St. Matthew's Church

Address: 2300 Ford Rd,Newport Beach, CA 92660
Phone: (949) 219-0911
office@stmatthewsnewport.com

Second Sunday After Trinity – Sermon

Second Sunday After Trinity – Sermon

The parable of the Great Supper (Luke 15:16-24) is about biblical Israel. Israel experienced her golden age under Kings David and Solomon, when God’s promises were fulfilled. However, her subsequent unfaithfulness to the covenant led to judgment and exile in Babylon. Though Israel returned to the land and rebuilt the temple at the end of the Old Testament period, the former glory was never restored. God promised to send a Messiah who would judge the nations and restore the fortunes of Israel. The coming Messianic age was understood to be a feast. As Isaiah wrote,

In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow…He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces (25:6-8).

In the Old Testament, God announced the coming feast. In the New Testament Christ came to tell Israel that all things were now ready. It was time to repent, put one’s faith in God’s Messiah and follow him. The parable shows that the people did not repent, but continued with business as usual.  So God invited those in the streets and lanes and those in the highways and hedges to take their place. This represents the marginal and non-observant Jews, the Samaritans and the Gentiles.

The first application of the parable for us is that we Gentiles, who were not originally among God’s chosen, should rejoice that we are now included among the invited guests. However, there is also a secondary application that allows us to hear the warning about making excuses. We are now among the elect of God. We are now waiting for the Messiah to come again, just as Israel was waiting for him to come the first time. We must be ready to meet him in a way that first century Israel was not.

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which also speaks of people getting ready for a coming feast, makes the point that the failure to be faithful might cause us to be excluded, just as the invited guests of the parable were excluded. Jesus said,

At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh (Matthew 25:6-13).

There is a distinction between the foolish virgins and the invited guests of the parable. The invited guests failed to respond when Christ came. The foolish virgins failed to act in advance of his coming. Israel was waiting for the promise, but we have already received it. Because of Pentecost and the  gift of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God is already here. Christ has already come and all things are now ready. As St Paul says, “Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

We who have “the first fruits of the Spirit” (Romans 8:23) are already living in the kingdom. We already taste the future meal. We already have eternal life. This is why, when the New Testament exhorts us to be ready for Christ’s coming, it exhorts us to be faithful in what we are currently doing. To be ready when the kingdom comes in its fullness is to be faithful citizens of the kingdom now.

It is not a Christian impulse to prepare for the end by heading for the mountains and living in caves. The real danger, when we understand life in the full light of the kingdom, is not that we might be harmed or killed. The real danger is that we might be unfaithful. The martyr dies faithfully. He loses his life and saves it. The apostate lives unfaithfully. He saves his life but loses it.

Jesus is coming, but Jesus is already here and Jesus comes to us right now. Jesus comes to us when we gather around the altar. We can understand the liturgy as Christ descending to be present at the altar and feed us with his body and blood. Or we can understand the liturgy as our ascent into heaven. We “lift up our hearts” to heaven. We are invited with John to “Come up hither into the kingdom” (Revelation 4:1). Time is caught up into eternity. Either way, the future feast is experienced in the present moment.

This is why responding to the invitation means acting now. To be ready for the future coming of Christ is to hear his voice today. It to respond with true and earnest repentance now, to be reconciled with our brothers and sisters in Christ now, to live in a new way now. We leave the altar as citizens of the kingdom. We are called, with restored vision, to see Christ in the least of his brethren. In the world, people are a means to some human end. In the kingdom people are the image of God. When Jesus says, “Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me” (Matthew 25:40) he is reminding us that are constantly invited to the feast through the opportunities we are given to minister to Christ in other people.

We make excuses when we are too busy with stuff to embrace and enter the kingdom now through the life of prayer; when we are too hurried and preoccupied in life to see and respond to Christ each day. We make excuses when we would think about the need to make a good confession and change, but choose instead to hold on to a piece of  the world for a while longer; when we consider forgiving another and aiming at reconciliation, but choose instead to cling to our pride; when we know we should do some new and obedient thing but choose instead to slothfully continue with the unfaithful status quo.

The invitation is still sounding in the highways and hedges. There is still time, and there is still room. “Come, for all things are now ready!”

First Sunday After Trinity – Sermon

We can read the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19f.) as a moralistic tale. The rich man was punished for his failure to care for Lazarus. Thus, we better do good for others or else risk a similar fate. There is truth in that moral, but the larger point of the story is why the rich man failed  to care for him.

We observe the octave of Corpus Christ on the First Sunday after Trinity because the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood connects with the lessons. The rich man’s neglect of Lazarus reflects a lack of sacramental vision. He saw Lazarus the way the world saw Lazarus. The rich man failed to discern the image of God.

The epistle for Corpus Christi (which we celebrated Last Thursday) is 1 Corinthians 11, where St. Paul chastises the Corinthians for their neglect of the poor in their celebrations of the Lord’s Supper. As the Church gathered to celebrate the sacrament, those who had resources feasted, while those who had little went hungry (1 Corinthians 11:21-22).  St. Paul warned them with these words:

He who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’ body (1 Corinthians 11:29).

How did they failed to discern the Lord’s Body? Did they fail to discern Christ in the Sacrament? Or did they fail to discern Christ in the poorer members of the church, which is also called “the body of Christ”? Most likely St. Paul meant that they failed to discern the connection between the two.

Both the rich man and Lazarus were members of Israel, God’s chosen people. The story assumes that the rich man attended synagogue where the Bible was regularly read. He called Abraham “father.” He probably kept the kosher rules. His judgment is his failure to live according to the faith he knew. He had been taught him that God made all men his God’s own image. He had heard Deuteronomy 15:11, “Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.” Yet, when the image of God sat at his gate in need, the rich man failed to see him.

The Ten Commandment are based on the connection between God and our  neighbor. We are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind because God made us and redeemed us. And we are love our neighbor as ourselves because our neighbor bears the image of God. God is the reference point for the value of our neighbor, and our neighbor is the tangible sign of God’s presence. We cannot rightly honor one without also honoring the other.

We fall into error when we treat people according to the value the world places on them and not the value God places on them. The world values people more highly when they have more, and puts little on those who have nothing. However, God’s assessment is shown is the post mortem reversal of fortunes. Lazarus was comforted in Paradise and the rich man tormented in Hades. As Jesus said, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last” (Matthew 20:16).

The cross highlights God’s close connection with the those who are viewed as being of little value by the world. On Good Friday, Jesus was Lazarus. He died outside the gate of the city, full of wounds and seemingly godforsaken–with no one to help him.. As Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).

Discerning the presence of God in other people does not mean assuming that every needy person is a Christ-like pillar of virtue and every wealthy person is greedy and covetous. Among the needy we typically encounter in America, there is fair share of drug addicts, manipulators and thieves The point is not that we should help the needy because they deserve it. The point is that we should help the needy because they bear the image of God.

The rich man also bore the image of God. However, more was required from him. In the kingdom, wealth is responsibility, not merely status or privilege. The rich man’s behavior did not reflect God’s image–for when God, who possesses all things, saw sinful man laying at his gate full of sin, he went outside his gate, he came down from heaven, to live and die for us. As St. John says, “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

The challenge is to know how we should respond in love to the image of God in each person in each circumstance and to reflect God’s image in our own behavior. We should be ready to help, with wisdom. If someone responds with dishonestly, manipulation or irresponsibility, we should hold them accountable. In some circumstances, there may come a point in time when we will no longer help, when love dictates that people face the consequences of their actions. It is not easy to help those is need. The cross was not easy and it is not always easy for God to deal with each of us. The point of the parable is that we must be willing. We cannot withdraw behind a gate so as to ignore the needs around us. We must love the image of God in others, just as God loves his image in us.

We must also resist the worldly temptation to esteem people highly just because they are rich or famous. Love requires that we be willing to speak the truth to those who have “the world’s goods,” reminding them that God requires much from those to whom he has given much. One wonders if anyone from the synagogue ever called the rich man to account for his neglect of the poor at his gate? We should esteem people on the basis of their faith, humility, generosity, virtue and goodness, not on the basis of their appearance, wealth or status in the world.

Of course, we know this. We hear it each week in the epistles and the gospels. We read it in our daily Bible lessons. We rehearse it year in and year out as we remember again the revelation of God in Christ in the church year. We pray it week in and week out in the liturgies of the church. The rich man was surprised at the judgment of God. He wanted his relatives to be given special notice lest they also share his fate. Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” That is to say, God doesn’t feel the need to repeat himself. As Psalm 95 says, “Today if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts” (Psalm 95:7-8). God means what he has said, he expects us to act on it and he will judge accordingly on the Last Day. As the epistle says, “This is the commandment we have from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:21).

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Trinity Sunday – Sermon

I once read somewhere that Trinity Sunday is the only feast of the year that celebrates a doctrine. However, I’ve come to realize that statement is misleading. For God is Trinity, and we can hardly say that God is merely a doctrine. In fact, a primary error with regard to the Trinity is the attempt to understand the Trinity as formula rather than as experience.

The word Trinity is not in the Bible. But we use lots of words that are not in the Bible to explain the truths the Bible reveals to us. The words “transcendent” and “Incarnation” are not in the Bible either, but both describe biblical truths about God. The Bible is the record of how God has revealed himself to man. Theological statements such as “God is Trinity” are the result of the church’s inspired reflection on that revelation.

This is not entirely different than the way scientists develop laws and principles about the world. It is said that Newton discovered the law of gravity when an apple fell from the tree and hit him in the head. That is to say, the law of gravity resulted from reflection on and experience of the creation–just as the doctrine of the Trinity results from reflection on and experience of the revelation. The difference is that one must have eyes of faith in order to see the revelation.

One consequence of the fall of man is that we lost our sacramental vision. Because of sin, man cannot see God. He cannot see that the creation is an outward and visible sign of a glorious Creator. Man tends to see the visible world as an end in and of itself. Or, if he sees through the physical to the spiritual, his vision is not 20-20. His vision is clouded and he falls into error or heresy.

It is only through our experience of redemption in Christ through the Holy Spirit that our vision is fully restored to us. This is why, in all the resurrection appearances in the gospels, some act of revelation had to take place before people could actually “see” the risen Christ. The Father reveals himself through his Son. We are able to comprehend, or “see” the revelation through the Spirit. The Trinity must first be known as an experience before it can be understood as a doctrine.

This is precisely what Jesus tells us in the gospel (John 3:1-15). “Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The word “see” in this verse does no mean merely to look at. It means to know, to understand. Without the gift of the Spirit, by which we are born again, we cannot know God or understand the nature of his kingdom.

The same point is made in the epistle (Revelation 4). St. John saw an open door in heaven and a voice invited him to “Come up hither.” “Immediately” he was “in the Spirit” in the presence of God. Only through the Spirit was John able to ascend into the presence of God and see heavenly things.

We must first know the Father through the Son in the Spirit before we can understand that God is three persons who are united in one substance of being. We must be worshipers of God before we can be theologians. This has important implications for the mission work of the church. It suggests that there are limitations to the effectiveness of purely rational arguments in evangelism. We can’t bring people to knowledge of the Trinity by mere force of argument. For how can we get people to see, by mere logic, what Jesus himself says they can’t see unless they are first born again? Evangelism must always begin with the prayer that those who are spiritually blind may be given the gift of sight. Conversion only takes place when God enables someone to see.

When we understand that we are spiritually blind because of sin, we understand that sin involves the loss our contemplative nature. This is why the gift of restored vision in Christ leads to worship and contemplation. The ability to see leads us to understand the genuine meaning and value of created things. Now we look at the creation and see the glory of the Creator. Now we look at bread and wine and see the body and blood of Christ. Fallen man lacks this vision and, therefore, is drawn away from worship and contemplation. He focuses on the physical as an end in and of itself. This is the very definition of idolatry.

This is especially evident in the modern world. Lack of contemplative vision causes people to see  things in utilitarian terms because they are blind to the intrinsic value God has given them. When we see the creation as a sign of the Creator, we begin to understand the value and mystery of each part of the creation. We are moved to wonder and exploration–exploration, but not exploitation. For  one who truly sees understands that we can explore and enjoy the majesty and mystery of God, but  we cannot use God or his creation for our own ends.

The modern world does not value worship because it has no sacramental vision. All things are valued only in economic terms, or in terms of what I think of them–in terms of their subjective value to me, not the objective value God has given them. However worship and contemplation are central activities for the person who truly sees. For when we are born again, we begin to see the kingdom in all things and the Spirit calls us to “Come up hither” into heaven where we can see God.

Our restored vision enables us to see God’s Trinitarian nature. God the Father, whom we cannot see, who is beyond our comprehension, is continually making himself know in tangible ways through his Son, who is the very image of the Father. And we perceive the revelation of the Father through the Son by means of the Spirit, who opens our eyes to see. Three persons, yet only one God–“As in was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.”

The more we see, the more we realize that the there is much more to see. We talk about eternal life, about the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. Sometimes we wonder what it will be like. We can begin to contemplate eternity by imagining how we will experience the world when the vision provided by faith gives way to fully restored sight; when we not only join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in the Spirit by faith, but actually spend time in conversation and fellowship with them; when we not only commune with God through sacramental signs, but actually see God.

We know God in Christ through the Spirit. But we do not yet fully understand God as Trinity. This is a good thing, for it means that there is much mystery to explore and discover, both in time and  in eternity. As St. Paul says, “Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

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Pentecost – Sermon

Jesus rose on Easter as the “firstfruits of them that slept.” With the gift of the Holy Spirit, the harvest is completed and the experience of resurrection is extended to all of God’s people. We who were dead in our sins are raised to new life through the Spirit.

In Genesis, God created man from the dust and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). This life giving connection to God was lost through by sin. As God said, “In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). The death caused by sin was the severing of man’s communion with God through the Spirit. We may appear to be alive in the body apart from God, but we are, in fact, dead. We cut off from the source of life and destined for the grave and eternal separation from God.

The drama of redemption that we have rehearsed again since Advent comes to fruition on Pentecost. Pentecost is the moment when the dead receive again the breath of life. The gift of the Spirit restores us to the communion with God that we lost through sin. As Ephesians says, “You he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1). Through the Spirit, we are have eternal right now and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.

The whole creation shares with us the hope and promise of resurrection through the Spirit. As Romans says, “The creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now”  (Romans 8:21-22). The sacraments, in which physical elements become means of grace, in which physical elements already participate in the new creation through the Spirit, anticipate the time when God will make all things new.

On Pentecost, the outward sign of the gift of the Spirit was the tongues of fire, dividing and resting on the head of each believer. For subsequent Christians, the sign of the gift of the Spirit is the water of baptism. St. Peter describes this succinctly in the conclusion to his sermon on Pentecost:  “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Act 2:38).

On Pentecost, the evidence that each believer received the Spirit was that each spoke in various languages of the ancient world. This enabled all the pilgrims who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost to hear about Jesus in their own languages. The ongoing evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us is what we call “the fruits of the Spirit” (cf. Galatians 5:22). People know that the Spirit is active in our lives because they can see the change the Spirit causes in us.

Baptism does not guarantee either the fruits of the Spirit or ultimate salvation. We must also experience what the church refers to as “conversion of the heart.” Conversion of the heart is the encounter with God that makes us aware of our sin and leads us to repentance, confession and the experience grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. The sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation are the objective signs of the gift of the Spirit. Conversion of the heart is the subjective condition that enables us to receive the gift effectually. In many baptized Christians, the gift of the Spirit is latent rather than active because they have not yet come to genuine repentance and sincere faith in Jesus, they have not yet experienced conversion of the heart.

Conversion of the heart is a continual process. As we “Walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) we become more aware of our sin, make better confessions, experience more of God’s grace, develop new virtues and manifest new fruits of the Spirit. We lead a life prayer precisely so that we may “daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more until [we] come to thine everlasting kingdom” (BCP 297).

Jesus said in the gospel (John 14:15-31). “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). When Father and Son make their home in us through the Spirit, we begin to love as God loves. Love is the chief virtue and the preeminent fruit of the Spirit.

Romans says, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5 NKJ). This is why Jesus said, “A new commandment I give unto you. That you love one another as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35). The Holy Spirit both enables and commands us to love in the manner that we have been loved by God.

Love is the unifying language that undoes the confusion of Babel and causes us to speak with one heart and one mind. Love is the unifying language that enables all to hear and see the gospel. Love enables us to forgive and let go of our petty grievances. Love frees us from selfishness, and causes us to serve with a joyful heart where ever God calls us to serve. Love enables us to sacrifice, to give up the temporal for the eternal after the pattern of Jesus.

St. Paul reminds us, in 1 Corinthians 13, that we can do all manner of religious and charitable deeds, but if they are not motivated by love, we gain nothing from them. As Jesus said after recounting all the good religious practices of the church in Ephesus, “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelation 2:4).

If our hearts are unconverted or our love has grown cold, we must return to Pentecost and pray, in the words of our sequence hymn: “Come thou Holy Spirit come and from thy celestial home, Shed a ray of light divine…Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our dryness pour thy dew. Wash the stains of guilt away. Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill. Guide the steps the go astray” (Hymnal 109).

Pentecost reminds us that Christian faith is a life giving experience of resurrection. It can never be reduced to mere doctrine or rules. Doctrine describes the experience. Moral rules are the responsibilities and implications of the experience. But the essence of our faith is union with the Father through the Son in the Spirit. The essence of our faith is the experience of love–which comes to us through the gift of the Spirit. Thus, we pray on Pentecost, “Come Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of thy faithful people and kindle in them the fire of thy love.”

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Ascension – Sermon

The most ancient confession of Christian faith was to say, “Jesus is Lord.” When the early Christians said this, they meant that Jesus has sovereign authority over the world. The One who had been arrested, beaten, crucified and buried demonstrated his power over all things by rising from the dead and ascending the “right hand” of God.

In the ancient world, the confession that “Jesus is Lord” was heard in contrast with the confession  that “Caesar is Lord.” The various Caesars claimed for themselves the titles “Son of God” and “Savior of the world.” They demanded obedience of their subjects and expected the people to trust them for security and well-being. The confession that “Jesus is Lord” was a direct threat to the claims of Caesar. This is why many Christians were killed for their faith. Either Jesus was the world’s true Lord and Savior or Caesar was. Neither church nor state allowed its citizens to make the contrary confession.

In the contemporary world, the confession that “Jesus is Lord” doesn’t always carry the same weight. We tend to view such confessions as personal opinions rather than claims about the nature of the world. To say, “Jesus is Lord” often carries the meaning that Jesus is Lord for me, without any sense that my confession has implications for anyone else. This reflects the perspective of our times that there is no ultimate truth. Therefore, each is entitled to his or her own.

This is highlighted by the question asked by some evangelists: “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” While this is meant to emphasize the personal decision to follow Jesus, it implies that what Jesus is for me he may not necessarily be for the whole world. He may be my personal savior is the same way I have a personal assistant or a personal trainer. Each has a certain authority and competence, but all are subject to my personal willingness to let them work in my life.

This accounts, to a significant degree, for why the witness of the church is not particularly powerful in our time in the western world. The Lord Jesus is presented as one who may help us manage life, as one who may be called upon in time of crisis, as one who may comfort us in times of need. But he is not always confessed and followed as Son of God and Savior of the World.

It is an interesting meditation to consider what would happen if life threatening persecution broke out in America. How many of us would be willing to die for the confession that Jesus is Lord? However, in reality, our challenge is different. The devil  attacks our faith in more subtle ways. The chief way our faith is attacked is by the tendency to separate faith from the real activities of life. The Lord Jesus is not denied. Rather, faith in him is rendered innocuous.

This dualism may have been institutionalized by a former president who comforted our Protestant nation by assuring the people that his Romans Catholic faith would not in any way influence the way he ran the country. The assurance carried the implication that his faith would have just the same influence as the people’s Protestant faith had on their real lives–not much. Thus, faith becomes a private thing that is not allowed to touch what we actually do.

This separation of faith from real life is a patent rejection of the Ascension–not to mention the Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection. For if the Lord Jesus ascended in order to “fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10); if “all authority in heaven and earth” has been given to him (Matthew 28:18); if he was given “dominion, glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:14) then no part of life be separated from the confession that “Jesus is Lord.”

We may never be dragged before the magistrate and asked to burn incense to an image of a king. However, we confess or deny that Jesus is Lord all the time by what we do or fail to do. As Jesus said, “Why do you call me Lord and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). We confess or deny Jesus is Lord by our presence or absence in his church on the Lord’s Day. We confess or deny that Jesus is Lord by tithing or failing to tithe. We confess or deny that Jesus is Lord by our commitment to or neglect of the life of prayer. We confess or deny that Jesus is Lord by our treatment of the least of his brethren. We confess that Jesus is Lord by doing what we do as business people, teachers, lawyers, accountants, artists, laborers, mothers and fathers as unto the Lord and not unto men, seeking first the kingdom, not merely temporal rewards. We confess that Jesus is Lord by obeying his commandments, especially when obedience is costly. The confession or denial of the truth that Jesus is Lord cannot be kept as a private thing. The evidence is there for all to see.

Of course, there is a major challenge to our confession that Jesus is Lord. There is injustice, oppression and the killing of innocent people. There are tornadoes, floods, natural disasters and tragedies. Indeed, the world seems to be falling apart. How we can say that Jesus is Lord? How can we say that Jesus is in control?

In fact, Christian faith provides the most reasonable way to understand what is happening. The ascended Lord Jesus was himself subjected to the injustice and tragedy of life in this fallen world.  The life of Jesus reveals that God is able to save his chosen through the real pain of life. The cross was the raw material for the Resurrection. This teaches us that our pain is part of the process by which we are being remade into the image of Christ. Jesus is Lord precisely because he is able to bring order and beauty out of the chaos and disorder of this fallen world. What looks to the world like the pain of death is, in reality, the birth pangs of God’s new creation. Jesus really is in control, working in all things for good for those who love him and are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

Jesus is Lord. He is not merely our private or personal Lord and Savior. He is the Lord and Savior of the World. “At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11). The two angels at the ascension said, “This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.” For, “He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Jesus is Lord. He calls each of us to be faithful  servants, in thought, word and deed, in everything that we do, as we wait for him to come again, renew the creation and raise us from the dead–“according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all unto himself” (Philippians 3:21).

 

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Rogation Sunday – Sermon

“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full” (John 16:23f.).

For the last three weeks our gospels have been from John 16. They have not been in sequence. We first read the middle, then the beginning and now the end. But there has been a thematic progression.  First Jesus explained how the sorrow of the cross would give way to the joy of resurrection. Then he explained how the resurrection would give way to the ascension and the gift of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit leads to today’s promise: our prayers will be answered.

The church, the Body of Christ, is the continuing presence of Christ in the world. If we take this literally, as we are supposed to take it, this has implications for prayer. Jesus always prayed with confidence. He knew the Father heard his prayer and he knew the Father would answer. His prayer at the tomb of Lazarus is instructive. St. John tells us,

Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth (John 11:41-44 KJV).

Through the Spirit, Jesus lives in us we live in him. Thus, we are able to pray in the same way he prayed. As Jesus said, “Ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you.” The prayer of the church is offered in Christ and through Christ with the confidence that the Father hears us just as he hears Christ.

This great privilege of prayer is expressed in the Liturgy when we are “bold to say Our Father.” Bold means confident and without fear. United with God through his Son by the Spirit, we can barge into the Holy of Holies, call God Father and start demanding things: “Thy kingdom come…Give us…our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses. Led us not into testing. Deliver us from the evil one.” This is not arrogance. It is the humble confidence that God is, truly, our Father in heaven.

The first petition of the Lord’s Prayer is the petition that governs all prayer in Christ. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” Prayer draws our lives into the kingdom and brings the kingdom into our lives. When we experience all of life–our vocation, our success, our failures, our sickness, our health and our death in the light of the kingdom, we are able to see how God is making all things new. We are filled with the joy and the hope of resurrection.

Misdirected prayer loses sight of the kingdom and tries merely to manage life in the world. It asks God merely to help us succeed in temporal tasks and put far off the day of death. It asks God to give us more of what this world has to offer and assesses God’s answers merely in terms of how we are faring in the world.

For example, we pray for healing through the sacrament of unction. However, our prayer is not merely that God will always take away sickness so that we can get back to ordinary life in the world.  Some people see God as a kind of emergency room. When life is good, they do not offer themselves to God in thanksgiving. But when something goes wrong, they make haste to run to God so that he will fix it and they can return to their faithless life.

Prayer for healing “in Christ” is offered knowing that we are going to die and that some sickness or injury will be our last. Unction brings the kingdom into our sickness and our sickness into the kingdom so that our experience of the sickness itself is transformed. When there is physical healing, it is a foretaste of the resurrection. When there is not complete healing, there is, nonetheless, the experience of triumph. We who have the Spirit have already conquered sickness and death in Christ.  “Though [we] were dead, yet shall [we] live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

We must bear in mind that Jesus made his promise about prayer to ten men who were murdered for their faith and one who spent much of his life in exile. We do not conclude that God failed to answer their prayers because they were not saved from their afflictions. God saved them through their affliction, not from their affliction–just as God saved Jesus through the cross, not from the cross. They apostles died triumphantly and, indeed, joyfully. None had regrets. None wondered why God was doing this to them. Through prayer, they experienced their lives and deaths in the light of the kingdom. They asked and received and their joy was made full.

St. Paul’s prayer did not fail because God did not remove his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). God showed him how God’s power was made perfect in Paul’s weakness. Through prayer, the thorn in the flesh was experienced in the light of the kingdom so that it became a means of grace and a source of joy. Through prayer, our afflictions are united with the cross and filled with the hope and promise of Easter. Our afflictions become means of grace. They are no longer the pains of death. They are transformed into the pains of birth. We can face them joyfully and expectantly.

To be sure, we ask for specific things in this world hoping that God will give them to us–and sometimes he does. But all prayer in Christ is an experience of the kingdom. Success and fulfillment are experienced as welcome foretastes of future glory, when all of our desires will be fulfilled. Disappointment and pain are experienced as the cross that is already full of Easter. As St. Paul says, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

This is our salvation. We have been saved from the futility of life in a fallen world. Through prayer, we see that nothing about our life in Christ in this world is merely of this world. Through prayer we are able to taste eternity in time and experience right now the joy of the coming kingdom. This is why St. Paul teaches us to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). This is why Jesus says, “Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full.”

Fourth Sunday After Easter – Sermon

Today’s gospel (John 16:5–15) calls to mind the appearance of the Risen Christ to Mary Magdalene on Easter Day. She grabbed him, as if to say, “I’m not letting you get away again!” Jesus told her, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father” (John 20:17). In today’s gospel, Jesus explains why the ascension will be beneficial. “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you.” Mary needed to let Jesus go so that he could return to the Father and send the Spirit.” Union with God in Christ through the Spirit is better than merely standing next to Christ.

The Father sent the Son into the world to fulfill the Law of Moses and offer the perfect sacrifice. Having completed that work, Jesus returned to the Father to be eternally present with him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Atonement for sin having been accomplished once and for all, the door was opened for the new age of the Spirit (cf Joel 2:28).

Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus, who was present in his body on earth in one place at a time, is now present in all places at all times. The effects of the redemption Jesus accomplished at one moment and in one place now reaches all moments and all places through the Spirit. This is the “New Creation.” In the beginning, God spoke, and the Spirit accomplished what his word commanded. In Christ, God spoke again and then sent the Spirit to make all things new.

Jesus describes the ministry of the Spirit as having two points of emphasis. First, the Spirit  confronts the world with the truth of its sin and rebellion against God. The Spirit will convict the world “of sin, because they believe not in me.” During Lent, we talked about making a good confession, focusing on the deadly sins and talking about the virtues. This kind of confession is only for those who have already put their faith in Jesus Christ, who already have the Spirit. The world does not accept that Jesus is Lord. The world has not received the Spirit. The Spirit speaks to believers from within so that we may grow in grace. But the Spirit confronts the world from without so that people may repent and believe.

Hebrews says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things” (1:1). The sin of the world is the refusal to listen to the Word that God has spoken. Thus, the gospel involves an unavoidable confrontation. The Spirit, and the church which is filled with and led by the Spirit, confronts the world and calls it to repent and believe.

The church ought not to confront obnoxiously.  We are, as St. Paul says, “Ambassadors for Christ,” as if God did beseech the world through us to “be reconciled with God” (2 Corinthians 5:15). We are not self-righteous ambassadors, for each of us was once a rebel. We always bear in mind that the same Spirit who convicts the world also convicts us of sin when we err and stray from God’s ways. That is why we return each week as penitents, asking again for forgiveness and a new measure of the Spirit.

Nonetheless, there is an unavoidable and necessary confrontation between the community that confesses Jesus as Lord and the world that does not. We reject the modern tendency to take the edge off of the gospel, to pretend that all religions are the same, to pretend that Christ came only to comfort and not to confront. It is, indeed, offensive to the world to insist that Jesus is Son of God and Lord of all (Revelation 19:6). It is offensive to the world to say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). It is offensive to say to the world to say that “He who has the Son has life and he who has not the Son of God has not life” (1 John 5:12). But this is the offense of the gospel.

Jesus said that the second thing the Spirit will do is “guide [the church] into all truth” (John 16:13). This puts us in a privileged position in relationship to the world. We know the truth, and the truth has made us free (John 8:31-32). This knowledge of truth is a gift. It comes to us because of God’s grace, not because of our merit. We also were blind, but God has given us eyes to see. As Jesus said, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see” (Luke 10:23).

To be possessed of the truth in the midst of a world that opposes it is, simply, to be the Body of Christ. It is to experience exactly what Jesus experienced in first century Israel. Jesus was the witness for God to Israel. The church “in Christ” is the witness for God to the world.

The church offers the world a sacramental sign of the truth, not just a verbal message. We don’t just say, “Christ is risen.” We are the community of the resurrection. We died and rose with Christ through baptism. We are risen with Christ and we ascend with Christ through the Spirit. The death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord are not merely things we believe; they are what we experience in Christ. We are a sign to the world that the coming kingdom is already here.

Our challenge as the church is to be a faithful witness to the truth in our doctrine and our life. The great temptation of the modern church is to aim at success rather than faithfulness. Of course, we want hearts to be converted and the church to grow. Faithfulness will have its measure of success. But sometimes faithfulness will fail. Sometimes the world will reject it, belittle it and, even, crucify it. Our vocation is to be faithful anyway. We are witnesses to the truth, and the truth is the truth whether it succeeds or fails.

Fr. Schmemann put it this way: “What are the church and each Christian to do in the world? What is our mission?” He answers, “It all depends primarily on or being real witnesses to the joy and peace of the Holy Spirit, to that new life of which we are made partakers in the church” (For the Life of the World, 113). It all depends on our lives being real witnesses that our good Lenten confession led to a renewed experience of forgiveness, which results in an increased practice of love. The Spirit leads us to love in each circumstance, sometimes ministering to the least of these–comforting the afflicted, and sometimes saying, ‘This is wrong,” or even, “You are wrong”—afflicting the comfortable.

Jesus will ascend to the Father and send the Spirit to convict the world of sin and lead us into all truth. We, who have the Spirit, are witnesses to the truth.

Third Sunday After Easter – Sermon

When our son Matthew was growing up, his favorite book was a juvenile edition of Pilgrim’s Progress that featured illustrations drawn by school-aged children. It was one of the few books he took with him when he moved out for college, and now, many years later as a young father, reads it to his own young children. Each day, I would read to him a portion of Christian’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Heavenly City with all the people, places, hardships and difficulties that were encountered along the way.

What was instructive about Christian, the main character, was that he tried to stay on the narrow way and not be lured off by the likes of the disreputable people he met such as Worldly-wise-man, Mr. No-Good, and Mr. Love-Lust, to name but a few. Similarly Christian struggled with fears and temptations, both real and imagined, of the distracting Delectable Mountains and the pitfalls of pride rampant in the city of Vanity Fair. Then as now, it is not an easy vocation to be a pilgrim. Pilgrims do not live a life of ease. Often, they are taken advantage of. They dine on poor food, receive substandard lodging, endure continuing persecution, and sometimes, even suffer martyrdom. Christian was resolute and not satisfied until he reached the heavenly city, laying aside every weight along the way that would hinder his arrival.

Today’s Epistle from St. Peter addresses the Christian faithful and reminds them that they are strangers and pilgrims. This is a quaint concept to embrace for those of us living in 21st century America. We feel settled with our families, our homes, our schools and our employment. We are much more familiar with all-inclusive five star vacations rather than embracing arduous self-sacrificing lifelong pilgrimages.

Our Old Testament lessons for Daily Morning Prayer from the end of Lent through this Eastertide season have been drawn from the Book of Exodus. The readings chronicle the Children of Israel, true strangers in Egypt, their mighty deliverance by God from their bondage, and their pilgrimage in the Wilderness. Along the way, God destroys all their enemies, clothes them, gives them food and drink in the desert, brings them to His holy mountain, and gives them his Laws that they may serve Him. The Children of Israel left their homes and most possessions behind in Egypt, bringing only what was necessary as they began their pilgrimage toward the Promised Land.

Similarly, we learn in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that Abraham “sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” And that “These patriarchs all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”

A twangy blue-grass/gospel tune, noticeably absent from The 1940 Hymnal, poetically addresses this same reality, (Red Ellis-This World is Not My Home) quote,

“This world is not my home I’m just passing through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

In this Eastertide season, our Gospel lessons recall the numerous Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus to His disciples. In them, we hear of Jesus preparing His disciples for His departure, His Ascension to the Father, and His continued care in preparing a place for them and for us. (John 14)

The Christian hope is not to be focused only here on this earth nor on our worldly possessions. These are not an end in themselves but serve only to aid us on our spiritual journey. Pilgrims learn that possessions are transitory, and accordingly, they keep a light touch upon them. As pilgrims, our focus is on a “ desire for a better country, that is, an heavenly:” one as it says in Hebrews, (11:16) “wherefore God is not ashamed to be called our God: for he hath prepared for us a city.”

At the later service today, Bishop Hutchins will Confirm a number of children and adults as they continue their lifelong pilgrimage in the Christian faith begun at Baptism. The Candidates will renew the solemn vows and promises made at Baptism, just as we did corporately a few short weeks ago on Easter, where we renounced the promises of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Each Confirmand will be anointed with Sacred Chrism as they are strengthened for their Christian vocation by the Holy Ghost for their pilgrimage time here on earth and in the words of this morning’s collect, to (BCP 173) “avoid those things that are contrary to their profession” of faith.

May we also keep our eyes fixed upon our final destination, that heavenly city, as we too remember that we are strangers and pilgrims here on earth. Let us be greatly encouraged by the promise of Jesus that when we reach the final goal of our pilgrimage, (John 16:20) all our “sorrow shall be turned into joy.”

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