Christ Our Hope Reformed Episcopal Church

Third Sunday in Lent, 2010

Readings:  Deut. 6:1-25; Ps. 25; Eph. 5:1-14; Luke 11:14-28

11 March a.d. 2011

GATHER WITH ME, OR YOU SCATTER

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.  AMEN.

Our Lord Jesus is the most understanding person in the world, and the least.  He is the most understanding because he has suffered every pain and temptation and every joy you as a man suffer.  Yet he is the least understanding – in the sense we use that word, “Hey!  Just overlook all my sins and shortcomings, don’t point them out to me, and show a little understanding!”

Rather than pandering to our weakness, Our Lord Jesus goes right to the sore spot, the boil in our lives we are trying hardest to hide – and pushes down on it.  He is forever pulling back our masks and pointing out what we are hiding.  After all, he is the physician of our souls, and a good physician goes behind the symptoms to uncover and cure the cause of the disease.

The cause of all our troubles, all our failures, all our shortcomings is sin.  And sin is not merely any “transgression of God’s law,” it is also “any want of conformity” to God’s law.

Our duty to God contains both a forbidding and an injunction.  That is, you do not fulfill God’s law against murder if you merely forbear to hit people over the head with an ax.  That is good, that is praiseworthy, but it is only the forbearing, only one-half of your duty, the negative half.

The other and positive half requires you actively to conform yourself and your actions to God’s law.  So Sixth Commandment contains a positive duty for you to do all in your power to promote life, to create a society and culture that preserves life, and to save those who are being dragged away to death.

And remember, Our Lord Jesus says, that when you have done everything that God commands – as if any man really ever could accomplish that – you should still say, ‘We are unprofitable servants: we have [only] done that which was our duty to do.”  (Luke 17:10)

At the same time carefully notice that Our Lord never says, “Don’t even bother doing your duty.  You don’t have to worry about that.  Besides, you would fail at it anyway.”

No, his whole life and all his teaching is one long admonition to fulfill God’s law and will in your life and in the world, “to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” stirred up and encouraged and assured of success [!] because “it is God who is working in your to will and to do his good pleasure.”  (Phil. 2:12, 13).  God’s great work of salvation in you is conforming you to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) so you can be sure that he will do that, yet mysteriously he expects us to work together with him in that conforming.

A FEROCIOUS WARNING

In today’s Gospel Our Lord Jesus delivers to us another warning to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”  He warns us that if you are not advancing in Christian life and character, if you are not advancing the kingdom of Christ in this world, you are actively working against him.  In the kingdom of God, you cannot stand still, because standing still is moving backwards.  You either work with God, or you work against him.  You build Christ’s kingdom with him, or you are tearing it down.

GOSPEL

In today’s Gospel our Lord Jesus performs a notable and undeniable miracle:  he makes a mute man able to speak.  The Scriptures says that this inability to speak was not a physical problem, but spiritual.  The man was possessed by a devil, and the devil manifested his presence by making the poor man unable to say a word, torturing him night and day.  Jesus casts out the devil, and the dumb man spoke.

The people were all amazed, but some of them were not pleased.  Instead, they objected:  “He is casting out devils by Beelzebub, the chief of devils.  He is demon-possessed himself.”

Who were these carpers?  Who were these sour blasphemers, who could witness with their own eyes this great miracle that delivered this poor man from the devil, and still refuse to recognize the power of God acting?

They were the Pharisees and Scribes.  They were the religious leaders, the people in charge of religion, the high-ranking and advanced people in the church.

What?  Yes, the very people who knew the most and ought to have rejoiced the loudest and thrown their hats in the air and danced a jig for the great things Christ was doing amongst them, instead sourly and suspiciously carped and complained, “He’s working in league with the devil.  We will have none of his kingdom.”

Often I hear believers and unbelievers say, “Oh, it would be so easy to believe if Jesus would only appear to us himself and speak to us!  Then men would believe.”

No, they wouldn’t.  Here we see that when Jesus appeared to the Church in his own day doing unimaginable miracles & destroying Satan’s kingdom, the very people who ought most to have welcomed him accused him of having a devil.  Why?  What were they afraid of, that Jesus would cast out their devils?

No, they were afraid (to turn John Baptist’s words upside down) that they would have to decrease if Jesus increased (John 3:30).

They were afraid of losing control.  They were afraid of risking everything on Jesus.

We know this is true, because in John 11 when people who had seen Jesus and his miracles and believed on him went and reported all this to the Pharisees and chief priests, they immediately called a council.  They asked each other, “What will we do about this?  This man is doing many miracles.  If we must let him alone, “all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.”  (John 11:46-48)

Rather than trusting in the one who by his words and works was undeniably God, these religious leaders denied him for fear of losing control if they joined in his kingdom.  They had too much at stake to risk it all on Jesus Christ.

The very idea of denying Christ to preserve your own place takes away our breath.  Worse yet, the high priest Caiaphas counseled them that they had to get rid of him, or the whole nation would perish.  But of course he didn’t really mean that the “whole nation would perish,” but rather that their own rule and control would perish if Christ’s rule began.

The high priest boiled it all down to this choice:  it’s our way, or Christ’s way, and better him dead than ruling over us.

CHRIST’S RESPONSE & WARNING

Now listen to Christ’s solemn warning, a warning that every one of you must drink down deep into his own soul.

First he disproves the Pharisees’ charges.  “If I am casting out devils by Beelzebub, then Satan’s kingdom is fighting against itself.  That can’t be true.  Furthermore, if I am casting out devils by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?

“No, he says, you are reading this all wrong.  If I cast out devils by the finger of God, then I am God, and no doubt the kingdom of God has come on you.

“Think about it!  When a man strong and well armed keeps his house, his stuff is safe.  But when a stronger man comes at him and wrestles him down, the stronger man takes away all his weapons, ties him up, and steals everything he has.

“That is exactly what you have just seen me do to the devil, so know this:  the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

CHRIST’S WARNING

Finally he gives them two terrible warnings.  The first warning has two sides.

1.  It is your duty to advance, to go forward accepting and building the kingdom of God, and

2.  If you are not going forward, you are going backward.  There is no standing still in the kingdom of God.  There is no neutrality toward Christ and his kingdom.

Christ himself says, “He that is not with me is against me.  He that gathereth not with me scattereth!”

Where did the Pharisees sin?  Their sin was two-fold.

They had a duty to build on what God had given them and to advance in the love and knowledge of God.  God had given them the covenant, and Word, and now Christ himself, and their duty was to advance his kingdom, to gather with Christ when he so plainly made himself known, yet they refused to do that.

Second, and worse still, they wickedly hindered Christ’s kingdom and fought against it.

If we don’t apply all the means in our power to build Christ’s kingdom in ourselves and in the world, then our indolence retards and ruins his kingdom.

And don’t conclude from that that you are all right as long as you are not actively opposing Christ, for Christ plainly says, “If you don’t gather with me, you are scattering.”

Don’t think this means, “Well, if I just don’t sin outrageously, if I just keep my nose clean & keep on living the way I am, that’s okay and I don’t need to worry about doing any more.”

Wrong!  Christ warns us in Revelation 3:14 that if we are lukewarm, he will “spew” us out of his mouth.

If you are not straining every nerve to grow spiritually, to improve the knowledge and grace and God has already given you, you are going backward.

And what applies to individuals applies equally to every Church and Christ’s whole Church in the world:  If the Church is not going forward, it is going backward.

Here is the second warning, more terrifying than the first.  Jesus says, “When an evil spirit is cast out of a man, that spirit goes and wanders in dry places, looking for someplace to rest.  When he finds none, he says to himself, I will go back to the house I came out of.

“When he gets there, and finds it all swept and decorated, then he goes and finds seven other spirits wickeder than he is, and brings them along and they all possess the man, and his last state is worse than his first.”

His last state is worse than his first.

His last state is worse than his first.

In Christ’s kingdom, if you are not advancing, you are going backward, and your last state will be worse than your first.

I said earlier that Christ admonishes us “to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” and that he stirs us up to that work and encourages us in it because he assures us of success.

What else can it mean when God says in his word that “it is God who is working in your to will and to do his good pleasure.”  (Phil. 2:12, 13).  Does God ever fail to work his good pleasure?  NO!

Does Jesus hold out to us, “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you” and then when we do go to him, he pulls back that refreshment and laughs at us and say, “Ha!  I fooled you!”  No, the very thought that Christ would not keep his promise is impossible, blasphemous.

Beloved, listen to me:  Christ has promised, and Christ will fulfill.

Christ says to us today, “Come to me!  Risk everything on me, and I will make you living wells of water, springing up into everlasting life.  (John 4:14)  Come to me, and I will make you build up waste places, and found many generations, and men will call you the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in!  (Isaiah 58:12)  Come to me, every one of you thirsty ones, and buy and eat without money, and you will eat what is good, and delight your soul in fatness. (Is. 50:1-2)

“Do you doubt me still?  Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you don’t know yet (Jeremiah 33:3), above all you can think or ask or imagine.”  (Ephesians 3:20)

“Risk it all,” Jesus says, “throw those dice, & bet everything on me!”

Glory be to the Father,

And to the Son,

And to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning,

Is now and ever shall be,

World without end, Amen.

Collect for Third Sunday in Lent

WE beseech thee, Almighty God,

look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants,

and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty,

to be our defence against all our enemies;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect for Ash Wednesday

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God,

who hatest nothing that thou hast made,

and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent;

Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,

that we, worthily lamenting our sins

and acknowledging our wretchedness,

may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy,

perfect remission and forgiveness;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Second Sunday in Lent 2012

Readings:  1 Kings 8:37; Ps. 142; 1 Thess. 4:1-8; Matt. 15:21-28

4 March a. d. 2012

ARGUING WITH GOD RELENTLESSLY

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, 0 LORD, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.

Unfortunately most people think of Lent as a season of deprivation. In reality it is a season of restoration.

What purpose does fasting serve in Lent?  To remove every distraction so that can see ourselves as we truly are.  To step out from behind the screens we use to keep God at a safe distance:  work & drink & sex & video games & sports & TV & entertainment and busy, busy, busy.

When you put those distractions down, when you get quiet, a tsunami crashes on your idle mind.  You remember all your problems, your failures, those sins you have pushed aside to deal with “later.” There is a word to describe that realization:  powerlessness.

After all, the burrs that really get under our saddle & rub us raw are not the irritations and failures that we can reach and remove.  No, what galls our souls most, what makes us tear our hair and grind our teeth and fervently wish that we had never been born and could die right now are all those things we are powerless to solve, inward or outward.

You may be powerless over an inward problem.  Some sin may have taken up residence in your heart that rules and ruins your life like a demon.  It may be drunkenness, it may be pornography or adultery or fornication, it may be greed or fear of want, or outbursts of anger or gossiping or pride and self-righteousness.  It may be a persistent dullness of heart that fails to see your duty.  It may be refusing to love God, and love your spouse and children. Whatever it is, when that sin says “Hop!” you say, “How high?” and start jumping.

Or you may be powerless over some outward problem.  It may be your husband or wife who never listens to you and keeps on hurting you in the same way over and over.  It may be your child who has set his feet on destruction’s path and won’t be called back.  It may be people at work who backbite and persecute you.  Nobody respects or understands you, and that’s not whining, that’s the truth.

Your powerlessness may not be over people but over a situation:

• you need money,
• you have no job,
• your car broke down,
• your teeth are bad,
• your health is giving way,
• your indigestion is killing you,
• your heart is fibrillating,
• your liver enzymes are high,
• your cholesterol is out of control,
• you weigh too much,
• and your breath is bad.

Every outward situation lines up as your enemy.

And whether inward or outward, all these problems share one thing in common:  you are powerless to control them.  No matter what you do, you are already defeated.

Oh, outside you may keep up a brave front.  After all, none of us want to be exposed as powerless, so we must keep up appearances.  We never admit to anyone, even ourselves, that we are powerless.  So we all walk around holding up wet cardboard screens in front of ourselves, billboards painted to look like happy people fully in control of our lives.  And if anybody asks us how we are doing we shoot back, “Fine!  Just Fine!  Everything under control!”  But if anyone comes closer, and pokes a finger into us, it punches right through that wet cardboard front.  So we like to keep people, especially our brothers and sisters in the Church, at a nice, safe distance so that no stray fingers poke holes in our wet cardboard fronts.

LENT IS A CONFESSION OF POWERLESSNESS

Lent brings us face to face with ourselves and with God, forces us to see ourselves exactly as we are, so that we will grasp and cling to God’s mercy in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus never pulls any punches.  He punctures every pretense at power, in the plainest and most direct and sometimes most painful or insulting words.  No jargon, no masquerading, no hiding from Jesus:  Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hid!

Our Lord Jesus goes straight to the heart and sees our secrets at once, most of all our pretensions to power and self-control.  That’s why all spiritual healing and growth begins with confessing our own powerlessness.

So today’s collect prays:

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What is the only plea we can bring to God? Our powerlessness.

• We are powerless before events.
• Powerless before the world’s daily threats against our lives.
• Powerless before the anger and sin in our own families.
• Powerless before the devil’s traps and temptations.
• Powerless, most of all, before our own weakness & pride & despair & anger & sloth, & envy & lust & gluttony.

Understand this: that confession of powerlessness is the ONLY reason we can present God to move him to help us.  Not “God, we need a little help here, just a little, to put us over the top, but “God, without you we are going down today, right to the bottom, forever.”

GOSPEL

Today’s Gospel perfectly pictures powerlessness.  It piles hopelessness on hopelessness.  The woman is a Syro-phoenician, a Gentile:   not even a pure-bred Gentile at that, but a mixed breed in a day when the Jews could trace their lineage back 40 generations and more, like somebody from Charleston, South Carolina.  Not her, and worse, her daughter is possessed by the devil.

HOW MUCH FAITH IS NEEDED?

How much faith did she have in Christ?  Barely any, and that itself was the gift of God.  Do not miss that:  she did not begin with a little faith of her own and improve it.  From the beginning her faith is already the gift of God.

How much faith did she have? Barely any, but enough to call Jesus “the Son of David, the Messiah.”  Enough to call on him.

How much hope did she have in Christ? Only the desperate hope of the hopeless. People with other hopes don’t go to faith healers.  Christ comes through town, and this hopeless woman hears that he has helped other hopeless people, so she runs to follow him.  Who knows?  Maybe he will help her.  What other hope does she have?  None.

Now I know that every one of you raised in the South was taught at home to be “nice.”  That means that you wait to be served, you don’t reach across the table and stab a piece of chicken with your fork, you hold back and wait your turn and ask nicely, and most of all, you don’t act like an uncouth yankee and keep on harping on something once you’ve been told NO.

This hopeless woman throws all that out the window.  Her desperation, her powerlessness drives her on to plead, beg, and holler to Christ.  She yells at Jesus at the top of her voice.

Not once but three times she calls on Christ, & three times he refuses to grant her wish.  She’s so loud and insistent that the disciples ask him to send her away.  Only when she calls on him a fourth time, reminding him that God shows mercy precisely to the unworthy, does he answer her prayer.

Follow the sequence:

The first time, Christ ignores her.  He acts as if he never even heard her.

The second time, Christ answers, but only to discourage her.  He points out all the obstacles to answering her.  She is not a Jew but a Gentile, a stranger to God’s covenant.  “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  You’re not one of the chosen people, so scat!

The third time, Christ rebuffs her even more strongly, “It is not fitting to take the children’s bread, & cast it to dogs.”  Grace is not for you.  Don’t miss what Christ says.  He clearly insulted and dismissed her.  A dog was a despised, unclean animal.

But even after three refusals, she won’t go away.  She won’t give up hope in Christ, because she knows he is her only hope.  If he can’t help her, she is done for.

The fourth time she turns Christ’s words back on him.  She argues with Jesus?  Does anybody else in Scripture dare to do that and win?  “Truth, Lord,” she says, admitting that she is no better than a dog, “but even the dogs feed on the crumbs of the Master’s table.”  Even despised dogs get the leftovers of mercy.

ARGUING WITH GOD

What holy argument is she presenting Christ?  She is teaching you how to pray, so pay close attention.

She argues from Christ’s own character.  “Lord, you are mercy!  You are the source and original of all mercy.  How can you deny yourself by not showing mercy now?  You must be always what you always have been.”

This argument, and her faith, melts Christ’s resistance.  He praises her faith, and grants her prayer.  He casts the devil out of her daughter.

The powerless receives power.  Compare 2 Timothy 1:7.

SIX PRINCIPLES OF PRAYER

What does this story teach us?  Six principles of prayer, but these six all boil down to just two:  pray about everything, and keep on praying.

1. We can only approach God with a confession of powerlessness. If you still cling to the hope that you can somehow work matters out on your own, that you are strong enough, clever enough, rich enough, or tough enough to see things through, then you don’t need God’s help.  No need to bother God with your problems, you can handle it.

2.  No matter how far you are estranged from God, he still has mercy for you. You didn’t grow up a Christian?  Doesn’t matter, he still has mercy for you.  You have despised and ridiculed Christianity?  You haven’t prayed in ten years? You are a habitual sinner?  If it weren’t for rotten fruit you’d have no fruit at all?

Not one of these can build a wall between you and God so high that God’s mercy cannot break it down.  Could you be worse than a filthy Gentile dog with a demon-possessed daughter?  This Gospel teaches us, without qualification or hedging, no matter how estranged you are, God still has mercy for you.

3.  God answers prayer in his time, not yours. We don’t like to hear this, but it’s true.  You pray, and nothing happens.  You pray again.  More silence.  More inaction.  You pray and pray and pray, and nothing seems to change.

What did this woman do when Christ first said no?  Did she go home and say to her daughter, “Well, Hon, I reckon you’d better learn to live with that demon, because he’s going to be with you for the rest of your life”?

NO, no, she came back to Christ again and prayed again, and again, louder and louder until Christ answered her. She was not even intimidated when he told her No to her face.  She still came back and prayed.

So when God seems not to answer our prayers, what do we do next?  Pray again.  Pray more often, pray more fervently, fast, and then pray again. Argue with God.

When I say that, I don’t mean argue with God out of your own selfishness.  You can’t pray for what you know he condemns – “Lord, protect me while I rob this bank because I’m going to do great things for your kingdom with the money.”

Rather, place your request against the backdrop of God’s character and God’s kingdom.  Think of how his granting your prayer will glorify him.  Think of his mercy and grace and goodness and care for his people, his loving nature, and present that argument in all humility to him.  And don’t forget, you can be insistent and humble at the same time.

Remember Abraham’s argument when he prayed for Sodom & Gomorrah, how he kept on coming back to God, arguing for mercy based on God’s mercy. He was humble, but very insistent.

Be patient.  God’s timing is perfect.  When his answer comes, it is never a minute too soon or too slow, it comes like lightning, bringing more than we could have asked or imagined.

4.  She had faith in a particular person. This woman had faith in a particular person, Jesus Christ.  She did not call out, “O Faith, save my daughter!”  “O Buddha, cast out the demon!”  “New Age spirit of the earth, heal her!”  She did not say, “O non-specific higher power, throw out the devil!”  No, she called out to Jesus Christ, “O Lord, thou Son of David.”  She directed her faith and her prayer to the correct and only object.

5.  Christ rewards faith. Yes, faith is the gift of God, but God is also pleased to reward it as if we deserved some credit.

Unanswered prayer is a gift, too, a reward for your faith.  God sends it as a gift, to try your faith because he knows you will pass the test even when you don’t know it.

• To instruct you in perseverance.
• To build your hope.
• To throw you back on God with renewed devotion.
• To teach you not to trust yourself, but to trust him.
• To show you how utterly dependent you are.
• To teach you to submit to him, and trust him, in all things.
• To move you to pray again.

6.  Never stop praying.  “Pray without ceasing,” St. Paul says, and that means pray while you are standing, while you are sitting, walking, driving:  any time is the right time to pray.  (1 Thess. 5:17)  But that also means never give up.  Never stop praying.

FOR YOU AS WELL

This very day every one of you is carrying around some burden that you have lived with so long, and prayed about so often, that it has sent roots of doubt deep into your soul.  You have begun to believe that God will never answer you.  You may have begun to wonder whether God even hears, or cares, or is able to do anything about it.

But know this:  God has heard.  More than that, God has listened.

Ever wondered why every Sunday we pray for the same long list of people?  Ever thought, “It is pointless to keep praying for these same people over and over, because nothing ever happens.”  Beloved, that is exactly why we keep on praying for them, because God has not answered our prayer yet, and with God there is always hope.

True, sometimes God’s answer is, “No, that doesn’t fit into my plan.”  Often, his answer is, “Not yet.”

God treats us as a father treats his belovéd child.  He doesn’t give the child everything he asks for, because it might not be good for him.

One day when he was about four my grandson Tucker Bain, out of the blue, asked his dad, “Dad, would you teach me to use sharp knives safely?”

That’s us.  Day after day, we keep asking God for sharp knives.  “God, give me a sharp knife.  While you’re at it, make it a really long sharp knife, so I can poke a lot of holes in myself, and hurt myself really badly.”

God, give me riches!  Give me success!  Give me respect and reputation!  Give me a long, sharp knife.

And God says, “Not yet.  You don’t know how to use sharp knives safely.”  But his answer is never, “I am not listening.”

What can we take home from all this, to live with day by day?  Keep on praying.  Pray relentlessly, shamelessly, arguing with God from God’s own mercy and goodness and honour and glory.  And when you are so empty that you cannot pray, pray for the Spirit of prayer.

Remember this, and pray:  You are never so estranged from God, your sin is never so terrible, that he will not listen to your plea for forgiveness and answer in mercy.  In his time, at exactly the right time, God will answer your prayer, because God loves you, and he rewards the faith he has given you.

Now, right now at Lent, in a season of repentance and reconciliation to God through his love poured out on us in Jesus Christ, Now is the acceptable time.  Now is the time for you to draw near to God, now is the time to renew your prayers and your hope in him.

Now, because God shows us in this gospel story how great is his mercy toward us, and his love.

Now — pour out your complaints before him.  Confess you are powerless to help yourself, show him your pain, show him your shame and helplessness, and he will surely hear you, for Christ’s sake.

Sixth Sunday after Trinity, 2011

Readings:  Is 66:1-2, 10-24; Psalm 98; I John 3:1-8; Matthew 24:23-31

16 February a.d. 2011

LOVE, SIGHT, JUDGMENT

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.  AMEN.

Three thing jump out at us from this passage:  Love, Sight, Judgement.

LOVE

BEHOLD!  Hear!  Look!  Listen!  Ponder!

God our father is so determined to encourage us with his love that he sends his holy Apostle to make this announcement:

“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”

We ought to feel never-ending astonishment in these words, at this love so complete, so great, so transforming, that men and angels and God himself call us “sons of God.”  How can this be, since by nature and inheritance we were God’s enemies, sinners and sons of the devil?

By the gift of Christ.  We have been made sons of God by Son of God, by the gift of Christ.  By his only begotten Son the Father himself has made peace with us and has removed all barriers removed and given all gifts.

What barriers removed?

• Guilt of sin
• Power of sin

What gifts bestowed by this mighty love?

• Not only peace with God,
• but we are also adopted as God’s own children, “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ”.  Romans 8:15-17

Everything that was his alone is now ours together.  Everything.  What manner of love is this, that leaves nothing out, withholds nothing, not even his own Son?  Romans 8:32

What about the world?  It does not know us, cannot recognize us, because it refused also to recognize Christ.  John 1:10.

Truth is, world does not WANT to know us.  Two different worlds exist, one world Christian, and one world ungodly.  The one knows not the other.

The world derides those who lead godly lives.  The one despises worldly things; the other gives himself to them.  The one lives for the Superbowl, giving itself to spectacles and entertainment, the prizes of pride, drunkenness, money, anger, lust, power over men.  The world scoffs at those whose heart is fixed on the prizes of Christ’s unseen kingdom.

And least of all do these lovers of the world want to know the Lord Jesus Christ, because he reproves all sin.  Since they love sin, they must despise him, because where Christ enters in the devil and sin flee and the Spirit rules in holiness and righteousness, and they don’t want to let go of their beloved sin.

St. John tells us how to distinguish the godly from the ungodly:  “every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”  The godly keep their eyes on the unseen prize and the unseen Christ, and purify themselves.  They put sin to death, and if a person is not putting sin to death, however slowly the warfare drags on, that person is not a Christian.

ALREADY & NOT YET.

“It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him.”

God does not change Christians instantaneously.  When he regenerates us, we become truly the sons of God adopted as completely as we will ever be, possessing all his love, but the change, the regeneration, has only BEGUN in us and is not yet complete.  We are not yet perfect, and will never have shed all our sin until we behold Christ in glory.

How do I know this is what St. John means?  How do I know that he is not arguing that Christians all live in sinless perfection?

By his own words opening this epistle.

• John 1:8 ¶  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• John 2:1b:2.  “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:  And he is the propitiation for our sins…”

“We shall be like him.” That is, we shall be as he is, but “as” is not “equal.”  We will never be the equal of God in his being, wisdom, justice, holiness, goodness, and truth.  Even in glory we will never be perfect as he is perfect, but still we will be like him, we will be “little Christs,” as the model is like the original, because right now the Holy Spirit is conforming us to his image.  Romans 8:29.

SIGHT:  THE BEATIFIC VISION

The greatest promise of the Scripture, the thing most longed for by fallen and redeemed mankind, is to once again see God face to face as Adam saw him in the garden.  That is our greatest desire.  You find it throughout Scripture

Moses begged God that he might see him, but told him he could not see him and live.  God put him into the cleft of a rock, shaded him with his hands, and let him see only the backside of his glory passing by.  Exodus 33:18-23

Job consoled himself with these words, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”  Job 19:26

The Psalmist echoes the same promise, “I will behold thy face in righteousness;  I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.  (Ps. 17:15)

And how many Christians on their death beds have said with St. Paul that their deepest longing is “to be with Christ, which is far better.”  Philippians 1:23.

But think on, “We shall see him as he is.”

• Not as in this world, “through a glass, darkly.”
• Not merely the reflection of him through his creation and his Word.
• Not in the readily-wearied weakness of our flesh.
• Not with our frail attention.
• Now with a will weakened and an understanding clouded by sin and emotion, but

As he is.

Triumphant.  Shining as the sun.  Glorious in the favour of the Father, no longer veiled in the weakness of his flesh.  Perfect beyond all our ability to conceive perfection.  We will see what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the hearts of men, a vision surpassing all earthly beautifulness.

• More beautiful than a new calf,
• more beautiful than gold, than silver,
• than forests and fields,
• than high mountains and great plains,
• more beautiful that the stretching sea,
• more beautiful than sun or moon or stars or angels,
• surpassing all those

Because from Christ’s beauty all other beauty flows.

But what we will see when we see Christ does not stop there, because what we see will also change how we see.

We will no longer be looking at a reflection, a promise, a hope, but the reality, the source, the original.  We will see not the truth we imagine, or reason to, but Truth itself, because Christ is the Truth.  And when we see the reality of Christ, all our understanding will be changed because then we will see everything through the lens of Christ himself.

We will be like those angels who longed to look (I Peter 1:12) into the means of the salvation of mankind, who for ages wondered and pondered and guessed at this mystery past finding out, and then at the birth of Christ stood gazing in wonder at this babe with their hands over their mouths, whispering, “THIS is the mystery!  This is the Father’s great salvation!”

After we see Christ, the way we see everything else will change.  Through his perfect holiness we will see our sin, and at last with a full understanding grasp what his forgiveness has done for us.  When we see Christ, we will see all else clearly, and understand perfectly.

JUDGEMENT

Finally, this passage teaches us that there are two kinds of men, and only two – no third group:  the sons of God and sons of the devil – and that a sure and certain judgement is coming.

Sons are called sons because they act just like their father.

SONS OF GOD live not in sinless perfection, never sinning ever, but they are not given to sin.  They are not habitual sinners.  They do not embrace sin as rule of their lives, but they are fighting it, they are becoming more and more like Christ, dead to sin and alive to righteousness.  When they fall down in sin, the stand up in repentance.  That is the pattern of the Christian life, sin and repentance, not sinless perfection.  Everybody knows whose sons they are because they act like their elder brother and their Father.

SONS OF THE DEVIL.  Don’t think the devil is some sort of god equal to the real God.  He’s not.  God created him, and he fell away to evil.  We call them sons of the devil not because the devil created them or has begotten them, but because they act like him.  They hate God and fall away from him and rebel against him.  They embrace sin, they wallow in sin, they alibi for sin, they glory in sin.

The devil wants us to think of him as the comic “man in red tights.”  Thus we we will underestimate his power and his hatred, we discount his power, and thus he more easily fools us, even God’s elect.  But whatever silly ideas the world has for the devil, God warns us about him in the sternest terms:  He is a roaring lion who roams the whole earth looking for souls to devour.  1 Peter 5:8.  That is the reality of the devil.

But that does not mean that we are doomed to be the devil’s victims.  Listen to what St. John teaches us:  “The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

At his resurrection Christ already triumphed over the Devil and all his angels.  Colossians 2:13 says he “made a show of them openly, triumphing over them.”

Christ has already made a definitive end of the devil.  He has already broken the power of the devil and all his works, his chief work being the fall and damnation of mankind.  Now, we, the sons of God, are involved merely in Christ’s mopping-up operation.

And lest you forget the Father’s love for you, lest you forget Christ’s triumph over the devil, lest you look at the evil in the seen world around you and forget the unseen Christ that awaits you, Christ himself has given you a reminder, a token and pledge and sign of his love, a vision of himself:  his own body and blood.

And as you partake of that body and blood today, and every other day of your life, you must remind yourself with St. John, “BEHOLD!  What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!”     ?

S.D.G.

First Sunday after Trinity 2010
Readings: Deut 20:1-9; Ps. 76; 1 John 3:13; Luke 14:16-24
13 June a.d. 2010

GREATER LOVEtrinity2
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.

Today’s readings present us a contradiction, something altogether contrary to our expectation & understanding: The New Testament lesson is more stringent, more demanding, than the Old Testament lesson.
We are used to thinking of the Old Testament of a set of long, complicated rules that the Hebrews couldn’t keep no matter how hard they tried. Then in the New Testament Christ abolishes all those rules and ceremonies and pretty much leaves us free to run along our merry way. We’re under grace, not law, after all, and grace requires nothing at all from us, just that we love God and love everybody and are nice.
Oh, how wrong we are. How utterly, totally wrong.
OLD TESTAMENT
In the Old Testament lesson God through Moses actually hands the people several ways to dodge the draft. That’s right, when the people of Israel go out to war with their enemies and God’s, you’d think that everybody would have to be there, sword in hand. Not so.
When you go to war, God says, and you see enemies more numerous than you, don’t be afraid for I am with you.
However, before the battle the priest shall go out and make this announcement:
1. Do not be terrified of your enemies, because the Lord Your God is with you to fight against your enemies and save you.
2. But wait: send the officers also out to give the people excuses on these grounds.
a. If you have built a new house, and haven’t yet dedicated it, go home.
b. If you have planted a vineyard, but not yet eaten of it, go back.
c. If you have been engaged but not yet married your wife, go home
d. Finally, if any one of you is fearful, and faint hearted, go back. No shame, no blame, just go back.
All this is awfully generous. It addresses all the regrets a man might have going into battle – he might lose property and wife before he ever gets to enjoy them – and even gives cowards an excuse. Just admit you are a coward, and go home. This is not very strict.
GOSPEL
But in today’s Gospel, we find the same excuses blown to smithereens.
You know this parable well. A man made a great supper, maybe a wedding feast for his son, and sent out invitations, just like the invitation to go to war in the OT lesson.
But when he sent his servant to call the guests to supper, they all began to make excuses, and they are excuses nearly identical as those in the OT lesson:
? One says, I just bought a new piece of ground I have to go inspect. Property I haven’t been able to use yet
? Another says, I’ve just bought five yoke of oxen, and I need to go test-drive them.
? Another says, “I have just gotten married, so I can’t possibly come.”
Does the host then back off and say, “Well, those are pretty strong excuses. I will just forgive those people and maybe change my feast to another date.”
Not at all. When the servant told him about these excuse-mongers, these ingrates, his eyes flashed with anger. “You go out into the streets and highways and you find the people sleeping under the bushes, the worthless, the poor, the crippled and lame and the blind, and you drag them in to fill my supper table – and I promise you this, that none of those men that spurned my invitation will taste of my supper.”
Whoa. No much understanding or generosity there. No way out. Come to my supper, or that’s the end of you.
CHRISTIAN WARFARE
None of this is so subtle that we cannot penetrate its meaning. In fact, it is very plain. Christians have always understood the Christian life as a kind of warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The conquest of the Promised Land symbolizes and foreshadows has the Christian life, the life of warfare against giants in the land and against our enemies and God’s. It is spiritual warfare against our own sin, the lusts of our flesh, the temptations of the world and the tricks and deceit of the devil, but is it still warfare, and far more arduous warfare than physical warfare. And no Christian, not a single one, is exempted from this warfare.
Then there is the Feast, the Great Supper. Wherever it appears in Scripture, from
? the sacrifice of Abel to
? Melchizedek’s meal to
? Abraham’s meal with the angels
? to the Passover
? to the wedding at Cana
? to the Last Supper
? to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb,
the Supper is that event where God meets with man, offering with the food peace and fellowship. The feast of God feeds both body and soul. It is the unique event that assures us that God really is with us that he forgives and accepts us and has adopted us into his own family. The Feast, in other words, is shorthand for the whole Christian life, for all of life with God.
“He prepareth a table before me in the presence of my enemies, my cup runneth over.”
“Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sin. Do this as often as you shall eat it, in remembrance of me.”
And this parable clearly represents the Feast. Jesus is warning the Jews, his hearers, that they must come to his feast, or God will utterly reject them, and in their place he will substitute the unworthy and the lowest of the low. They think themselves too good to come to the feast, too righteous. Well, God will show them. He will beat the bushes and drag the dirty, the poor, the lame and blind in to fill up the tables at his feast. He will find those who know they have no claim to righteousness, and drag them in kicking and screaming, but he will fill his table.
Clearly, God has upped the ante hugely since the Old Testament, because NO excuse satisfies now to allow you to dodge the Christian life and Christian warfare. None.
GRACE IS TERRIBLE
Yesterday Johnny Bain and I were talking about a book he had recently read by a Presbyterian pastor. He had taken up a new church and was preaching the grace of God. One of the members, a woman, came to him and said, “What you have been preaching is completely different from what I have been taught and understood of Christianity my whole life. The way I understand it, if I keep the rules and do what God commands, God has to accept me. I’ve earned it.
“But what you are teaching me is terrible. It isn’t terrible because my good works don’t count. No, it is terrible for another reason.
“You see, all my life I knew that when I had kept the rules, done my duty, that was enough. God couldn’t demand anything else from me. I could know when I was done. But now, with this grace, there is no end. God can demand everything.”
Of course, she was absolutely right. That’s what Jesus means when he says, “when you have done everything you are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have only done our duty.” (Luke 17:10).
But this poor woman only saw grace halfway, ignorantly and suspiciously, and without love. She feared God, but the wrong way, the same way we fear a mousetrap, that it will suddenly spring and hurt us.
According to the Gospel, the only obedience that pleases God is obedience that springs from love. Love, not gain or merit, is the reason that we obey God, and we obey solely to please him.
And certainly, just like this poor woman, fear holds most of mankind away from God’s table and the Feast. “Oh,” they say, “if I submit myself to God, if I give myself wholly and without reserve to God, why, there’s no telling what he will make me do. For starters, he’ll certainly make me give up smoking, and probably drinking, and I can’t cuss anymore, and then he’ll make me go to deep, dark Africa to spend my life as a missionary.”
Oh, how wrong we are. How utterly, totally wrong. How utterly we misunderstand God and his love. We believe that we will LOSE when we abandon ourselves to the love of God, when in fact we become infinite gainers.
She was right about this part: With grace, there is no end of what God can demand of us. The terrible love of God knows no limit at all. He won’t take half of you, or even ¾ or 9/10s. He will have you all, or none.
But she was wrong about this part: how the grace and love of God change us. How the love of God, growing in our heart, changes all our desires, so we no longer clutch tightly houses and wives and position and money. Instead, the love of God, our love for him and his love working in us, changes our desires, so that just has he has not withheld his only begotten Son from us, so we cannot, would not withhold anything from him.
We don’t have to, because whatever we ask of him, he will give to us. And because his grace gives us the will to obey him, and the power.
All those things we were afraid God would make us give up, all those things we were terrified of losing if we abandoned ourselves to God, suddenly fall out of the equation altogether. We are glad to give whatever God demands, because we love him.
Beloved, we are ready to set out on Trinity season to lead the Christian life, wholly offering ourselves to God and not holding anything back. These last two Sundays we have heard again and again that for that warfare, the one indispensable piece of equipment we must carry with us is love: love of God, and love of our neighbour.
Beloved, you have your marching orders: go forward, in love. ?

Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
Is now and ever shall be,
World without end, Amen.

The Collect for Second Sunday after Trinity
O LORD, who never failest to help and govern
those whom thou dost bring up
in thy steadfast fear and love;
Keep us, we beseech thee,
under the protection of thy good providence,
and make us to have
a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen