Holy Angels Anglican Church
Homily for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
(January 19, 2025)
St. Matthew 2:1-12
No Man is an Island
Given by: The Rev. Father Vincent J. Varnas
Today’s Gospel reading is a familiar one. It is about the work of St. John the Baptist. His baptism was not like that which would follow. John’s baptism was in accordance with Jewish traditions and was a baptism of repentance with a water ablution. But Jesus baptized with the Holy Ghost, as did St. Paul. And this is how Christianity differs from all other religions. Recalling from the Book of Acts what St. Paul asked the Ephesians: “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism. ... and when Paul had laid hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; ...” (Acts 19:2-3,6).
Through baptism, we are initiated into the Church. And by this, we become Church because Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. And we one in Christ. Through Church we are joined together in comm-union giving praise and glory to God. The Holy Spirit is symbolized by a dove of peace and unity. And unity is another way of expressing the means of worship: comm-unity.
The young son of a Baptist minister was in church one morning when he saw for the first time the rite of baptism by immersion. He was greatly interested in it, and the next morning proceeded to baptize his three cats in the bathtub.
The first kitten bore it very well, and so did the other young cat, but the old family cat rebelled. It struggled with him, clawed and tore him, and got away.
With considerable effort he caught it again and proceeded with the ceremony. But the cat acted worse than ever, clawed at him, spit, and scratched his hands and face.
Finally, after barely getting it splattered with water, he dropped the cat on the floor in disgust and said: “Fine, be an Atheist.”
Makes one wonder if this was how John the Baptism started out as child!
How often have you heard it said that we are a faith community?
Seventeenth century English poet John Donne wrote:
“No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main”.
St. Paul prefigured this observation about the interconnectedness of all humanity 600 years earlier when he said: “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). We are community. And we worship in community with each other.
Jesus established His Church here on earth in that fashion: First of all, there was His community of the Apostles and Himself. Then there were the home churches of St. Paul among the seven of Asia Minor. Later-on as the Church and Christianity spread to North Africa, Europe, and the middle east, the local churches were communal in nature.
Worship services were always in groups of the faithful. How so? It was and remains for Sacramental purposes, particularly the Eucharist. And the entirety of the Holy Communion service or Mass is in and of itself Sacramental. It is Sacrament because the Mass, the Eucharist, the Holy Communion service was instituted by Christ as an efficacious sign of grace and entrusted to the Church for the purpose of our sharing in His divinity.
After the consecration at Mass, we say that we are, “... made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.” We are one in Christ. And by this, we are granted a small share in His divinity, just as He shared in our humanity by His Incarnation.
The New Testament supports this, exhorting us in the following ways:
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:20). “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” (Rom. 12:5) “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering ... Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, ...” (Heb. 10:23, 25). “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor.12:27) “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; ... And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, ...” (Acts 2:44, 46-47).
My dear friends in Christ that is communal worship and that is how God has prescribed that we engage in worshiping Himself! “No man is an island”.
O yes, we are permitted and even exhorted to pray individually. “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; ...” (Matt. 6:6). This is not in conflict with the prescription for communal prayer. Praying in secret behind closed doors is the admonishment of Jesus that the Pharisees and scribes ought not to make a show of public prayer for personal and selfish reasons as an hypocritic action demonstrating how pious and religious they were for public consumption, while engaging in vile and deceitful conduct when no one was looking! As Jesus accused them, saying: “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” (Matt. 12:34).
Thusly, private prayer is condoned and encouraged when it is not for self-aggrandizement, but for personal petitions or supplications; whether direct to God or intercessory through the saints and often supplemented by prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
And how is it that the foundation for communal prayer came about?
It is because of our creation in the image and likeness of God. The Trinity is communal.
The Cappadocian monks of what is now modern-day Turkey in the 4th century A.D., defined the “image and likeness of God’ as “relationship” between God and man and among all of ourselves. “No man is an island”.
We were created to be in right-relationship with our creator at all times and in all ways. Such right-relationship with God was further defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as doing good and avoiding evil. Sin breaks or at least strains our right-relationship with God. This is why we cannot say: “Once saved; always saved” as do the Calvinists.
Jesus made atonement for our sins by His passion and death on the cross. We are all pre-destined for Heaven. But we can and many do mess-it-up by committing grave or mortal sins that remain unrepentant unto death (1 Jn. 5:16-17). Hell does not have a “vacant sign” out front! Not everyone goes to Heaven, you know.
So what about the hermit monk or the loner? Can they get away with private, individual prayer, eschewing communal worship? Yes! But only by the permission and endorsement of a bishop. How so?
For a cleric to become a hermit, it must be discerned that God has called the priest or other to this ordained state of spiritual seclusion. And since we are all created for communal living, a hermit’s life is not easy. For the hermit monk, it is a harsh and demanding sacrifice of self for the greater glory of God. One must be psychologically fit for such rigors.
Among the laity, there are loners who prefer to life their lives apart from others. Often this is due to some life experience that has caused fear of community. It is unnatural to be a loner by choice or circumstance. God has created us for relationships with others. That’s why solitary confinement of prisoners for any duration beyond a few days is often considered to be cruel and unusual punishment, unless serious harm might otherwise ensue to the prisoner or others.
No one knows what Hell really is. Many assert that it is a combustible flame that physically burns the body with excruciating pain. I disagree. Biblical references to the fires of Hell are an analogy for torment and should not be read or taken literally (Matt. 5:22). This analogy originated with the Hebrews and Jews in attempting to describe Hell by comparison to an earthly experience. They chose the eternal flames of Gehenna; the garbage dump outside Jerusalem, for this purpose.
Rather, I speculate that Hell is not only the torment realized by the absence of God’s presence, but also solitary confinement. It may well be utter loneliness for all eternity. Can you imagine what it would be like never to have someone to talk to or even to be seen from afar? Perhaps not, because we always have someone with whom we might chat, even if only for a few moments.
My friends in Christ, our human nature is indeed a communal need for one another, no matter how trying that might be at times!
And the worship of our creator must also be communal, because we are the adopted sons and daughters of God. He is Abba or Father or just plain Daddy! In a very real way, we are flesh of His flesh, since He is the creator of all things and since He always existed even before the universe was created and since nothing comes from nothing, we came from Him, as our bodies are made of “star stuff”, as once described by Dr. Carl Sagan in his 1980’s television series on astrophysics.
And in Holy Communion, we partake of the Body and Blood; soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it so well: “[we are] ... made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him” (BCP, p.81).
That’s why we call it “Holy Communion”, for we are in close physical communion with Christ when we receive the Eucharist. And also that communal relationship extends beyond ourselves and embraces those around us in Church who also receive the Body and Blood of Christ and who offer praise and thanksgiving to God: because “No one is an island”.
The presence of Jesus is not limited to the Eucharist. He is also present in the Scriptural Word and in the altar and in the priest and in the congregation; uniting us together in Him and with Him and through Him for the praise and greater glory of His Name. And THAT is truly communal worship, as God intended it to be.