Sermon Text: Luke 14:25-33
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
[Introduction] The liturgy of our church is a scary thing. For some of us who have come to Anglicanism later in life, it is scary because it is new. The words sound funny on our tongues. We’re not sure where to pause during the Nicene Creed. We often speak out of turn. For those of you who grew up with the liturgy, it might be scary because it is so familiar. It could be that whole worship services go by without the words penetrating the haze of the busy-ness of our weeks. But for both old and new, the liturgy is a frightful thing for a quite different reason. Every week, the liturgy tricks us. It tricks us into saying words that commit us once again to the life of discipleship. It prompts us to reaffirm our baptismal vows. It calls us out of ourselves into a new kind of life. But it does all this without often asking us to count the cost.
