Solemnity of Saint Laurence Sermon for the Patronal Festival Solemn Mass Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney, 10 August 2016 Fr Martin Davies As I was sitting at my desk on Monday morning writing this sermon for the feast of Saint Laurence, the fire alarm in our apartment building started ringing, as happens occasionally. Unusually, this was the second time in less than twenty-four hours. In the evening it is usually that someone has burnt the roast, and in the morning the toast. I was so focussed on S Laurence and his martyrdom by fire, that for a brief ridiculous moment I imagined that my thoughts had triggered the alarm. I do not intend irreverence or trivialisation, and I imagine that in this church, sermons have been preached on every aspect of S Laurence the martyr. So, I won’t dwell on fire this evening. In the third-century, Laurence was one of the seven deacons of the Roman church. The place and role of the deacon in the early Church is worth recalling. It is especially worth noting that the core ministry partnership was that of the bishop and the deacon. The deacon’s two-fold task was to direct the worship of the church, and to know what was happening beyond the gathered assembly of worshippers. The deacon was what we might call the community minister, who linked daily living with the celebration of the liturgy. So to use today’s language, we might say that the deacon was the both the pastoral co-ordinator and also the master of ceremonies. You will understand then that the deacon’s ministry was pivotal, both within the gathered assembly and outside it. Before the liturgy began, the deacon had many tasks to oversee. He made certain that everything was in place. The deacon examined the gifts brought by the people, setting aside bread and wine to be used for the Eucharist, and determining which of the peoples’ offerings should be set aside to give to the needy. The deacon ensured that all involved in the liturgy arrived on time; checking off the readers, cantors, acolytes. The deacon also scrutinized admissions to the worshipping assembly, ensuring that the catechumens left after the proclamation of the scriptures, and before the gifts were prepared for the great thanksgiving. It was the deacon who called the people to attention at particular moments in the liturgy. It was the deacon who proclaimed the gospel. It was the deacon – the street minister who knew what was happening in the community – who led – or at least organised - the intercessory prayers of the people; linking the mission of the Church with its worship. This then, gives us some background as to why Laurence the deacon would have been targeted by the authorities. As a deacon, Laurence was knowledgeable about the faith community; he was influential; and what he didn’t know about the local church would not have been worth knowing. And so it was, that shortly after his bishop, Pope Sixtus II and other deacons of the Roman church were executed, Laurence was arrested. As you know, when he was ordered to produce the church’s treasure, he assembled the poor who had received the church’s relief funds. “These” he said, “are the treasures of the church.” Today’s scripture readings could almost have been written for S Laurence, you might think. And that is exactly the point of the scriptures; if we can see Laurence in these writings, where in the scriptures can we see ourselves? This is a good question to ask today, as the
feast of S Laurence – our Patronal feast - is in a real sense, the feast of every one of us, following Laurence in the way of Christ. This inevitably brings us back to S Laurence following Christ to the point of martyrdom, and what this might now mean for us. At the end of June, the Very Rev’d Professor John Behr, Dean of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York, gave a lecture here in Sydney at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College. His subject was Dying to Live: Becoming Human in the Early Church. Quoting Rowan Williams, Fr Behr said that Christian theology is tempted to forget how it learned to speak. The early Church after the Apostles, had only ever known Jesus as crucified and risen in the Breaking of the Bread. This is still the same for us today: We read scripture and we break bread in the light of the Passion, and in doing so we meet Christ. Fr Behr said that Christ shows us what it is like to be God, by dying as a human being. Christ has destroyed death not by removing it, but by turning it inside out; he has removed the fear of death. When we grasp this we will be able to read the familiar verse more freely, those who try to preserve their life will lose it. So if, like S Laurence, we live our lives to live for others, we enter into a manner of living that cannot be touched by death. This frees us, and we will see that leads the way in showing us how to die to ourselves. As Fr Behr said, if we don’t see death, we don’t see God, for we no longer see anything further than our own imminent life. The Roman authorities were looking for exactly the wrong things from Laurence the deacon. They did not know that the Gospel reverses our attitudes and expectations; that we do not enter the Kingdom of God by becoming more influential and more powerful, but by giving these things away. Here in this community of Christ Church S Laurence the fusion of beautiful liturgy and care for the needy is an unself-conscious twin reality. The spirit of S Laurence deacon and martyr, has well and truly shaped this faith community down through the generations. May the prayers of S Laurence, Blessed Mary and all the saints continue to surround us in worship and mission.