Today's Sermon!!

++++++++++++++++

Readings: Romans 10:13-17, Psalm 96: 1-7, John 7:16-18

Today in Lesser Feasts and Fasts we remember Saint Dominic, a man called by God to preach the truth. Dominic founded the monastic order of Dominicans in 1217 – a group focused on educated preaching. Dominic was ordained and began preaching in 1196, having sold all of his possessions five years earlier to help the poor during a famine. His major concern was the ill informed message being preached by a group that was later condemned for preaching heresy. However, he refused to involve himself in their persecution, but rather sought to convert them through preaching sound and educated doctrine. Having founded the order of Dominicans, he spent the rest of his life traveling and preaching, establishing friaries, and organizing the new order, which continues to this day as a group that values intellectual work and highly informed preaching.

While most of us are not planning to rush out and become Dominican monks, there is still a great deal to be learned from Saint Dominic.

The readings for today were chosen for Dominic's day, at least in part, because they stress the importance of spreading the Good News of Christ, the amazing joy found through seeking out a relationship with God, and the moral imperative to spread God's Good News for the glory of God alone – which as John stresses, is the only way to ensure we are being true to the Gospel of Christ and not just deceiving ourselves and others around us.

We see, in Dominic, the profound desire to serve God through devoting his life to the sole task of studying scripture, its various interpretations over the centuries, and doing his human best to relate it to those around him as accurately as he could. We see the reflections of Dominic in the modern day Anglican Church, which also highly values educated clergy – with the hope of providing sound preaching for its congregations around the world. But it isn't only clergy and the wider Church of Christ that stand to learn something from Dominic.

We celebrate the saints in the Episcopal church not as a group who has a special claim on God's attention, but as individuals who led exceptional lives, and to whom we can look for examples of how we can model our own lives – even if to a lesser extent. Dominic teaches us the importance of knowing our God as intimately as possible. He teaches us to question, to explore, to learn about God and be in conversation with God every day in order to further our understanding of God and deepen our relationship with God.

Paul speaks to us today, in his letter to the Romans, about the importance of sharing the Good News of Christ. "Faith comes," he says, "from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ." Now I don't want to scare anyone, but I have to use a word that may make many of us as Episcopalians cringe – Evangelism. Evangelism has gotten a lot of bad press over years, primarily because so many people, who actively seek to evangelize, believe that they hold the only knowledge that can possibly lead to salvation. They seek to convert, rather than simply planting seeds and letting God do the converting.

I have never actively sought someone out in order to "save" them – in fact, I find it really creepy and offensive when people assume that they have the capacity to "save" others. I have, however, found myself in many unexpected situations over the years in which I have had the opportunity to share my faith with others. One day on my train commute to Intel, I was sitting across from a man who turned out to be visiting the US from China. He saw my cross and asked me if I would be willing to tell him what Christians believe. About six months later, a friend of mine at Intel, who was working there on a visa from India, asked me what made me so different from other people who worked there, and wondered if it have anything to do with my necklace (that same cross). Just recently I started posting sermons online, asking if it was something that people would like for me to continue doing, and I received an email from a long time friend of mine, who I didn't even know read my online journal, saying, "yes, please keep posting them."

Evangelism is not about going door to door seeking to win souls for Christ through badgering people into thinking the exact same way you think. Rather it is a way of living our lives in the world as an example to others, and not being afraid to reach out to those who want to know why we are who we are. It can be something as simple as wearing a cross outside your shirt, or as involved as volunteering to preach once in a while or starting an online journal to post your own spiritual struggles and triumphs on the internet.

Dominic teaches us, as do Paul and John in today's readings, the importance of reaching out to others with the Good News of God's amazing grace, and love. The good news for us today is that we don't have to sell everything we have and devote our lives solely to preaching in order to put Dominic's good example into practice in our daily lives. But neither should we leave his example here at St. ECWIW's when we go back out into the world today. Our willingness to treat others with love, compassion, and respect, to lend a helping or healing hand to those who are down, or even just to sit and talk with those who need a friend is our willingness to bring Christ to others. And our willingness to be open about our faith when the opportunity presents itself is our willingness to let Christ work through us.

Dominic gives us an amazing example of a life lived for God. May we each find at least some small way of bringing God with us into every aspect of our own lives. Amen.