August 24, 2016

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave your apostle Bartholomew grace to truly believe and to preach your Word . . .
Collect for St. Bartholomew, BCP 243

Today is the feast day of St. Bartholomew.  As with most early saints of the Church, what we know of Bartholomew is a mixed bag.  There are several stories about his life (he may have gone to India and/or Armenia), he has been conflated with Nathanael, there is more than one story about his martyrdom (beheading or skinned alive being the two most popular version), and there are several churches around Europe claiming to have various relics of the Saint.

We are in no danger of being flayed alive for believing in Christ and preaching the Good News.  And thankfully it was not his martyrdom that caught my attention.  What caught my attention about Saint Bartholomew was the Collect that we read today at Morning Prayer, specifically the first part of that Collect that I referenced above.

We talk about receiving grace in a variety of contexts; most notably, I think, in terms of a gift from God that bestows good things on us.  By the grace of God I survived an accident, cancer, or some other possible deadly event.  By the grace of God I married the right person.  But for the grace of God, there go I.  And those all can be, and are, appropriate ways to think about the grace of God.

But within our Christian theology is an understanding that belief comes from God.  We love because God first loved us.  We believe because God called us to that belief – “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father” (John 6:44).  That is also another understanding of grace: that through God's grace we have come to believe.  Today's Collect recognizes that part of our theology by stating it was through God's grace that Bartholomew came to truly believe.

It was also through God's grace that Bartholomew was able to preach the Good News.

As the sermon this past Sunday pointed out, it is God who bestowed his grace upon Jeremiah to believe his holy word and called him to the role of a prophet.  From the Collect today, we understand that it is God who bestowed his grace upon Bartholomew to believe his holy word and to preach the Good News.

But God not only works in ages past, God works in the here and now.  Today it is God who bestows his grace upon us to believe his holy word and calls us to preach the Good News of God in Christ.

When you look upon the graces you have received, “grace upon grace” (1 John 1:16), remember to look upon the grace you have received to truly believe and to preach God's word.

Like St. Bartholomew before, God is calling us to a new life in Christ.  I pray we have the courage of St. Bartholomew to answer that call.

Amen.