Proper 18, Year C: Empty Your Cup
A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. mark Year C, Proper 18 The Very Reverend Tyler B. Doherty, Dean and Rector Empty Your Cup I was thinking this week of those lines from Paul’s Letter to Philemon where he sends Onesimus the former slave back to Philemon no longer as a slave, but as a brother, as his very own heart. It put me in mind of those lines in John’s Gospel—“I do not call you servants any longer… but I have called you friends” (15:15). What difference does it make if we consider ourselves, no longer servants, but friends of Jesus? It’s so easy for the religious life to turn into a dull, grudging, mechanical performance of duty and obligation. We’ve got the checklist of boxes to check and dutifully perform all the right tasks and chores. On the outside we’re doing all the right things, but on the inside we’re dried up like a milkweed husk in October after its loosed it seed. There’s really two places we can come from in life—love or fear. And duty and o...