Bishop Brian Cole reflects on a recent visit to St. Paul Episcopal Church, Seymour, where the readings for the day and a particular bulletin insert spoke to him about taking up our cross.
Transcript
Hi, I’m Bishop Brian. Let’s begin by reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in suffering; persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” (Romans 12:9-13)
On Labor Day weekend, I visited St Paul’s Seymour. This is the lesson that we read as the Epistle that day. We also read a Gospel lesson where Jesus invites us to take up our cross, to lose our life in order to save it. The call to take up your cross, to lose your life in order to save it. So often it’s hard for us to find out a way, a sense to how you live that out now. How does one take up a cross? How does one lose their life in order to save it? It’s why I find this passage from Romans helpful. It’s almost like Paul gives some practical applications for what it looks like to put love into action. So he takes this incredible call from Jesus and puts it into practical application.
What was also helpful that Sunday at St Paul’s Seymour is they also had a bulletin insert reminding us that on the ninth of September is when the church remembers the martyrs of Memphis, Constance and her companions, when the yellow fever swept through Memphis in August of 1878. These sisters, these Episcopal sisters, along with Episcopal clergy persons, they contributed to the care of others. They went towards the illness, towards those who were sick and ultimately lost their own lives and serving others. It was a practical way of taking up a cross of losing your life in order to save it.
On Labor Day weekend, on that Saturday, I was invited to attend the Blount County Pride, where St. Andrew’s, Maryville, along with other houses of worship, were inside celebrating Pride and being a face of offering hospitality to all, including the folks who might find themselves somehow outside of the church’s walls. So the church went outside of its walls to put love into action, to take up a cross, to allow a life to be lost in order to be saved.
Friends, we are living in a time when the Gospel continues to be urgently needed and heard in our streets, in our communities, both in our churches, but more importantly, outside of our walls, in our communities. So continue to be a people who take up the cross, who lose lives in order to save it, to be people who take the words of Paul and take that love into action, to show up where the church is called to show up, which is in God’s world, particularly with those who might find themselves in any way hurt or harmed by the church.
We are called to proclaim Good News again and again and again.
Amen.