Sermon for Trinity XII – Proper 17B
All Saints’ Church
August 30, 2009

“The Battle of Life” is a metaphor which almost all men at some time in their lives realize and own as true. It suggests a picture which recalls to almost every man his own history, if his has been at all an earnest life. We may think that it has not been so with other men; we may look at some bright and smiling life, and say with something of envy, with something also almost like reproach in our tone, “Lo, life has no battle for him! Behold how smooth and easy all the world has been for him!” The man himself knows better. And we, if we come close to him, can see the scars, nay, we can hear the battle of his life still going on. But whether we come close enough to him to know the real truth of his life or not, we know the truth about our own. Life is a battle. Forever on the watch against our enemies, forever guarding our own lives, forever watching our chance for an attack upon the foe, – so we all live if we are earnest men.”

With these words the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks begins his sermon delivered on All Saints’ Day 1885 entitled “The Battle of Life” on the passage we just heard from St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians.

How many of us have ever really thought, really contemplated, really dwelt upon the reality that we are constantly at war? We are in a perpetual battle with forces we cannot see, but are as real as us sitting in our pews in this church this morning. Some times they come when we least expect it, and from directions we never could have imagined. Many times we can sense that something isn’t quite right, but we’re not sure what it might be. Often the battles occur when we think things are moving along smoothly, and all is actually well with the world.

So what do we do with a passage like this one – putting on God’s armor? Do we treat it as if it were only ancient Biblical language from days gone by, and think that language like this doesn’t apply to us anymore?

I would say that thoughts such as these are incredibly dangerous because passages like this one should cause us to take notice, and might offer some keen insights into our lives and our personal struggles.

It’s quite tempting to make comments or try and convince ourselves that we just don’t talk about stuff like Powers of Darkness, Spiritual Warfare, sin, Satan, and the like. That’s what those fundamentalist churches worry about. We’re too refined and dignified to think that those things are real and truly exist to do us harm.

My friends, these forces are real, they do exist, and we had better think about them in our Christian life.

Martin Luther certainly believed they were real as he wrote these famous words:

“And tho’ this world, with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us;
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us;
The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him; His rage we can endure,
For lo! His doom is sure, One little word shall fell him.”

Our Lord wrestled with these powers of darkness before his ministry ever began. Should we not also expect to wrestle and struggle with these very same forces? Should we ever get so complacent that we would ever tempt the Tempter and say, “this spiritual warfare stuff just doesn’t happen to me?”

If that were so, why would there be any reason to make the following proclamation at the Baptism, “We receive this Child into the congregation of Christ’s flock; and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully fight under his banner, against sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.”

That statement made within the context of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism makes no sense whatsoever if we ever believed that we were not in constant battle with forces which desire to destroy not just the body, but the soul. Jesus declared to his disciples as he was sending them out, “…fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul.”

One of the two overarching themes Dr. Brooks addresses in the full context of his sermon revolves around two questions: Do we know who or what our enemy truly is; do we know what his weapons are?

Do we know who our enemy is?

St. Peter seemed to know quite well when he wrote in his first epistle, “Be sober, be watchful, your adversary the devil prowls like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world” (I Peter 5:8).

The enemy isn’t just a simple cat who wants merely to play with and toy with its prey, but rather the enemy is depicted as a fully developed lion who seeks to devour and destroy. Satan’s ultimate goal is to destroy us. He wants us to finally collapse into the very essence of what he tempts us with. If he has his way with us, we no longer become just a sinner, but sin itself. We become lost in a world of darkness that is ultimately a life lived with no hope.

What are our enemy’s weapons?

Just about anything!

It’s amazing that some of the most joyous parts of our Lord’s creation have been turned and distorted into a fashion that is a means for our destruction rather than our enjoyment.

The enemy is the master of twisting the things of this world, and attempts to warp our thinking so that we can no longer distinguish what God has intended for good, and what He intended for garbage. C. S. Lewis speaks of this most clearly in his book The Pilgrim’s Regress when the main character, John, who is actually Lewis himself, encounters the spirit of the age, and reason comes in to rescue him.

So what is our source of protection and guard against such an enemy?

We must heed the words of St. Paul, and be prepared to put upon us the whole armor of God. We must do so each and every day.

I’m not sure if any of you have ever had dreams such as these, but in a moment of full disclosure, I’ll have to admit that I’ve had dreams of being caught in public without clothing. First of all, let me promise you that these are dreams!

There is actually a known phobia – gymnophobia which is the fear of being nude in public. One website I consulted on this topic mentioned that only the fear of public speaking and fear of failure topped it in their list of most common phobias. I’m not sure of their statistics, but if there is a named, known fear of being nude in public, why do we not suffer from it spiritually as well? It should terrify us each and every day if we are not armed with the armor of God. We’ve already established the point that we are constantly waging war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We need to put on the proper clothing for that battle, and not attempt to do so unclothed.

Each of the pieces of armor describes Jesus himself, who in fact withstood these forces of evil and darkness and prevailed. We must put on the one and only things that will give us a chance to win a battle that is otherwise un-winnable. St. Jerome declared, “From what we read of the Lord our Saviour throughout the Scriptures, it is manifestly clear that the whole armor of Christ is the Saviour himself. It is one in the same thing to say ‘Put on the whole armor of God’ and ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.’”

When Satan tempted Jesus he was trying to convince Him to turn inward and not to the Father for strength; our trials embody the very same basis of tempting to turn inward for strength to resist these trials and temptations.

In the desert Jesus struggled with Evil – capital E evil itself. We wrestle with the manifestations of the Evil One in whatever form or fashion it takes.

One of the feasts of the Church year is the confession of St. Peter. Peter declares that Jesus is in fact the long awaited Messiah that the prophets proclaimed and all of Jewish history pointed to. After Peter makes his declaration, Jesus says to Peter that “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.” St. Peter could not have made this revelation about our Lord if it were not for the supernatural forces at work outside of him. It is interesting to note that just a few verses later Jesus tells Satan to get behind him because flesh and blood was driving his thinking and not the Spirit of God that had helped him make the ultimate declaration of his faith.

One of the great treasures of Anglicanism is our hymnody. One of the gifts we have given to the larger Church has been the hymns of Charles Wesley.

“Come thou long expected Jesus,” “Lo! He comes with clouds descending,” “Hark the herald angels sing,” “Jesus Christ is risen today,” “Love divine, all loves excelling,” just to name a few. Certainly Charles Wesley believed and taught that we were in a constant war against Satan and his spiritual forces. He has left us a clear statement of who we are fighting against, and as we know, who will ultimately win.





“Soldiers of Christ, arise, And put your armor on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies, Thro’ his eternal Son;

Strong in the Lord of hosts, And in his mighty power:
Who in the strength of Jesus trusts Is more than conqueror.

Stand then in his great might, With all his strength endued,
And take, to arm you for the fight, The panoply of God.

From strength to strength go on, Wrestle, and fight, and pray:
Tread all the powers of darkness down, And win the well-fought day.

That, having all things done, And all your conflicts past,
Ye may o’ercome, through Christ alone, And stand complete at last.”

Sermon for Trinity X – ’28 Propers
All Saints’ Church
August 16, 2009

This morning’s Gospel lesson from the last few verses of Luke 19 is one that really needs the entire chapter to set the stage for what is going on. Actually, it needs the entire Biblical witness, but we’ll settle for the first of chapter 19.

Whenever I think of Luke 19, I am always reminded of the song I’m sure many of us sang in Sunday school or Vacation Bible School about Jesus and Zacchaeus. As we know from the story, of all the people that Jesus would have picked to eat dinner with upon his entering Jericho, Zacchaeus should not have been anywhere near the top of the list. However, as Jesus has done throughout his earthly ministry, he has completely upset the status quo and thrown all semblance of what is perceived as right and wrong on its head. Zacchaeus, being a chief tax collector, was the worst of the worst in the eyes of the Jewish people. Luke is specific in pointing out this particular detail just to show how scandalous Jesus’ actions really were. Tax collectors were hated because they were responsible for seeing that money was collected and funneled to Rome, but more than that, they made their living by skimming off the top of what they collected and made their living through shady means. They were stealing from people in order to line their own pockets and there was really nothing anyone could do about it. The chief tax collector would “earn his keep” by overseeing the work of the regular collectors and thus make a living through the same crooked means, and as Luke points out, he got very rich doing this for a living.

Luke records no other dialogue between Jesus and Zacchaeus other than the summons to come down from the sycamore tree in order to make preparations for Jesus’ arrival for dinner. However, there is something in the summons that truly changed Zacchaeus’ heart. For the next words recorded are of a humble man who freely gives away out of his goods to the poor and wishes to make restitution to everyone he has cheated and defrauded. He even goes far beyond what the law required, and those who he had cheated in his lifetime he would repay four-fold. Jesus then acknowledges who this man truly is and the promises that are truly his to enjoy. He says that he is a true son of Abraham – a member of the Covenant people and an inheritor of salvation. Jesus then makes a promise for us all to hear – that he has come to seek and to save the lost. This of course was the point that he tried to get across in last week’s Gospel in the Parable of the Two Lost Sons.

Luke follows the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus with the Parable of the ten minas. There is so much happening in the parable and multiple layers of interpretation enough for several sermons. However, this morning I merely wish to provide the overall story as continued background for the Gospel lesson we heard a few minutes ago. In the parable the king puts ten people in charge of his goods and then goes off into a far country. He entrusts them to grow and multiply the money they have each been given in order to provide an account for what they’ve done when the king returns. When he returns and calls the servants and asks for an account of their progress, the first two he calls had multiplied their gifts, the first 10 fold and the second 5 and in turn they are rewarded for their good work. The last servant returns the mina to his master with these words, “Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.” With these words the master says that the servant has in fact condemned himself. This is one of those parables in which Jesus issues some of the most stern warnings and condemnations toward those who reject him and his teaching.

The next thing that we hear following this parable is Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Even after all that Jesus has said and done throughout his ministry the Pharisees reject what is happening before their eyes and implore Jesus to silence his disciples. Even though many of those who are cheering as Jesus goes by do not understand what he is about to do in Jerusalem, they at least recognize or perhaps feel in their hearts that the promises of God just might be unfolding right before their eyes. Israel’s Messiah is returning to reign on Mt. Zion, however, this is about to culminate in a manner no one could have imagined. Jesus offers a glimpse into the magnitude of the event when he tells the Pharisees that if His disciples were silent that even the stones would cry out. The purpose of creation and all that God made is to worship this King who now comes in humility and is in fact the Lord of all.

Now I realize that this is allot of background information, but it is crucial to see what led up to our Gospel passage this morning. Jesus is now approaching Jerusalem and he knows that it will be for the last time. He realizes that all of history is about to cross a threshold in just a few short days, and yet so many have never really heard what he’s been saying or doing. He realizes that the religious authorities who were entrusted with the promises that God had made to Abraham were squandering them, and making them a barrier or hindrance rather than something beautiful and a source of hope. They grumbled mightily that Jesus would extend this Good News with someone like Zacchaeus, after all, they had been loyal and faithful for all these many years. Again, this sounds just like the older brother in last week’s parable.

The servants in the parable who grumbled and said that they did not want this master reigning over them were the very ones who returned their mina upon his return, and had nothing to show for it. Now, in their defense, I’m sure the handkerchief was folded meticulously and I’m sure it was made of the finest linen, but the wrapping was merely an empty shell. I’ll bet they thought that this form was much more important than its true function.

These were the same people who were admonishing the crowds as they cheered Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem and told them to stop praising this carpenter’s son from Nazareth whose father and mother we know. Little did they know that this unassuming man who was riding on a donkey into Jerusalem was about to make the ultimate sacrifice and atone for the sins of the entire world.

All of this background information is crucial and necessary and helps us grasp in some faint way Jesus’ reaction when he crosses over the Mount of Olives and sees the temple in the distance. Tears and lament fill our Lord’s eyes and heart as his earthly mission is drawing to a close. He cries out with these words, “would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace.”

Those very ones who are about to put Jesus to death by the sword are about to have that same sword crush them as well. Just one generation after Jesus the temple would again be destroyed and the sword will again rip through the People of Israel. Jesus’ message of peace is being rejected and those that reject it will reap the damning consequences.

Jesus’ tears turn again to anger and frustration as he witnesses the vulgar display of religion for sale. The very people who have come to Jerusalem with humble hearts – some once a year or for some a once-in-a-lifetime experience – are being robbed, cheated, and exploited by the religious establishment who represent the Father’s promises and serve in His temple night and day. These were the very people who Jesus wept about as he crossed the mountain and came toward the temple.

What do we think about as we hear of the emotion of our Lord as he weeps and laments over those who are lost and choose to stay that way? Should we not also weep over those who will not hear the Good News of the Gospel? Should it not grieve our very souls to know that there are those who reject this message of peace and hope and life eternal? If it broke Jesus’ heart should it not break ours as well?

We have been entrusted with the story of salvation, and we are each called to share that story with the entire world. Then our Lord’s tears of sorrow might be turned into tears of joy as we proclaim with boldness those same words that greeted him as he rode into Jerusalem – Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord!

*******Citations available upon request********

Sermon for Trinity IX – ’28 Propers
All Saints’ Church
August 9, 2009

During my first year of seminary I had the opportunity to attend a Biblical Preaching Conference where The Rev. Dr. Paul Zahl was the keynoter giving a series of 3 lectures concerning Biblical Preaching. The audience was almost exclusively Episcopal priests in various stages of the ministry, from those who were nearing retirement to folk like me and others who were just embarking on the journey of the priesthood. Robyn and I were parishioners of Dr. Zahl’s at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, so I was quite excited to see and hear him again. One of the things that Dr. Zahl said in one of his lectures has stuck with me now almost 5 years later, and does so with crystal clarity in light of this morning’s Gospel lesson. Paul said this and I quote fairly loosely, “I hate preaching. It’s like a Golgotha each and every time I step into the pulpit.” Not sure how that quotation strikes you, but those are not exactly the kinds of things that one wants to hear when he hasn’t really delivered any sermons before, or for those who have preached a lifetime of them. What is he saying and what does that have to do with what has commonly been called the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

To begin with, I think, like many other commentators on this passage, the parable has been mischaracterized to single out the repentance of the younger son. There’s no doubt that the younger son plays a significant role in Jesus’ teaching because the majority of the verses deal with him as opposed to his brother. However, this parable is not simply one about a wayward son, but rather, it is one about 2 lost sons. A more appropriate title should be the Parable of the Two Lost Sons, or perhaps more accurately the Parable of the Loving Father.

This is perhaps one of Jesus’ more well-known parables, and one that we have grown up hearing in church. I’m certain that we’ve all heard a number of sermons preached on this unique teaching of our Lord that is found only in Luke’s Gospel. As Bishop N.T. Wright once said humorously in a talk he was giving on the Historical Jesus, “whenever we hear in church hear begins the eleventh verse of the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke – ‘Jesus said, A certain man had two sons, and’ we immediately switch off and begin to wonder if we switched off the oven before we left for church.” However, this parable, like so many others, could almost be read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested on a weekly basis and never lose its ability to convict us in our walk with the Lord.

Since most of us do not read Scripture from the perspective of a 1st Century Palestinian, we tend to miss some of the underlying themes that would have confronted someone from this area from the start. First of all, the scandal of this parable hits us right off the bat. As Dr. Wright says, “sons do not ask fathers for cash down before their death.” The effects of the younger son’s question has the effect of cursing his father, wishing he were dead and out of the way so that he might have the inheritance that would have been due him. According to the book of Deuteronomy the rules and regulations regarding inheritance was spelled out in detail and the oldest son would have received 2/3 of the father’s goods and the younger 1/3. With the inheritance divided amongst the two brothers, the younger one sets off and journeys into a far country.

A quick side note here. One of the biggest problems with hearing this parable read in the context of the liturgy is that it is usually isolated from the first 10 verses of chapter 15. The reason that those first 10 verses are important is that the two parables which precede it help set the stage for the larger parable of the two sons. Those being the parable of the 1 lost sheep out of 100 and the parable of the woman and the lost coin. Another detail is contained in the first 2 verses of chapter 15 which gives the context in which Jesus is telling these stories. Chapter 15 opens with these words, “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” There is a mixed audience of religious outcasts and religious authorities. This is a very important point to note, and will give additional meaning when the parable of the two sons reaches its climax.
All of the Old Testament prophets had a message that was never far removed from the minds of the Jewish people. They were always reminded that the Covenant that was made with Abraham would eventually led them home where they would no longer be exiles, and that God would reign as their King. Even though the Israelites were no longer physically in exile as they were in Babylon or Egypt, they were still enslaved by the rule of Herod and the outstretched arm of Rome. They were technically still foreigners in their own land.

Jesus was always masterful in his use of the images, signs, and symbols which would have evoked deep meaning with his hearers who would open their ears to what he was saying. By the very mention of phrases such as “feeding swine,” “journey into a far country,” “Father, I have sinned” he is intentionally going to touch something deep within his audience. The people would immediately begin to put the pieces together and figure out quickly that Jesus is talking about the Exodus and return to the Promised Land. The symbols spoke loud and clear, and his message would be one of Redemption and Return even if those words don’t appear explicitly in the text.
The theme that is most often extracted from this parable is of course the most obvious that no matter how bad or disastrous our life becomes, we are never beyond the saving grace of God – The Father of the two sons. Even when we have reached rock bottom and we’ve resorted to feeding pigs in a pagan land, whenever we come to our senses, recognize our brokenness, and come home, the grace of God is not waiting on the front porch, stomping his feet, saying, “well you’ve gone and done it again.” No, the grace that comes from a father such as this one says, you were lost, but now you’ve been found, you were dead, but now you are alive again!
Certainly there are times in our lives when we’ve all been guilty of being the younger son, squandering what we’ve been given, and tried to do it on our own.

However, the greater sin I believe comes after the return of the younger son.
Here is the place where I see myself concurring with Dr. Zahl in admitting that preaching can be a Golgotha experience. I hear this parable again, and I relate not so much to the younger son, but more often with the older.
If we only spend time looking at the younger son, we miss something that I believe befalls us all more often than we’d like to admit. From the parable itself, here is what we know of the older brother.

• He heard the music and dancing, and wouldn’t even go investigate things himself, but sends a servant instead.
• He was angry and would not go in
• He expresses his anger in terms of what he has done all these many years in service to the father
• Refers to the younger son not as his brother, but rather as his father’s son
• Complains that he never received any reward or party for being faithful

As is often Jesus’ custom, he never ties up all of the loose ends. Have you ever pondered the question, “did the older brother ever go into the party?” Certainly within the pages of Scripture we don’t find the answer, but if I were to venture a guess I would say that he probably did not. This is why I mentioned a few minutes ago that it is important for us to know who was hearing this parable and what they must be thinking. Pharisees had already made comments regarding who Jesus was eating with and fraternizing with. It’s painfully obvious who the older brothers are in this story.

The older brothers are the ones who were saying to themselves…
• We’ve been keeping the Torah to the Nth degree since birth
• We’re the ones who make sure that the sacrifices are done perfectly and in order in the temple
• We’ve made sure that our hands were clean, and that we would never defile ourselves by hanging out with the wrong types of people

Jesus tells them through the Father’s words that they’ve in fact had all of the promises of God from the very beginning and never realized them for what they were. They lived their lives from the perspective of someone who only kept the rules in order to reap some type of reward at the end. I’ll only do X so that I can receive Y. Jesus is saying that their perspective is all wrong. The keeping of the law shouldn’t be done just to earn points or punch tickets to get into heaven. The keeping of the law should be done because it was a part of who God was. If we love God, then the natural outworking of that love should cause us to do everything possible to manifest that love.

If we are truly honest, how often does our Christian walk look something like that of the older brother when we’ve asked questions or made statements such as these?
• Don’t I deserve this since I’ve been faithful and haven’t been like that particular sinner over there?
• This will make me look good in front of that person whether we’ve thought it consciously or not.
• I’ve sure done my good deed for the day
• I wonder if anyone saw me do that
Please don’t hear me making statements such as these without including myself. I realize that throwing stones in glass houses makes very big messes, and I am as guilty as anyone.

One of the greatest points to take from this parable is to note the posture of the Father. In both instances the Father makes the point to go out to meet both sons. He doesn’t wait for the younger son to get to the house, but rather, runs out to meet him while he’s still a great distance off. He’s been looking for him, and as soon as he sees him, he rushes out to welcome him home. The Father also leaves the party that he’s thrown for the younger son and goes out to meet the older son. He does it lovingly and compassionately, and then leaves the response for the son to make. He can’t make it for him. The older son must decide whether he can forgive his brother or not. He has to decide whether to come into the party or not. Most importantly, he has to decide whether he can call him brother again – or not.

This is the hardest thing we can ever do because it causes us to swallow our pride and accept grace for what it is. The world we live in today is no different than the one that heard this parable for the first time. The grace of the Father still seems as scandalous today as it did then.

The older brother thought that his works would earn him favor and merit with his father, and that he should be recognized for what he had done in the past. The younger brother knew he had nothing to show for what his life had become, and came to his father in the only posture that he could – that of a servant. Jesus told his disciples that he came not to be served but to serve. He said that he came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Here is the story of two brothers – both lost, and in need of salvation. We are those very same brothers, lost and in need of salvation. Our Father is waiting for our return from that far country, so that we can enter in to the banquet that he has prepared for us to enjoy. Will we heed that call, and come home, or come in, whichever the case may be?

******Citations available upon request*******

Sermon for Trinity VIII – 1928 Propers
All Saints’ Church
August 2, 2009

One of the hardest things about reading Holy Scripture is the reality that our experiences, culture, upbringing all affect the way that we read and then interpret what the text is saying. Eisegesis is the process where we read something into a particular text based upon many of those factors I just mentioned. Basically, we’re reading into it what we want to hear, or worse, we have already decided what it really says before we begin. One the attributes about Holy Scripture is that it is the Living Word of God, and if it is living, one of our goals should be to have the Scripture interpret us and dissect us as hearers more often than the other way around.

This same thought crossed my mind when I read the collect appointed for today when our prayer opens with the line, “O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth.” What exactly is the word ordereth getting at?

It’s certainly very easy to fall prey to the temptation to think when things go very, very wrong in our lives to say to ourselves, “Ah Ha, if God so ordered everything here on Earth, then He’s to blame for this mess I’ve gotten myself into.” Or, perhaps from another angle, “Why did God allow this particular event to happen to me in my life?”

However, I think we need to take another look both at what the word ordereth means in this context, as well as, the collect as a whole.

First, in order to end up at the right place, we really need to start at the right place. The phrase itself is an acknowledgement about who God actually is. It is an appeal to the reality that all Order comes from one particular source, and that source is God. If we take time and carefully study Genesis 1 and 2, one of the overarching themes that comes across is the particular order by which God creates out of nothing.

One particular Study Bible I consulted has this subheading for Gen 1:1 – 2:3, “God’s creation and ordering of heaven and earth.” Sounds remarkably like our collect this morning.

The editors went on to say, “The book of Genesis opens with a majestic description of how God first created the heavens and earth and then how he ordered the earth so that it may become his dwelling place. Structured into seven sections, each marked by the use of set phrases, the entire episode conveys the picture of the all-powerful, transcendent God who sets everything in place with consummate skill in conformity to his grand design. The emphasis is mainly on how God orders or structures everything.”

Cambridge physicist and Anglican clergyman John Pulkinghorne said that one of the most important points to extract from Gen 1 can be summed up in the eight-fold repetition of the six words, “And God said, ‘let there be…’”

Before God spoke, that which we know about our world, our universe was chaos and disorder. After God spoke, order displaced disorder, and we continue to live in the Light of God’s handiwork.

Misinterpretation occurs when we neglect the whole of the story. In the beginning God ordered all things rightly, and then gave man one simple command – do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet, the three-fold temptation took hold, and Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise. She ate of the fruit as did Adam, and the course of human events was altered in an instant. The one thing that Adam and Eve never knew was that in their attempt to become wise and like God they were attempting to exchange their view of order for God’s. They simply saw the forbidden fruit as pleasing for food, beautiful to behold, and possessing something they thought they had to have. It did not work then, and it certainly doesn’t work now. Doesn’t that sound familiar in our own lives? We see something we simply can’t live without; something forbidden comes in an awfully enticing package; all I need is just this one item more.

It happens all too often, we exchange God’s order for our own, and usually it comes with undesirable results.

God calls each of us to live our life striving to conform to His Will – His Order.

From the very beginning, he gave us the example for the right ordering of the family. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” These same words from Genesis are quoted by Jesus as recorded in both Matthew and Mark, as well as, by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. The right ordering of husband and wife is a direct commandment from God. Jesus also adds a clinching caveat, “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” When man and wife come together in the bond and covenant of Holy Matrimony, God binds the two into one, and they are no longer the same as they were before. The two have become one flesh. This is why the Church treats Holy Matrimony as a Sacramental rite, and thus so much more than just a service of the church.

One of the critical components of the right ordering of the family is that God is the central focal point of that relationship. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks conveyed this in an article he wrote dated 7/25/09 entitled “We must guard love in this world of easy pleasures.” He opens with these words:

One day I was called on to officiate at two funerals. The families involved were old friends of ours, but they lived in different parts of London and did not know one another. In both cases, the wife had died after a long and happy marriage. One couple had just celebrated, and the other was just about to celebrate, their diamond wedding [anniversary].
What was striking was that both husbands said the same thing to me, in virtually identical words: “I loved her as much as the day we first fell in love.” To hear that once, after 60 years of marriage, would have been rare. To hear it twice on the same day seemed like more than mere coincidence.
Both couples were religious. Prayer and going to the synagogue, celebrating Sabbath and the festivals, and giving time and money to others, were integral to their lives. They knew that in Judaism the home is as sacred as a house of worship. Did these things, I wondered, have something to do with the strength and persistence of their love?
We tend to think that emotions, especially one as capricious as love, are simply what we feel. We don’t choose our likes and dislikes, our fears and joys. They catch us unawares. They can hold us helpless in their grip. The words “passion” and “passive” are related. So we conclude that we can’t help feeling what we feel.
Recent developments in psychotherapy suggest otherwise. Cognitive behavioural therapy is based on the premise that what we feel is influenced by what we think, and we can change the way we think. Positive psychology has had success in turning pessimists into optimists by reframing people’s perceptions. Martin Seligman, the pioneer in this field, calls pessimism “learnt helplessness”, and what can be learnt can be unlearnt.
So it is with love. Someone who believes that marriage is “just a piece of paper”, that sex comes without commitments, and that pleasure is the measure of all things, will have one range of emotions. One who believes that marriage is a sacred covenant, that love is inseparable from loyalty, and that what we love we make sacrifices for, will have another. Because they think different thoughts, they will feel different things.
…He concludes with these words that I believe connect what I’ve been alluding to this morning.
To see love as the force that moves the Universe, to love God and know that God loves us, to celebrate love in ritual and song and know that it means constancy and faithfulness, to understand that love gives and forgives, and to see in the birth of a child the love that brings new life into the world: these give love a better chance. And in a world of easy pleasures, short attention spans and fragile relationships, love needs a better chance.
That is what faith does. Sanctifying love, it protects it from the thousand temptations to which it is daily exposed. That day when I heard two old friends in the midst of grief speak of a love undiminished over time, I thought of Dylan Thomas’s famous words, “Though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion”, and knew that loving God helps us to love one another.
Why do we hear each and every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist either the Decalogue or the Summary of the Law? The only way that we can begin to comprehend the grace of God in Christ’s Body and Blood is through constant re-ordering of our lives and wills toward God. Lives lived centered on the Great Commandment will then begin to embody what the rest of our collect speaks about, and prays for.

If we go back to our collect for this morning, the only way we as individuals can ever discern what is harmful for us and what we need to put way is if we acknowledge our necessity to call upon the One who ordereth all things in heaven and on earth. Then and only then, will we begin to receive those things which are profitable for us.

God’s desire is to bless us more than we can ever imagine. Those blessings came with a price, and they still do. It means as St. Paul told the Ephesians that they and we must constantly put off our old self and be renewed in the spirit of our minds and put on the new self (Eph. 4:22-23). It means that we must take up our cross daily and follow Christ. It means exchanging our interpretation of order and exchanging it for God’s. If we are humble enough to do so, then our Lord allows us to receive those good things which are profitable for us, and will ultimately last for all eternity.

****Citations and footnotes available upon request****

Sermon for Trinity VII – Proper 12B
All Saints’ Church
July 27, 2009


At some point in time during seminary I came across a paper written by The Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand entitled “The Case of the Missing Comma.” I don’t remember if someone directed me to read this short essay, or if I simply stumbled upon it myself, but it has always stuck with me, and I wish to share some of his insights with you this morning. If the title of the article struck you as odd, the entire thrust of his work deals with a punctuation mark.

One of the overarching themes of the Epistle to the Ephesians is the connection between Christ and His Church. In the few verses we heard this morning from the fourth chapter we heard references to Christ’s headship; that our growth and development as Christians happens because we are bound to Christ; the Church is Christ’s Body and we are individual members of that body; we also hear about specific ministry workers within the church and their role within the larger community.

Dr. LeMarquand’s paper deals with the two verses almost in the middle of the passage we heard this morning. Starting at verse 11, Paul switches gears a little bit, and speaks about some of the ministers who will function within the Church, and their role in the advance of the Gospel. He says that some will be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. The scholars who have studied this text in great depth do not believe that this should be treated as an exhaustive list of leaders within the Church. After all, none of terms from which we derive our three-fold order of ministry of deacon, priest and bishop, are found in this list. If you look over the list of 5 ministers noted here, this does seem like a fairly limited group. The one term which has a bit more of a global connotation is the evangelist in the sense that all of us are called to be bearers of the Good News or as the Greek word literally means – Good Messengers.

The question for Dr. LeMarquand begins to arise with the next verse. Take a look at the printed text in your bulletin as we look at this a bit further.

Verse 12 speaks of these 5 ministers having a specific role to play, and the things that they are called upon to do is work for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. I tried to speak it so as to emphasize the pauses that the commas in our text imply. If you begin to unpack this verse in this light, I hope you begin to see what is happening.

Certainly as a priest in God’s Church one of my specific roles is doing everything that God gives me the ability to do to see that those within my cure are constantly striving for perfection. To put that in theological terms, I am called upon to help you and me along the lifelong journey of sanctification. Sanctification is the constant striving for holiness or as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Mt. 5:48)

The third item in this list is also a function of the pastoring and teaching roles of ordained ministry when Paul speaks about the edifying of the Body of Christ. Whenever the Holy Eucharist is celebrated, whenever the Holy Scriptures are expounded upon in a sermon, whenever parishioners are being prepared for Confirmation, the edifying of the Body of Christ is taking place.

Sorry for so much background, but I thought it was important to lead up to this critical point. In our text the phrase “for the work of the ministry” is set off as a clause by itself.

Who is being called upon for the work of the ministry here?

Is it the list of 5 special folk mentioned in verse 11, or is this a case where perhaps a comma shouldn’t be here at all, and does it refer to the saints who are being perfected?

Side note here…the original Greek manuscripts and texts of the New Testament had no punctuation marks, no breathing marks, no stress marks, and just to make things even more interesting and difficult, there were no spaces between words. All of the all upper case characters of a Greek text were continuous strings of characters. You can imagine how difficult it would have been to have a working text of the original language, let alone what we have in front of us today. Scholars using the best information at their disposal added punctuation marks at a much later date and our English translations have brought them over.

Back to verse 12 again and the case of the missing comma. Listen to these verses again if I simply eliminate that one comma and see if the message sounds any different:

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

If this is in fact the case, Paul is conveying what Jesus was teaching all along. The work of the ministry, the sharing of the good news, is not restricted to just a few who happen to be involved in the governance and ordering of the Church. Instead, the work of the ministry is for everyone! The main reason that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers exist is the empower those within the Church to carry out Christ’s message to the entire world. If this isn’t the case, then the 3rd point, the edifying of the Body of Christ doesn’t really make sense. Think about it this way. If the Church is Christ’s body, and we are individual members, aren’t we required to have a function in the body? If my arms just arbitrarily decided to go on strike one day, would my body be edified? More importantly, what if one of the major organs did the same thing, I don’t think the results would be edifying in the least.

We as Christ’s body must act like members of Christ’s body.

Dr. LeMarquand in his paper drives this point home with clarity:

If we choose the second option, the tripartite division, we are in effect saying that God has called certain persons to lead the church by equipping the saints,3 doing the work of ministry, and
building up the body of Christ. Quite a number of our Bible translations, by the simple insertion of a comma after the word ‘saints’, make it look as though Paul was saying exactly that. There is, however, one glaring problem with this approach: it can turn congregations into spiritual consumers and put the burden of God’s work in the world squarely on the shoulders of the
religious specialists, the clergy. The church (that is, the church as it is, rather than as it should be) has sometimes been described as a being like a football game: thousands of fans in the stands, all desperately in need of exercise, watching a much smaller number of players on the field, all desperately in need of rest! The clergy do the ministry, the congregation receive the ministry? The New Testament knows of no such arrangement.
Rather, when the New Testament speaks of ‘ministry’ what it means, first and foremost, something that God does in Christ. The word ministry means ‘service’ and it is the unanimous
opinion of the New Testament documents that Christ is The Servant.

…the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

… though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of human beings. (Phil 2:
6-7)

It is the servanthood, the ministry of Jesus Christ that is of first importance. The New Testament always speaks first about what He has done for us, not what we can do for Him, for ourselves, or for the world. ‘The ministry’, if it belongs to anyone, belongs to Christ.

Our work as the church must point in one direction, it must point to Christ. Like a compass that always gives us our bearing in relation to North, our lives as Christians must likewise point to Jesus. Paul points us in this very direction when he begins the fourth chapter of Ephesians with these words:

1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lorda, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Here is what we have to share with the world:

One body
One spirit
One hope
One Lord
One faith
One baptism
One God and Father of all

Let us with boldness go out and perform the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ that we have each been called to do.

****Citations and footnotes available upon request****

Sermon for Trinity VI – Proper 11B
Preached at All Saints’ Church – Thomasville, GA
July 19, 2009


“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

In 4 short verses St. Paul packs an absolutely mystifying amount of theology for us to try and grasp and absorb. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit is a glorious thing to behold, and He gives us an example of that mystery in this section of the Epistle to the Ephesians this morning.

A particular aspect of theology that our passage this morning addresses is eschatology. Eschatology is a term that describes that area of theology dealing with the end of time, or the last things. For some, eschatology becomes the last chapter in most theology textbooks, relegated almost to appendix status. The opening paragraph of Joseph Ratzinger’s book by the same name clarifies this point for us, but asserts that eschatology is so much more than just a footnote.

For centuries eschatology was content to lead a quiet life as the final chapter of theology where it was dubbed “the doctrine of the last things.” But in our own time, with the historical process in crisis, eschatology has moved into the very center of the theological stage. Some twenty years ago, Hans Urs von Balthasar called it the “storm-zone” of contemporary theology. Today it appears to dominate the entire theological landscape. A recent synod of the German bishops published a confession of faith under the title “Our Hope” – thus placing faith itself in hope’s perspective.

These words of Benedict XVI were first penned in German in 1977. So what exactly does this have to do with our passage this morning, and more importantly, what does it have to do with us?

The passage that I read when I began was not actually part of the lectionary section, but I had it added in. The framers of the lectionary sometimes astonish me with what they leave out, and this is one of those very times. Do we not need to hear that we are in fact dead creatures, with no hope, no future except through the grace, mercy, and love of Jesus Christ? I certainly need to hear that, and I need to hear it often.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, our hope, our faith and our future, finds its culmination and resting point not in a destination, but in a person. It is found in Jesus Christ.

Look at what would have been excluded if the first section of Ephesians 2 had been left out of this morning’s lesson. First, we hear an echo of our collect which speaks about the abundance of God’s mercy and His great love for what He has made. We were dead in our sinful state with no hope and no future, and God has raised us to a new life in Christ. Now, try and follow here because this is where the link to eschatology comes in.

There is a perspective to the statement that we have been raised to a new life in Christ that tells us that this has already happened and is to be experienced now. However, as believers in the resurrection of the dead, as espoused in the Creeds, we know that this has not fully been realized yet – there is certainly more to come. So here is the situation, how do we reconcile these two positions?

I believe we do so in the very same way that we live out the words of the Lord’s Prayer – Thy Kingdom Come. We don’t say these words with some futuristic nostalgia in mind, nor do we say them in terms of an unrealistic utopia that leaves us lacking or despondent.

In the first section of Ephesians 2, St. Paul diagnoses the human condition with absolute clarity. The great thing about Paul and Jesus is that they don’t leave us simply diagnosed, but they show us the cure. What would it be like to go to the doctor and have him tell you that you have a disease, but that his job is now over since he’s found the problem and simply says, “Let’s live with it?” That’s not any kind of diagnosis with any hope attached to it. You want the doctor to diagnose the problem, and follow-up those words with, “Here’s how we’re going to fix it.”

Many of you probably remember the movie that came out 20 years ago Dead Poet’s Society staring Robin Williams. That even makes me feel old saying it came out 20 years ago. Mr. Keating, the new English professor, arrives at Welton Academy for boys, and on one of his first days in class he takes him through the hallway of the school to look at the pictures of those who had gone before them and to listen to their stories. As he asks them to look deep into those pictures and listen to their stories he whispers in the background one of the watchword phrases of the entire movie carpe diem – seize the day.

In a secular context, seize the day is exactly what wear hear all around us. In a Christian context we are called to do the same thing, but we are called to do it with a difference.

The secularistic worldview embraces carpe diem because it says this is all there is so you better enjoy it while it lasts. The rich man in the Gospels was the poster child of this worldview even in Jesus’ day and age.

In 1980 English journalist and poet Steve Turner penned these words, and in my view sums up the secularist worldview quite well.

We believe in Marx Freud and Darwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in
horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same--
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.


"Chance" a post-script

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker."

This post-script is certainly no recipe for hope. The Christian Gospel on the other hand is the only thing that can counter this sentiment, and do so with clarity, conviction, and courage.

As Christ’s disciples we embrace carpe diem because it is a foretaste of what is to come. We heard that expressed in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians this morning when he told that church that they would experience immeasurable riches of God’s grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. What’s critical to understand about this statement is that it does speak of the life to come, but it also speaks of life here and now.

One of the big debates in eschatology is the difference between future eschatology and realized eschatology. As the names would indicate, future eschatology has not been realized yet, and is still to come at some point in time in the future. Realized eschatology is that which has happened in the past, is happening now in the present and will continue to happen in the future.

When we hear the phrase Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven used in Scripture or in passages like this mornings from Ephesians does it mean something yet to come, or something that has already been ushered in and dwells with us? Almost every time the answer is a resounding YES!

It’s both at the same time even though we are dealing with what many like to refer to as the already, but the not yet.

Finally, I wish to ground this in something that we experience and partake in as the Church - the Holy Communion. Eschatology comes back into the picture again, and Scripture declares that every time that we eat this bread and drink this cup now, we proclaim the Lord’s death in the past, until He comes again in the future in power and glory.

In that one event, all of time collapses into the here and now. In so doing, we are catching an ever so small glimpse into the Heavenly banquet where we will on day dine at the Lord’s Table.

“Through the Eucharist…the Church proclaims its faith in the Lordship of Jesus and in the coming of the Kingdom. Through the Eucharist the Church manifests and more fully recognizes and deepens its unity in Christ. Through the Eucharist the Church sets a pattern for its own ministry to those in need and exposes itself thereby to judgment.”

Our Lord bids us to come to His Table with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart, which is the only acceptable way for us to come before the Almighty. The grace we receive as we partake of Christ’s Body and Blood provides us the nourishment to go forth from here and faithfully bear witness to the One who feeds us in this Blessed Sacrament. We are daily sent out into the world to share this message of hope to a world that desperately needs to hear it. Come to our Lord’s Altar, and receive the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation – the greatest gift we could ever receive.

****Citations and footnotes available upon request****

Sermon for Trinity II – Proper 7B
June 21, 2009 - Preached at St. John’s – Moultrie

One of the most critical dialogues between Jesus and His disciples occurs when Jesus asks them two unbelievable questions. In all three Gospel accounts, it appears that Jesus is alone with the 12, and he asks them the first question, “Who do men say that I am?” Depending on which Gospel record we are following, the disciples either say John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets risen from the dead. The answers that the disciples give at least conveys that the people are realizing that something strange, something different is taking place. They are beginning to put some of the pieces together – Jesus is starting to look like what we have been waiting for, longing for, yearning for.

Back in the time of Moses, the people were looking for someone extraordinary to come. As recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses declares, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers – it is to him you shall listen….And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”

Jesus then follows up this first question with perhaps the most important question ever asked, “But who do you say that I am?”

Ultimately that is the question that each of us has to answer personally for ourselves. St. Peter gives the answer that summarizes all of Christology, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The Kalendar of the ’79 BCP has a Principal Feast Day Church Year designated to commemorate what is known as the “Confession of St. Peter” in January. Jesus comments on the remarkable nature of Peter’s answer when he says that flesh and blood had not revealed this to him, but rather the Father had done this remarkable thing. All of the Bishop’s of Rome have followed in St. Peter’s footsteps with the intention that they would boldly proclaim that statement regarding Jesus’ identity as well.

The Rev. Don Armstrong who is an Anglican priest in Colorado wrote a book which is a compilation of several talks revolving around the topic, “Who do you say that I am?” He chose this as the title of his book because he wanted to play that question off of what many in society and in the church would rather the question to have been. He says that too often we lose track of the question, “Who do you say that I am?” and re-work the language a bit. He says that we have reached a point where the question has been changed to Jesus asking “Who do you want me to be?” There is a fundamental flaw with this wording because in this instance we are no longer starting with God, but with our selves. We become the “master of our own universe” so to speak, and everything begins to spiral out of control from that point forward.

In St. Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians, he stresses this exact same point. Fr. Armstrong’s book could have used our Epistle lesson this morning as his jump-off point because it works in a similar vein. Paul writes that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself. As we observe many of the battles within the Church today, it sounds to me like we think that God was in Christ reconciling himself to the world. This is a completely backward notion because if that were the case, there would have ultimately been no need for the cross. If God’s intention was to simply make Himself compatible to the world, then the atonement makes absolutely no sense at all. H. Richard Niebuhr summarizes this scenario best when he speaks in the following light as a rebuttal to the liberal gospel which creates, “A God without wrath brought to men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” Former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once said that he has always wondered why there was any need to crucify the Jesus of liberal Christianity.

Far too often we hear stories that are complete reversals. Our desire for absolute autonomy and unabated individualism has led to a complete contradiction to Paul’s words when he says that One – Jesus Christ has died for all, and therefore all have died. We no longer live for ourselves, but rather we live for him who died and rose again from the dead.

As followers and disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to live for others. This is the true definition of Christian Charity – the agape love that concerns itself most with the needs of others. For those of you who are married, that is the type of love you promised to exhibit in the vows you made to your spouse. For those of you who are parents, that’s the kind of love we show to our children. For those of us who has a neighbor who is in need, or suffering, or despondent, that is the kind of love we are called to show to them.

Paul goes on to admonish the Corinthian Church to be Christ’s ambassadors to the outside world. Today, some are called to be ambassadors of Christ to those on the inside as well. We have an immense responsibility to communicate the love of Christ to everyone we come in contact with.

One of the greatest obstacles for many to believe the message of the Gospel is very nature of sin, and evil, and suffering in the world. How could an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, all-merciful God permit the things we see on television every day to go on? What are we to make of the rampant sin that confronts us each day? Someone made the assertion that sin should be the one doctrine of the church that absolutely everyone must believe in because they need only open their eyes to the world in which we live. The last sentence from our Epistle this morning bears some incredible light on those very pertinent questions.

Paul says that, “for our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Right off the bat, we hear why the cross had to happen. It was for our sake. God was not going to let us, his creatures who had marred and completely stained his glorious and good creation wallow in the mess we had made for ourselves. Jesus didn’t just save us from our sin, He became sin. Do we really comprehend the magnitude of that statement? Jesus actually became sin. No he didn’t succumb to sin, or engage in sin, but rather, what he did for our sake and on our behalf was become the complete antithesis of God’s goodness, mercy, and righteousness. He bore the image of what God was not on the hard wood of the cross, and He did it for you and for me.

One of Jesus’ last words from the cross were the first few of Psalm 22. Jesus proclaims, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Dr. Ravi Zacharias once said that Jesus uttered those words from the cross so that we would never have to! I think he’s spot on in that regard. I believe at that moment, God was unable to bear to gaze upon and see what his creation looked like that had so completely turned in upon itself. The Son was bearing upon his shoulders the weight of a world which basically was saying, God, we have no need of you.

That’s the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis. The people had a common language and had determined that they were going to make a name for themselves apart from God based upon their works and deeds. They were attempting to create a world for themselves devoid of a need for God. In many respects, with our common language of the interconnectedness and the Internet, we might just be doing the exact same thing all over again.

This passage from II Corinthians speaks about a concept that we are called to engage every day of our lives. We are to seek reconciliation with our fellow man. Our exhortation before the Confession of Sin is a statement of that desire. We are to be in love and charity with our neighbor in order that we might make a holy confession and present ourselves in an acceptable manner in order that we might worthily receive the Blessed Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. This phrase is repeated every week so that our being reconciled to God and our admonition to be reconciled to one another might be constantly before us.

Reconciliation is not a compromise – especially in matters of the Truth of the Christian Faith.

Reconciliation is not simply a consensus of all options

Reconciliation is not a “why can’t we all just get along” mentality

Reconciliation only happens in Christ. Reconciliation only happens when we all believe that we share a common bond with all of mankind that we are sinners in need of redemption, change of heart, and amendment of life. Reconciliation only happens through a person – Jesus Christ. Through the person who bore all of the sins I have ever committed or ever will commit on the cross in order that I might become the righteousness of God.

He doesn’t say that we already are the righteousness of God, but rather that we might someday become that righteousness. In theological terms, that is what we refer to as sanctification. As God’s creatures that have a part of our Creator in us, we are to bear the image of our Holy Father to all the world. There is only one time where an adjective is used three times in succession to refer to its noun modifier, and it happens right here. We worship a God who is Holy, Holy, Holy. That threefold repetition is there as a hyper-descriptor. If that is the image of the God we worship and serve should we not strive to look more like that each and every day of our lives? We have seen the source of that holiness – we come to meet him again in the Blessed Sacrament. Our lives as Christ’s ambassadors is to live in that light, so that others might see it and come to live in it as well.

Sermon for Trinity I - Proper 6B
June 14, 2009
All Saints' - Thomasville

This morning’s Gospel lesson we heard two different parables of Jesus in which he describes the Kingdom of God. The first parable speaks of our inability to understand or comprehend the fact that so much of the Providence of God and the in breaking of His Kingdom is so far removed from us, that we merely see the manifestation of most of it in our lives, and that so much of it happens well beyond our control.

The second parable presents us with one of the two different instances where our Lord uses a mustard seed as a descriptor of something larger he wants his hearers to comprehend. In our passage today, the mustard seed is compared to the Kingdom of God and the other is a reference the mustard seed describes the size of our faith. It seems like the phrase we hear more often speaks of mustard seed size faith; I don’t recall hearing many references or stories about the Kingdom of God being compared to a mustard seed, but Jesus makes that very comparison in Mark’s gospel this morning.

The first parable about the seed growing secretly is particular only to Mark, and the parable of the mustard seed appears in all three synoptic gospels. This is significant because Jesus uses parables quite a bit in His ministry and in the almost 40 parables recorded in Scripture only 3 of those are found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Certainly when this occurs within the Gospel record, there is usually a peculiarity within one of the accounts that provides a particular insight or emphasis which bears further examination.

The Markan version of the mustard seed parable is no exception. For the most part, the three accounts are identical. Luke’s version is slightly different from both Matthew and Mark, but I will save that difference for next year when the Lukan version of this parable comes up in the Lectionary. However, the point of difference between Mark and both Matthew and Luke occurs at the very end of the passage. All three speak of the birds being able to make their nests, but Mark adds one detail that I find quite interesting. Matthew and Luke speak of the nests being made in the trees branches. Mark says that the birds are able to make their nests in its shade.

Some might think that that is a very minor detail and really quite insignificant. However, if you look at the parable as a whole and some of the other Biblical references to shade, I think that Mark is doing something very interesting here.

For example, in the book of Ezekiel we find the parable of the Eagles and the Vine. The political future of Judah is explained in fable-like form, and we hear the following words from the prophet:

"Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent: In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell" (Ez. 17:22-23).

Certainly some of Jesus’ hearers would have caught this comparison, and realized that the message from Ezekiel sounded remarkably allot like what they were now hearing. Even though there is almost 600 years between these two messages the main point of both is identical. In the Kingdom of God, true shade, true rest, true comfort comes when we dwell and make our home in God’s loving embrace. In Ezekiel’s day, he was speaking about a time to come, Jesus was telling his hearers that the time was now.

Think too about the story of Jonah. Jonah is sitting on the outskirts of Ninevah and is whining and moaning that the people of actually heeded his warnings, listened to his prophesies, repented of their sins, and turned to the Lord. God sends a great gourd which grows up in a night to give him shelter or shade from the scorching sun. Jonah is thankful for this gift from God, but if you remember the story, the next day God sends a worm which attacks the gourd and it withers and dies, and Jonah now mourns the loss of his shade. He is so distraught that he prays to God that he might die for he says that would be better than continuing to live. God’s response sounds strikingly similar to the first parable from this morning’s Gospel. God says to Jonah, “Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night” (Jonah 4:10). Jesus is stressing in his teaching what Jonah seemed to miss. We can control so little in life, yet we can take great comfort in placing our trust in the One Source that controls everything. The beginning of Psalm 91 anchors this theme with these words: “WHOSO dwelleth under the defence of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say unto the LORD, Thou art my hope, and my stronghold; my God, in him will I trust” (Ps. 91:1-2).

In each of these instances, every time that I mentioned the word shade or shadow, the same word that is peculiar to Mark’s rendering of the parable of the mustard seed is found in these Old Testament references as well. The service of Compline has as one of its responses, “Hide me under the shadow of thy wings.” In all these cases, we are seeking to find our home and abode in God.

Both of these parables have very practical applications for us today. I’m sure many of us are concerned about the financial stability and well-being of our country; we are worried about the violent outbreaks both at home and abroad; we are concerned about our Church and the attacks on the Truth from within and without; we fear what it will be like to wake up the morning after losing a spouse, or sibling, or parent, or child. These emotions are real, they are not without grounds. One of the things that make them real is the power we can allow them to have, and how they can grip us almost to the point of paralysis. However, I believe what Jesus wants us to hear today is that much of what we fear is what we cannot control. Many of the things which concern us the most are things that God is begging us to turn over to Him so that we might face them with His guidance and judgment.

20th Century Protestant Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote one of the most famous prayers of the modern age, The Serenity Prayer. I’m sure that most of you know the abbreviated form of this beautiful prayer, but I want you to hear the full version of this prayer.

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen."


I wish to close with a portion of a homily delivered by Peter Chrysologus on the parable of the mustard seed. If that name is unfamiliar to you, I’ll have to admit it was unfamiliar to me as well until this past week. He was a man who lived in the 4th and 5th Centuries, and served as Bishop of Ravenna in Italy for roughly 17 years. He was known as the “Doctor of Homilies” because of his short but thought provoking talks. Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1729 and his Feast Day is celebrated in the Roman Church on July 30.

God desires that we sow the seeds of the Kingdom in our hearts so that we might find rest for ourselves, and then in turn, sow those same seeds with others. Jesus’ ultimate goal was to seek and to save that which was lost. We were once lost, and have now been found. Our calling is point others to Christ Jesus our Lord so that they might find rest in the shade that God provides.

"It is up to us to sow this mustard seed in our minds and let it grow within us into a great tree of understanding reaching up to heaven and elevating all our faculties; then it will spread out branches of knowledge, the pungent savor of its fruit will make our mouths burn, its fiery kernel will kindle a blaze within us inflaming our hearts, and the taste of it will dispel our unenlightened repugnance. Yes, it is true: a mustard seed is indeed an image of the kingdom of God. Christ is the kingdom of heaven. Sown like a mustard seed in the garden of the virgin’s womb, he grew up into the tree of the cross whose branches stretch across the world. Crushed in the mortar of the passion, its fruit has produced seasoning enough for the flavoring and preservation of every living creature with which it comes in contact. As long as a mustard seed remains intact, its properties lie dormant; but when it is crushed they are exceedingly evident. So it was with Christ; he chose to have his power concealed….Christ became all things in order to restore all of us in himself. The man Christ received the mustard seed which represents the kingdom of God; as man he received it, though as God he had always possessed it. He sowed it in his garden, that is in his bride, the Church. The Church is a garden extending over the whole world, tilled by the plough of the gospel, fenced in by stakes of doctrine and discipline, cleared of every harmful weed by the labor of the apostles, fragrant and lovely with perennial flowers: virgin’s lilies and martyr’s roses set amid the pleasant verdure of all who bear witness to Christ and the tender plants of all who have faith in him. Such then is the mustard seed which Christ sowed in his garden. When he promised a kingdom to the patriarchs, the seed took root in them, with the prophets it sprang up; with the apostles it grew tall; in the Church it became a great tree putting forth innumerable branches laden with gifts. And now you too must take the wings of the psalmist’s dove, gleaming gold in the rays of divine sunlight, and fly to rest for ever among those sturdy, fruitful branches. No snares are set to trap you there; fly off, then, with confidence and dwell secure in its shelter."

Citations available upon request

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Easter
All Saints' Church
5/17/09

I’m not sure how many of you caught the number of times the word “love” or one of its cognates appeared in our Collect, Epistle, and Gospel this morning, but the actual number was 41 times. When a word appears that many times over, one might begin to think that the author is trying to get across a particular point, and in fact, this is clearly the case. Also, one might think when something like this comes up for a preacher it would be natural to think that the sermon would revolve around this one word, and that is partially true this morning. Yes, I am going to speak about God’s love toward us, our love towards God and the completion of that trinity of ideas, our love toward mankind. However, one point that I want to weave into this sermon is something that might get lost when we examine passages such as these.

In addition to the 41 times that love appears in the Propers for the day, another theme, a bit more subtle comes through and that is the notion of perfection, completeness, or fullness. One of God’s promises to us is that we are inheritors of something larger, more grand, more glorious, more spectacular than we can ever imagine. The collect this morning solidifies that thought twice over when the opening petition declares that God has prepared good things that surpass all of our understanding for those who love Him. We also receive the assurance that what we are to obtain exceeds everything that we could ever want or desire. One of the joys of knowing what lies ahead is the freedom that it allows us here and now. Baptist minister John Piper once said, “…don't make the mistake of thinking that future-oriented, future-sustained joy limits present usefulness. It doesn't limit it. It liberates it. If your future is glorious and sure (which it is in Christ!), you don't live for money or power or fame. You don't have to grasp and snatch and chase pleasures that are slipping through your aging fingers. You are free to live for others now. You are free to be another kind of person than the kind that lives for this world. If your hope is glorious and sure, you will seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other basic things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Your love will be genuine. It will be radical, risk-taking, sacrificial because of the joy set before you.”

John makes an important link between love and perfection in our Epistle lesson. Twice he speaks of love being perfected, and I think the critical piece is the manner in which this happens. In both cases, the only way that the love of God within us is perfected is when it pertains to our love toward others. Certainly the first piece is that we love God, but John makes it clear that the only way that love is made perfect is if we share it. Personal piety is wonderful, but if it doesn’t manifest itself toward others, then it is incomplete and imperfect.

The other time in this morning’s Epistle that John uses the word perfect is in relation to fear. We are living in fearful times. In worldly terms, there is more uncertainty, more apprehension, more hopelessness than seemingly ever before. Just this past Thursday and Friday, General Motors and Chrysler Corporation announced that they would not be renewing the franchise agreements with over 2,000 car dealerships. We’ve been hearing stories such as these for months now. Everyone in this church this morning who had saved for the future in the Stock Market has noticeably less than they did two years ago. We are sending forth from our parish three young people who have completed their High School education, and have a future that lies ahead of them. Are we sending them forth fearful, or hopeful? How should we be sending them forth?

St. John is not giving us some nice platitudes to rest our fears upon when he writes, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth our fear; because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” How do we flesh out these words? When things begin to collapse around us, how do we put these words into practice?

The message of the Bible is a constant reminder that we are called to be radically reoriented toward God, and all that He gives us. Far too often our hopes and sense of security rest in the things of this world, and as we know all too realistically those things are temporal, and can never provide us perfect security. Our true freedom comes when we can truly grasp that all that we have has been given to us on loan from God.

Job understood this completely when everything was taken from him. When the messengers reported to Job that his flocks, his servants, his home, and his children had all been destroyed, Scripture says that, “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” I can assure you with 100% confidence that when my IRA statements come in over the past year and a half, the last thing I’ve done is worship, or declare “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” I can think of other thoughts going through my head, but words of thanksgiving were not some of them.

That’s because in that instance I’ve gotten my priorities wrong. Rather than being thankful for what I still have I cursed what I had lost. And yet, I’ve still never lost what’s truly important, what’s perfect, and will ultimately last forever!

Again, this is all a part of reorientation, and changing our mindset toward that which is perfect.

Jesus’ words as recorded in John’s Gospel this morning continue to push us toward a type of love that seems so foreign and incredibly challenging – which of course, it is. One of the attributes that Jesus speaks about is completeness and being made whole and full. The text says, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Even at the end of his life, Jesus is establishing a foundation that we are intended to build our lives upon. He is making clear that his desire is that the joy that He already knows and embodies might remain with us forever, so that we might taste and see that joy as well. And He doesn’t just want it to be enough to get by, he wants it to be full and complete. The word that Jesus uses here when he speaks of our joy being full has the connotation of “bringing to completion that which was already begun.” There is a sense of that fullness being the end-result or consummation of something that lies outside of ourselves – which in fact it really is.

All this discussion of perfection and being made perfect and our joy being full and complete brings me ultimately, and as it rightfully should, back to the cross. If we think back to the readings for Holy Week when we hear again the words of our Lord from the cross, the last word that Jesus speaks tie all of this together. John is the only Gospel writer to record the one word in Greek which is normally translated, “It is finished.” The curious thing about that word in Greek is its remarkable similarity to the words John uses in our lesson this morning which speaks about love being perfected in us. It is no stretch at all to render the words of Jesus from the cross as “It is perfected” as easily as it would be to translate them “It is completed” or “It is accomplished.” All of those possibilities are available, and look what light that sheds on our texts this morning.

Jesus’ work on the cross is what makes all of this possible. The love that Jesus exhibited when he shed his blood, died in our stead, and bore our sins brings everything back to perfection. Our Lenten journey a few months ago began with the words, “Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made.” We pray those same words in the third collect for Good Friday as well. The fingerprints of perfection are still there underneath all of the dirt, grit, and grime that we’ve heaped on through our manifold sin and wickedness. Thanks be to God that at the last judgment, God will see us not by what we done and left imperfect, but rather through the perfection of the work of His Son.

I’m not sure where I heard this, but it certainly makes sense. A person was asked how he would define Heaven and Hell, and he answered with the following words, “My idea of Hell is spending eternity face-to-face with God. My idea of Heaven is spending eternity face-to-face with God with Jesus standing in between.” I hope you see the difference.

We are left with the charge and mandate to embody and live out what we have heard this morning. We are called to take that joy that we have received from Jesus Christ and not bottle it up, and hoard it for ourselves, but allow it to permeate all that we say or do. The only natural response to that type of love is to give thanks to God for that gift through our worship of Him, and then share it with others.

Then, and only then can we truly know what it means to have his love perfected in us, to comprehend the notion that perfect love casts out all fear, and that what God has given us is intended to fill us to overflowing. I leave you with a rhetorical question that I hope you will truly ponder – both as you approach this altar to receive the Blessed Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, and as you depart from this service this morning:

What would the world begin to look like if we received this love to the fullest, and then shared it with our fellow man each and every day of our lives?

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Easter
All Saints' Church - Thomasville, GA
5/10/09

I’m sure that many of you are fans of C.S. Lewis, and his classic work, The Chronicles of Narnia. With the Hollywood release of both, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, Lewis’ fiction has become more accessible these days, and I imagine is attracting new readers to the other works in the 7 volume set. One of the lesser known volumes of the Chronicles is book four, The Silver Chair. I’ll have to admit this is one that I have not made it through completely, but I’ve started reading it many times over. In light of this morning’s collect and 2nd lesson from the 14th Chapter of St. John’s Gospel, the beginning of The Silver Chair serves as a wonderful tandem to what we have heard in our service this morning.

The book opens with a new character Jill Pole and one we met in the previous book named Eustace Clarence Scrubb. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis’ first sentence of the book begins with these lines, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” Scrubb had been to Narnia before, but Jill had not, and the two enter Narnia as they are being chased by bullies, and seek solace behind a door in the high stone wall that led to an open moor on the other side. While normally locked, the two children discover to their amazement that the door is unlocked and upon going through the opening find themselves not in the moor, but in a strange new land.

It is in this strange new land that Jill comes face-to-face with the great lion – Aslan. Of course, Jill has no idea what to make of this creature, but throughout her ordeal of entering Narnia, she becomes aware of her dire thirst, and begins to search diligently for the source of the one sound that permeated her new surroundings – the sound of running water. As she emerges from an opening in the woods, her eyes confirm the sounds in her ears. She spots a stream “bright as glass, running across the turf a stone’s throw away from her. But although the sight of the water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn’t rush forward and drink. She stood as still as if she had been turned into stone, with her mouth wide open. And she had a very good reason; just on this side of the stream lay the lion.”

If coming up to the stream and finding the lion sitting there wasn’t enough, the lion begins to speak to her, and bids her to come and drink if she is thirsty.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at his motionless bulk, she realized she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to – do anything to me if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
“Do you eat girls?” she said.
“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.
“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

The passage we heard from John’s Gospel this morning is part of a section known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse. These four chapters contain the sayings of Jesus that do not appear anywhere else in the Gospels. Our collect for today brings in a line from the 14th chapter that directly precedes our passage regarding the promise of the Holy Ghost. Jesus has just told his disciples that he is going to prepare a room for them in His Father’s house which contains many rooms. He tells them that they know the way where He is going, to which Thomas declares, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus then replies with the line we heard in our collect this morning, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”

On this Mother’s Day, I think it is meet and right that we should celebrate and remember one of the great mothers of all time. It is a joy to examine the life of someone who wanted nothing more for her son than for him to embrace the joy and love of the source of light and life in the person of Jesus Christ; someone who lived and truly believed that Jesus was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. St. Monica was the mother of one of the greatest theologians of the Western Church, and clearly the foremost voice of Orthodox Christianity in the first millennium AD – I speak of course of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.

However, Augustine’s life as a follower of Jesus Christ was later coming, and his early life was a source of great turmoil and distress for his dear mother. Monica spent countless hours in prayer and fasting for her son, and earnestly longed for his conversion to Christianity. She was grieved over the fact that he had fallen into the clutches of the cult-like heretical group known as the Manichees. Her grief was so profound that she would actually weep over his sins. One kind bishop assured her one day saying for her to depart in peace, and know that, “it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.” Certainly we all want the best for our children, and I’m sure that many of us have shed many tears on behalf of our beloved children. However, it is a most profound sort of love that Augustine’s mother would shed so many tears and with such frequency over her eldest son that he might come to know and embrace the joy of salvation through Jesus Christ alone.

Monica had a keen understanding of the love of Christ, and went about showing that love to her family. She was the wife of a pagan man, who shortly before his death converted to Christianity. Knowing that her husband died a believer, she spent the remainder of her life praying for the conversion of her son. She had experienced the power that comes from knowing that you are redeemed and cleansed through Christ’s shed blood. She wanted that same experience for Augustine. Thankfully for the Church, Monica and Augustine came under the pastoral care of St. Ambrose of Milan, and he was baptized in 387 AD, the same year his mother died.

This past Monday was the fixed date on the Church Kalendar when we commemorate Monica’s Feast date. Our tradition is steeped in the observance of the various feasts and fasts of the church year, and it is a wonderful occasion to remember a mother as grand as Monica on Mother’s Day. Her devotion to her Lord is a testimony to us all, and even in her dying days, she was never far from her Saviour.

Augustine and one of his brothers were planning a trip back to the northern shores of Africa from Milan when Monica fell ill. She had a vision in a state of semi-consciousness where she told her sons that they would have to bury her there. They were terribly grieved that they would not be able to give her a proper burial at home, but her response shows the depth of her love for God. She told the brothers, “It does not matter where you bury my body. Do not let that worry you. All I ask of you is that, wherever you may be, you should remember me at the altar of the Lord.” She was asked if she was fearful of leaving her body in an alien land, and she replied with these words, “Nothing is far from God, and I need have no fear that he will not know where to find me, when he comes to raise me to life at the end of the world.”

St. Monica was truly a mother whose concerns lay outside of her. She was always wishing for the salvation of her family, and she was able to die in peace knowing that both her husband and son Augustine died with their salvation secure. She knew at the deepest levels that salvation came through one source – Jesus Christ. She took to heart the passage from St. John’s Gospel that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only source of life; she wanted others to experience that same reality as well.

After Jill drinks from the stream and receives the most refreshing water she had ever tasted, the great lion explains to her some of the great mysteries of Narnia, and why she was brought there. She thought that there had been some big mistake, and that she had been confused with someone else. Aslan bids her to speak her thoughts, and she says the following words, “I was wondering – I mean – could there be some mistake? Because nobody called me and Scrubb, you know. It was we who asked to come here. Scrubb said we were to call to – to Somebody – it was a name I wouldn’t know – and perhaps the Somebody would let us in. And we did, and then we found the door open.”
“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” said the Lion.

Jesus told his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”

Jesus chose each one of us for His special purpose, to bear witness to Him, to be bearers of the Fruit of the Spirit. As we heard in John’s Gospel, we were promised, and have received the Holy Spirit as our Counselor, Advocate, Guide, and Comforter. He dwells within us, empowering us for the work that we have been given to do. He dwells within us so that we might be faithful mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, children, employees, students, and friends. He dwells within us so that we might know with all assurance and certainty that when we sin and fall short of God’s glory, that our forgiveness is guaranteed when we seek God’s mercy and pardon. He dwells within us so that He might guide and direct us as we seek to conform our lives and wills into the image of our Heavenly Father. He dwells within us so that the love that abides within the Three Persons of the Holy and Blessed Trinity might abide in us as well; that we might let that love shine forth in our lives, so that others might see it and be drawn into that love as well – that they might know Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and proclaim Him as their Lord and Saviour.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in Heaven.