there is a cost: “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.” The martyr saints remind us of the suffering and the glory.
