St. Bartholomew's Day

Church of the Atonement

The Rev’d Charles Everson

August 24, 2025

It’s almost comical. The disciples are at table with Jesus on the very

night he is to be handed over to suffering and death. He has just

instituted the Eucharist. He has just foretold that one of them will

betray him. And what do they do? They fall into an argument—not over who

will remain faithful, or who will follow him to the cross—but over which

one of them is the greatest.

It’s the kind of spiritual obliviousness that’s hard to imagine, and

yet—if we’re honest—we’ve all been there. Whether in this parish, in our

families, or in the hidden places of our own hearts, we know what it is

to seek honor, to cling to recognition, to measure ourselves against

others even in the holiest of moments.

It reminds me of the annual clergy retreat, in this diocese and in the

other two in which I previously served. Inevitably, late one evening,

someone opens the wine, we all get a bit loosened up, and the rectors

start talking about the average Sunday attendance at their parish, on

the surface in a humble way, but deep down, as a way of bragging.

Jesus responds to their ridiculous argument about who is the greatest

not with condemnation, but by turning the definition of “greatness” on

its head: “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them… but not so with

you. The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the

leader like one who serves. For I am among you as one who serves.”

And then he says to this bumbling, prideful band of disciples: “I conferon you a kingdom… that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom,

and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

This is the logic of the values of the Kingdom of God: the throne is

given to the one who kneels. Authority is bestowed not upon the most

eloquent or ambitious, but upon the one who chooses the lowest place.

Not the rector with the highest average Sunday attendance, but the one

with the lowest. Authority is bestowed on the one who suffers. The one

who serves.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bartholomew, one of those twelve

apostles, and one of those promised a throne. Very little is known about

his earthly life, but if tradition is to be believed, Bartholomew was

martyred by being flayed alive—a grotesque and humiliating death that

the world would consider anything but glorious. In many icons and

statues, he is depicted holding the knife that killed him as he is on

the front of the bulletin, or his own skin draped over his arm.

It is this man—this man whose claim to greatness is not what he

achieved, but what he suffered—who will one day judge the twelve tribes

of Israel. Because that is the kind of judge the kingdom of God exalts:

a servant judge. A suffering witness. In the words of St. Paul, a fool

for the sake of Christ.

That’s the vision St. Paul lays out in our epistle lesson: “We have

become a spectacle to the world, to angels and mortals. We are fools for

the sake of Christ... we are weak... we are in disrepute.” And yet—Paul

goes on to say—“I became your father through the gospel.” This is

apostolic authority not of domination, but of parenthood; not of power

and might, but of love and mercy.

Deuteronomy reminds us that God’s prophets are raised up, not

self-appointed. “I will put my words in his mouth,” the Lord says.

Bartholomew spoke not his own message but God’s Word, and bore its cost

in his body. His greatness was not that he said what people wanted to

hear, but that he told the truth—and lived it to the end.

In our own day, when the Church is tempted to mirror the hierarchies and

honors of the world, St. Bartholomew stands as a rebuke and a beacon. He

reminds us that the altar is not a pedestal, but a place of

self-offering. The Eucharist is not a private reward for the righteous,

but the table where the Servant King kneels to feed us with his own

life.

Here at this altar, we are invited to that same paradox of greatness.

Not a greatness that lifts us above others, but one that joins us to the

wounded body of Christ. A greatness made perfect in weakness. A throne

that is won by dying in the waters of baptism.

Friends, the Church does not need more charismatic leaders. She needs

more servants. She needs more fools for Christ. She needs more

Bartholomews.

May we, like him, choose the low place. May we serve without expectation

of honor. And may we find, in these Holy Mysteries, the promise of

greatness in God’s kingdom, a kingdom where the last are first, the

wounded are welcomed, and the foolish ones shine like stars in the

heavens. Amen.