Sermon Tone Analysis

One of the fruits of the liturgical movement of the last century born within \\ the monasteries of Europe (which has profoundly affected patterns of worship \\ in the churches of the West) has been the recovery of the understanding of \\ baptism and the eucharist as a proclamation of and participation in the \\ paschal mystery of Christ's death and resurrection.

While we are familiar \\ with the cross and resurrection, the intimate connection between the two \\ sometimes escapes us, and produces a skewed understanding of what it means \\ to live the Christian life.

There are those who focus on the cross as the \\ sign of human sin but never go through the cross into the new and abundant \\ life of resurrection.

And there are those who see everything from the \\ perspective of the resurrection without being mindful that the new freedom \\ it imparts can become distorted and allow evil to masquerade as an angel of \\ light.

\\ \\ The paschal mystery embraces both the cross and the resurrection in a double \\ dynamic set forth in the gospels and the apostolic letters, particularly \\ those of Paul, in which the paradox of authentic discipleship is proclaimed: \\ we enter into life by dying; we find by losing.

And it is as we face our \\ essential poverty before God that the way is opened for us to experience the \\ riches of Christ's grace - a lifegivingness, which as Paul knew well, comes \\ to full term, is made perfect, in weakness.

\\ \\ This weakness, this poverty is not, however, an invitation to some sort of \\ passive resignation, but rather it is revealed to us in the midst of active \\ engagement: in the midst of "insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities \\ for the sake of Christ," (2 Corinthians 12:10) as Paul tells us.

"For \\ whenever I am weak then I am strong;" not with the strength of my own \\ psychological, intellectual or physical effort, though they may certainly be \\ called into play, but with the strength of the risen Christ: "I can do all \\ things through him who strengthens me" (Phil 4:13).

\\ \\ In the letter to the Hebrews we are told that "Although [Christ our high \\ priest] was a son, he learned obedience through what the suffered."

What is \\ obedience but the capacity of listen intently for God's desire at the heart \\ of our lives and the circumstances that life sets before us: not what do I \\ think given the limitations of my mind and heart, but what does God yearn \\ for, what is God's project, what is God's imagination seeking to bring into \\ being.

This kind of deep and costly availability to God's desire - listening \\ to what the Spirit is saying - invites suffering: the crucifixion of the \\ attitudes and opinions, the unacknowledged biases and prejudices and fears \\ that keep us from entering into that open space spoken of in the psalms \\ where all is reconciled according to God's own truth and justness.

"In \\ Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself" and to us, through \\ baptism, has been given "the ministry of reconciliation."