All Saints Anglican Church - Prescott, AZ

Hope in the Coming

Rejoice In The Lord, Oh Ye Righteous

A Homily for Advent 3

December 15, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

This past week a beautiful friend of mine went to her eternal rest. I’ve been thinking a lot about her the past few days. She was like very few others I have known in this life. She radiated joy and kindness with the way in which she lived. There are few people who I remember the first time I met them, and yet, my memory of meeting her is vivid and one of my most pleasant, and laughter filled first encounters.

She saw God’s love and proclaimed it gently and kindly to her husband, her children, her family, and her friends in this world that is often wild and unkind.

            Her death, was not a surprise, in many ways it was more surprising that she lived as long as she did, perhaps, this was simply due to the fact that so many held her up in prayer. For several weeks ago she was given two weeks to live, and yet she pressed on, and loved well even in that. But, finally, that awful curse of Adam came for her, and all who loved her, and love her family wept.

Still, as well as she lived, she died equally well.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The death of a saint is one of those odd things, for our lives are richer for having known them, their joy, their kindness, their wisdom, their peace encourages us, calls to us to run harder in the race that is in front of us, to live more boldly for Christ. So, when we finally say good-bye to them, we can’t help but to cry, but there’s a joy too, for we know they’ve been set free from their sin, set free from their bondage, from the pains of this world, and set free from their corrupted body that is breaking down, that they may look forward to the recreated, and renewed body of eternity.

My friend now rests in the glory of God, the glory of God which was lost in the fall. It is this glory that we all look forward to regaining when our race is finally over. But for now:

rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

            I tell you of my friend in the hopes that I may honor her one last time, for she lived a beautiful life, and left behind many whom she touched and blessed, I tell you of her because she did something so few of us are good at doing. In the face of incredible adversity – she rejoiced, for she was righteous in Christ. I know that she was not perfect but Christ resided in her life and in her his love abounded well and few who met her could deny this. I tell you of my friend, because I hope that just as she encouraged me and hundreds of others, that she may encourage you as well.

 

            This Sunday is commonly called Gaudete Sunday, or sometimes Rose Sunday, or if you feel punchy as I sometimes do, pink Sunday, but I think Gaudete is most appropriate. It is named that for the traditionally used introit, or opening Psalm, that is found in many older liturgies. The introit has mostly been replaced with an opening hymn in reformed and more modern liturgies. However, I thought it would be wise if today we read that introit for our Psalm today which starts with Gaudete – or in the English Rejoice,

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

            This command to rejoice stands in sharp contrast to the opening of our gospel lesson in which we learn that John the Baptist is in prison. While there are some who read of John’s request of his disciples not as fear in the face of death, but as equipping them for the trials they will face after their death. It seems like a better reading is that he was wondering, pondering if Jesus really was the Christ.

Remember last week? When we heard of John who jumped for joy in his moth’s womb at the coming of Christ? This is the same John we read of this week as he approach his death. It is the same John who served God, and glorified him in all he did, the same John who pointed to Christ with his whole life. But, now he sends forth the question – are you, are you really him?

The reality is, we can read John’s question in a few ways but we also need to acknowledge the fact that for each of us as we approach the door of death we may have the courage and bravery of so many saints that came before us, or we could feel tremulous and fear, or it could just come for us with a blink of an eye. For me, I pray for bravery, and goodness, and that God would be glorified, just as I pray he is glorified in my life.

As I thought about my friend this week, I thought of the many saints that God has given strength and courage at the eve of their death, the martyrs who went to their death for the sake of Christ, not simply willingly, but joyfully. I thought of a story I once read of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, it is said, dreamt of finally meeting Christ on the eve of his execution and he was emboldened before his death. And yet regardless of how this comes to us the command of this Sunday stands –

rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

I suspect that if Christ had responded to John the Baptist in this way – he would have been as the sad comforter such as Job’s friends. Too often when a beloved one finds themselves in pain we tend to be like Job’s friends. We offer weak sympathy or tell them to buck up.
            God created mankind to be in community with one another. One of the ways in which humanity is truly unique compared to the rest of creation is how this community is manifested in our ability to have advanced communication with one another. Our ability to communicate with syntax, emotion, and nuances is special and unique to humanity.

From time to time we hear of animals doing amazing things. Once, someone taught a primate sign language. He was able to learn a surprising number of words and phrases, yet he could not express his own unique thoughts. On the other hand a child starts to be able to uniquely express herself at a very young age. One of the most amazing things is seeing a young one start to take on their own unique personality.

 We were created to be communicators. Sometimes we do it well, and some times we do it poorly. And this encourages us to:

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous – for God is the good creator.

Yet, this creation – this ability to communicate can be a curse when we are called to comfort, because we so desire to take away the pain of our loved ones, our beloved who struggle. So, often we want to tell them “it’ll be okay,” but maybe it won’t be okay in the way we want it to, maybe it’ll be hard, maybe it’ll be painful. In many cases, we are called to be present, called to simply listen, called to not insert our own opinions and advice, but simply be present.

There is an art to loving well, to knowing when to say words of comfort, when to give advice, and when to say nothing at all. It is often when someone is hurting the most deeply that if we do not take care we can do the most damage.

But, Christ in his divine wisdom knows exactly what to say to John and his disciples. He does not say to them “rejoice,” though it is implied, he says “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, and lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.”

And we are reminded: Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Christ points to the prophets who told of His coming, and says – these things that these men had predicted would happen when I come are happening. There is a power in not simply saying what you want to communicate but telling a story.

I have a friend who is particularly good at this. When talking about struggles, he simply tells a story, and yet that story has the power to evoke thoughts in my mind, or push me to repentance. We see this with David and Nathan as well. Instead of walking into the kings chamber and yelling at him that he had sinned grievously, Nathan tells a simple story. Oh, and how it pushes the king to repentance, how the king sees his own wickedness!

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

We might think, it would have been easier for Christ to have said to his beloved relative “yes! I assure you I am!” But in our tumult, how much more power is it to hear “see this evidence, now be comforted.” Christ knows the words to say and gives John and his disciples the comfort that they need in their darkest hour.

And what is that comfort?

The blind receive their sight – we read of Christ’s ability to heal the physical ailments of those who came to him. Yet – he also heals the spiritual ill. The author of amazing grace captured this when he penned that once “I was blind but now I see.” Outside of Christ, we live in blindness. The great Christmas promise is that of the Gospel according to St. John the Evangelist who wrote that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” When we are in Christ, Christ becomes the light by which we see the world, Christ is the way in which our spiritual blindness is relieved.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The lame walk – we are enlivened for service, not because we are intrinsically good people but because Christ has given us His spirit, because in Christ we are given the ability to walk with God. As humanity lost this privilege in Adam, so we regain it in Christ.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Lepers are cleansed – spiritually we come to Christ tarnished and ill, and Christ cleans us of our sin, cleans us of our past, cleans us of all that has gone wrong in the world that has gone by, cleans us of that which separates us from God’s community and reunites us.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The deaf hear – I was reading about one of the psalms some time ago, and the Psalmist asks God to help him hear his law. I read one commentary that said the word was more than simply help us to hear, but something along the lines of asking God to drill open a hole in order for us to be able to hear him. I appreciate this understanding – because often I feel as though I have a thick skull and it takes God being more aggressive with me than me simply needing a little assistance in hearing Him. Sometimes we need God to drill open holes in our ears so we can hear him better. Yet, in Christ – the spiritually deaf, like me, hear.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The dead are raised – we know of Christ raising Lazarus, and this makes us wonder if there were others who were raised and we do not know. But, regardless, WE are spiritually raised from the dead, and we know on the last day we will enjoy the resurrection. In fact, as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, this second resurrection is what gives us hope and helps us to persevere. It is this second, final resurrection in which we can rejoice. We have been given life, and we will be given life.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

The poor have good news preached to them – we can over correct in our reading of this and make this strictly a social gospel reading or make it purely spiritual. Instead, I think it better that we make it both – that the spiritual poor are made spiritual rich in Christ, and in this they come to a place where they care for the poor of spirit and poor of material. We are called to care for both, as Christ cared for both.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Christ testified to John the Baptist by showing him is works, the Church testifies to the world, by doing the same. We say, look at all that Christ has done for us – we were blind but now we see, we were lame, but now we walk by faith in the light of Christ, we were spiritually dirty, but Christ has cleansed us, we were deaf but now we hear God’s truth, we were dead in our transgressions but now we live, we were poor, but now we are rich beyond our wildest imaginations. This is what Christ has done for me may that reality be a living testimony.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

And blessed is the one who is not offended by Christ. We are blessed when we proclaim Christ boldly in our lives, we are blessed when we live for Christ and live in Christ. Men and women are blessed when they come to know who Christ truly is, and so we do not become offended by him, but we are called to:

Rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Then Jesus turns his attention to the crowds and asks them what they went into the wilderness to see – what they thought of John. We can ask the same of why you come to Church on Sunday.

Recently, I have been thinking a fair amount of the entertainment culture in which we live in, and the need for instant gratification, the need to have everything we want now.

On Monday of this past week, I was asked to make a presentation in one of my classes and a part of this – was an intentional call to myself to slow down. Too often I want to build a sky scraper and I want it to be built yesterday. I like the idea of doing grandiose things, so long as these things can be completed in a blink of an eye.

But there’s a goodness in taking time, there’s a goodness in starting a project and trusting that God will see it to the end, even if you can’t see it. Friedrich Nietzsche of all people coined the phrase: A long obedience in the same direction – yet, it succinctly captures our call to the Christian life.

So, the question can be asked – why do you come to church? For some instant comfort? To rub elbows with your friends? To be entertained?

Or to hear Christ proclaimed? To undertake that long, slow, beautiful, good process of sanctification?

We are not called to have everything done immediately, we are not called to provide a cheep comfort, but we are called to grow in Christ, to take a step forward, and when the waves of life knock us down to not be discouraged but to persevere.

We are called to: rejoice in the Lord, oh you righteous.

Our reading ends with Christ affirming John the Baptist’s ministry, affirming what John did for the people – he prepared the way for Christ to come in, for Christ to come o heal, and make free those who are oppressed by the world and sin.

Rejoice in the Lord, oh ye Righteous.

The Christian life is called to be a life of Joy – not because life is easier with Christ, but because life has meaning, because Christ has freed us from so much, because Christ has done and is doing a good thing in our life and is preparing us for an eternity spent in the glory of God.

The call of Gaudete Sunday, though it feels jarring against the story of John the Baptist on the eve of his death, and against the reality of the world in which we live in, is a good calling. It is a call to rejoice because Christ has revealed to us who he is. So, let us be a people who are transformed by Christ, let us be a people not prone to grumbly but are prone to joy in the face of adversity. Let us be a people who honor the saints who have gone before us demonstrating the love and joy of Christ, by doing the same.

Let us people a people who rejoice in the Lord, because Christ’s righteousness dwells within us.

IN the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

On The Incarnation

A Homily for Advent 2

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

December 8, 2019

 

Text: Luke 1:26-56

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            One of the things that I truly love about our town are the Christmas time festivities. The city really does pull out all the stops, it is beautiful, and amazing, and we are so fortunate and rich to live in such a place.

            Last night, I stood on the court house square with a handful of friends, and probably several thousand others in the drizzling rain, as a man read the same passage of the Gospels According to St. Luke which we read this morning, the reading last night was intertwined with many of the children from the town singing classic, beautiful Christmas carols.

            This moment stood in stark contrast to two other events this past week. The first was some Christmas movie that I put on the background while I cleaned, to be honest, I can’t remember what it was, or even the plot of the movie, but I remember thinking about the third thing that happened because, although the movie was about Christmas, it had nothing to do with Christ, it had nothing to do with what we will celebrate here in a couple short weeks.

            The other event was more shocking, and more interesting. This past week we had a guest lecturer visit our class who works at a camp, he was discussing the generation that some are calling Generation Z, those young people who are under the age of 20 or so. It seems that at least some consider them to be the first truly-post Christian generation. That does not mean that there aren’t Christian in that generation but it means that the majority of them have never been exposed to any genuine Christian teachings.

One of the litmus tests the lecturer, who was about my age, was giving for this was the fact that he and his peers grew up watching that great Peanuts Christmas Special in which Linus gets up and reads this same passage which was read last night, and again this morning and reminds everyone what Christmas is all about. In this special Linus wraps up with this:

            “For unto you is born this day, in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace good will toward men!’

“… that’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”

            New secular Christmas entertainment now rarely has anything to do with Christ, and the exposure to the gospels is so very limited. However, I do not wish for you to grow despondent. Our reaction can be indignation, or we can have hope. I was talking to a friend about this later on, and we agreed that one of two things may happen – God may kindle in the hearts of the people a spiritual awakening, which will be beautiful and we will get to see, or Jesus may return, which will be beautiful and we will finally be free from our sins – so do not be sorrowful about these things – but pray earnestly for a spiritual awakening, pray that we would love well, even those who are not like us, for the need for healing power of Christ is great.

 

I remember some time ago, I was attending a Bible study at a friends church. My friend was an peaceable chap, but rather more theologically liberal than me. Still, I enjoyed his company, and he was always good for an interesting conversation. I found myself talking to a woman I had never met or seen around. That evening we were discussing the Nicene Creed and out of the blue she said “well, I mean no one actually believes this stuff, it’s just something that’s nice to say.”

I was rather shocked by the statement, I was young, and it was one of the first times I was exposed to someone who flat out denied the creeds of the church. Since then I have heard numerous other stories about this. Perhaps the most shocking stories are that of when progressive ministers retool the story we heard this morning to be about unexpected teenage pregnancy. That some how Mary was fooling around with someone, and became pregnant and then cooked up the story of the virgin birth.

Friends, this is not what is going on here, the text does not support it, we will delve into this a little in a minute, but for now, all you need to know is this type of skeptical approach to the text is not even remotely accurate or true to what is being said.

I want to make a quick side note. While we believe and affirm that traditional sexual ethics are thoroughly biblical and something that we are called to live in, that is to say, sex is only appropriate within the context of a man and a woman who are married, we recognize that this mold gets broken. We know that this isn’t always the case, we know that people make mistakes, get tripped up, stumble and fall. We know, too well that we have all sinned.

Because of the inordinate grace which we experience in Christ for our own sins, we are called to love those people who have struggles, whether their sins are like ours, or different. We are called to love the single mothers, be open, and kind to them, We are called to show Christ’s love in this dark and dying world. This is one of the reasons we support organizations like Community Pregnancy Center that provides a whole plethora of services to women and men who find themselves in such situations. We love and affirm all life, and we desire God world be glorified in all things.

Now back to Mary and back to the skeptics, some have argued that the word used which has traditionally been translated virgin could mean young woman, and they aren’t wrong in this. In fact it does, sometimes, mean a young woman of a marriageable age. However, it does not simply mean that she is of marriageable age, it has specifically to do with the chastity of the young woman, in reality then it means a woman of marriageable age who had never known a man and in reading the whole narrative we can take this word to mean nothing else.

So it is that the text really is talking about a young virgin who had been legally promised in marriage to a man of the house of David, named Joseph.

Now, another objection that occasionally arises is that this story was just stolen from pagan stories, that some how Christ’s miraculous and divine birth comes from those stories of when the pagan gods would come down and reproducing with human women. The most striking difference between these stories and the gospel message is that it in pagan lore it was never viewed as a moral act.

The most interesting example of this was one story which I found early on in preparing this sermon and couldn’t find later was of one of the gods destroying her partner, and then recreated a son for herself out of his parts. I thought it was one of the Egyptian gods, but frustratingly, I was unable to find it. Although this myth is a more extreme example of the pagan god stories, when examined critically, there ends up being almost no comparison between the narrative of the birth of Christ, and the pagan stories.

But here is the important question – does it really matter? Is the virgin birth as big of a deal as we claim that it is, or is it, as some have claimed some superstitious thing that Christians make a big to do about?

Let me give you a spoiler before I unpack it further – yes – it matters tremendously.

One of the interesting things about the Generation Z presentation was that where Modernist might be skeptical about the Virgin Birth or the resurrection, the young people of generation Z seem to be lest skeptical, but more concerned with why it might matter, and so while it is important for our own souls that we understand and accept this, it is equally important for the sake of our witness.

First – the virgin conception of Jesus reveals the incredible uniqueness of Christ, never before, nor since, has a man walked this earth who was conceived of a virgin. Right away we see that this is a truly unique position for this man to be in. We all know how children come into existence and so we know how scandalous this truly is.

Secondly – this conception created a special relationship between God-the-father and Christ, his son. In fact, in our reading this morning you see the entire Trinity already starting to act out its role in the salvific plan for humanity – an Angel was sent from God (the Father), to announce the birth of Jesus (the son), which would be made possible by the Holy Spirit. Each member of the trinity worked in perfect cooperation for Christ to be born,

to live his life without fault in a dark and sinful world,

to die willfully on the cross that sinners such as you and I might have eternal life,

and be raised to new life, that we too could be raised with him on that last day.

Third – Along the same lines, the virgin birth tells us the our salvation is a work of God. I have been contemplating this incredible grace as of late. I don’t believe that I can emphasize this enough: we do not save ourselves, we are not cooperators,

but submitting subjects to our king and Lord in the act of our salvation and the process of our sanctification.

God begins and ends the work in us.

In the same way the virgin birth was a complete work of God. Mary only submitted to His will for her. While some of our beloved friends in other churches believe Mary was somehow sinless as well, this simply cannot be supported in scripture, but rather the virgin birth points to the amazing fact that God, and God alone, did this work.

God started the work of our salvation, and God has completed it.

Fourth – likewise – the virgin conception is a sign that God’s final salvation has come. There had been types and foreshadowing of this coming in the Old Testament, we saw some of them as we did our survey over the last year, but the real and fullest miraculous birth has now happened. Finally, the Christ, the one who would crush the serpents head, the son of Eve had come to set his captive people free.

In fact, we could argue that the birth of John the Baptist was the final miraculous foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. For, like others before, John was born of a mother, who was far too old to conceive, and yet he was conceived. It was after the conception of John that Mary got her own visit from Gabriel, and finally, all that was promised was beginning to be fulfilled.[1]

The final reason the virgin conception is of such importance is that it testifies to the incarnation. This amazing fact that God was made man, that God truly condescended, and lived a perfect, a fully human life – that means – that from the commencement of his gestation to his death and resurrection – he was fully and perfectly human and yet he is God.

I realize that this last sentence may sound overly technical – but it gives me chills for two reasons – first, I spent several years working in animal reproductive sciences, I have watched mice embryos develop from semination, through various cellular stages, there’s something amazing to think that God came and was briefly a sing celled human embryo, and then a two celled, and a four celled, developing as you and I developed in the womb growing and maturing until his birth.

That fact baffles me, the vulnerability, the love, that this act must have taken is staggering and beautiful.

Secondly, we live in a time when those early cells of humanity aren’t considered human, but considered, well simply that, just cells. They can be tossed away as easily as the next thing. Yet, the God incarnate lived each and every gestational moment that you and I lived in our mothers wombs. Surely, this must foster in us an awe of the preciousness of life. If it were not enough that each human being is created in the image of God – the fact that God himself – the second person of the Trinity went through each scientific stage of development should drive us to wonder and respect for the sanctity of life.

Now, I want to read you a section from Knowing God, which we’ve been reading from Christian Education because J.I. Packer summarizes the astounding fact of the incarnation exceedingly eloquently:

“The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man – that the second person of the Godhead became the ‘second man,’ determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human…

“It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. ‘the Word became flesh;’ God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.

“ and there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.”[2]

 

No other point of theology within the Christian tradition is as important, is as critical, is as amazing as the incarnation. Packer’s words point us to this, remind us, enliven us, encourage us, and help us to remember that very fact. What we read what was announced this morning to a young, scared girl in Galilee some two-thousand years ago was earth shattering, and altered the direction of humanity forever.

And why does the incarnation matter?

Like all points of theology it is easy to become overly heady, or God forbid become puffed up in our own knowledge, becoming conceited that we know something others don’t. But first and foremost, the incarnation should make us humble. For like the reality of the virgin birth, it points to the fact that it is God that saves, that salvation is not a work of man, it is God who condescended to us, and lived among us, he starts and he ends the work in us. It is not us, but Him alone.

Secondly, the incarnation is a fact spelled out and testified to in scripture. I think we’ve talked about C.S. Lewis’s proof of Christ where he argues that Christ is either “Lord, Lunatic, or Liar.” If we read the Gospel accounts attentively, we realize that Jesus believed he was special, believed that he was in fact God. If you were walking down the street and met someone who believed that he was Lord of the universe – you would be forced to come to one of three conclusions – this man is crazy, this man is not telling us the truth, or this man is telling us the truth, and you are in the presence of someone great.

The evidence with Christ does not point that he is crazy, nor that he is deceptive, therefore Jesus must be Lord, Jesus must be king of kings. The incarnation both makes this all the more believable but this is also testified to by the incarnation.

Third – the fact that Jesus is God incarnation tells us it was God on the cross dying for our sins. The more I’ve contemplated the incarnation these past few days while getting ready for this sermon, the more in awe I am of this incredible fact – and I know I’ve said this at least twice already – but I am simply amazed by salvation, amazed how thoroughly God centered our salvation is – it is not you, nor I that made it possible, but from the very beginning it was God and it is God.

It is God who held himself to the cross on that cross, it wasn’t just a good man, or some excellent teacher like Socrates dying that, it was the incarnate Lord who suffered there for all to see.

Fourth – the resurrection tends to be another one of those modernist hang-ups but if Christ truly was incarnate, then of course he could be raised from the dead, and of course he WOULD be raised from the dead. Because how could the author of life possibly be contained in the grave?

The incarnation testified to the reality of the resurrection, as the resurrection testified to the reality of the incarnation.

The second half of this morning’s lesson ends with incredible joy and praise. Elizabeth, Mary’s older relative now heavy with child, greets Mary with joy for the baby in her womb jumps gladness as even he realizes who he’s in the presence of. Somehow Elizabeth and her unborn child already knows that Jesus is the Lord.

This brings us to one final theological point. Elizabeth calls Mary the mother of her Lord. There was a major Christological controversy in the 5^th century when a theologian objected to the term “Theotokos,” or God-bearer for Mary because he was afraid that this elevated Mary to a position another human shouldn’t hold. Yet, this is what Mary is, she truly is bearing in her womb the incarnate God. Even in this mornings readings we see that Elizabeth recognizes this. It is important we recognize that as Christ is God, and there was never a point where Jesus was not God and with hat in mind Mary can be nothing less than the Theotokos, the God-bearer.

We close the lesson this morning with the hymn which we call the Magnificat. Those who do Evening Prayer at home or join us for Evensong during the week are familiar with this beautiful song of praise. Mary is moved to awe by all she is seeing, and learning, and experiencing the little child growing in her. While the song “Mary Did you Know?” Sometimes seems a little pedantic, and we want to say “of course she knew! The angel told her!” I suspect that this is uncharitable to the song writer. It seems likely that in one sense, of course she knew, but in another – very real sense, it was only slowly sinking in, slowly realizing that something amazing, something so much bigger than her was happening in her womb.

How could she possible know and imagine that she would be the one to tend to, and care for that incarnate Lord who was a vulnerable baby in her womb, who was wrapped in swaddling cloth, who cried when he was hungry, who needed love and nurturing.

How could she possibly realize that in it’s fullness?

I realize – this morning we delved into some pretty deep and profoundly important theology. I hope and pray that I presented it in such a way that it enlivened your hearts, and brought you into a place of incredible awe at the grace of our God, at the tender care he gives his children, at the love that he has poured out for us.

I hope that you have been reminded of this incredible truth of the incarnation that you hearts have been brought to a place of praise that the same Lord who came, who truly lived, who truly died, who truly rose again, and who will return on that last day was conceived of the virgin Mary, and in her womb grew as every child has ever grown and yet he was truly man and fully God.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

[1] Some points taken from class notes, Systematic Theology 2, Steve Tracy.

[2] J.I. Packer, Knowing God, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973, 53.

A Homily for 1 Advent 2019

A Homily for 23 Trinity

A Homily for The Sunday Next Before Advent

November 24, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Jeremiah 3:14-18

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            This morning we end our year of studying the Old Testament. I hope and pray that you’ve seen God acting consistently throughout all times, you have seen that it is not as though there is one God in the Old Testament and another in the New, as some have said, but rather that there are two covenants, the first foretelling the second and God’s actions in those are thoroughly consistent. You have seen prophecies about Christ, you have seen types or foreshadows of Christ in some of those who came before him. You have, I pray, seen how important the Old Testament is to the Christian faith.

            After this morning we will shift our focus to the gospel accounts. As we study these, It is my prayer that we will grow in our knowledge of Christ, grow in knowing our prophet, priest, and king, grow in knowing our Lord and savior and draw into a deeper relationship with him.

            This morning we end with the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Our short reading is packed with significance for us as Christians as we enter into the season of Advent, the season of preparing for our coming king, but it is also packed with significance for us as a small but growing church.

            Jeremiah sits at the cusp of the fall of Jerusalem. Someone once told me  if we were to summarize Jeremiah into one sentence it would be “you will be taken but, even in that, God will remain faithful to His people.” The promise to Israel through Jeremiah, isn’t so much that they will be okay – but that God’s judgment will finally fall upon them. However bleak the judgment may seem at that point in time, God is always faithful to His people, His judgement upon His people is always to draw them back, to encourage them to repent and cease trusting in false gods.

            For Israel – and for many people – the temptation seems to be towards idolatry, I have been reading a little bit about idolatry recently and it is interesting both Jewish theologians around Christ’s time and St. Paul saw the same downward spiral in people who committed idolatry – for the Jewish thinkers and teachers the cause was a failure to rationalize ones self to the one true God, for St. Paul it was not a failed intellectual ascent, but God’s judgment upon the idolater.

            Yet, both of them saw the same pattern, idolatry leads to greater and greater sin. So, for the historic nation of Israel in the Old Testament it started with idolatry but then lead into social injustice, lead to treating people poorly, it lead to rampant sexual immorality, and it lead to corruption and wickedness within individuals and within society. For this reason Jeremiah cries out – return, O faithless children! Return to the Lord who is good, who provides, who will care for you and all your needs, return to Him who is your master. 

            This call to repentance is never an allowance or acceptance of their sin, but a reminder of the cost of their depravity, a call to turn away from it. We live in a time and place where it is unseemly to talk about sin, unseemly to call darkness dark. We do no one any favors by pretending that which is wrong is right, though we also must remember that we are all sinners set free by the grace of God. We must call sin what it is – death – but we must do out of love, not out of a sense of self-righteousness, or unkindness. While we call what is wrong – wrong, and what is right – right, let us also be beacons of hope, and healing, for there is a tremendous amount of pain and hopelessness in the world.

            One of my favorite descriptions of repentance comes from the Anglican theologians J.I. Packer – perhaps simply because I enjoy listening to his grandfatherly British accent. In a short video he describes repentance as a turning around. He describes it is as though we are in an army and God has called for an about face march, Packer says, and so we fully turn around and march in the opposite direction. A complete 180 degree turn.

            My friends, repentance is not a slight turning away, or a minor shift in focus. Repentance is not doing less of the thing – repentance is a full turning away from whatever our sin may be – whether it be sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, or things like these.

This list comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians – and there are many like it in his letters. But I wanted to read it, because we will soon see the fruit of this turning away – we will soon see the fruit of residing in the Spirit, but first we must turn away from these works of the flesh and turn back to God.

            The puritan theologian John Owen warns against a works based repentance – he says “all other ways of mortification (that is repentance and fleeing from sin) are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the spirit… mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.”

            Repentance is a part of the Christian life – this is why we have the confession of sins in both Morning and Evening Prayer and as such we are called to repent of our sins daily, this is why the season of Advent and Lent refocus us upon the need for repentance, calling us to seek our hearts to see our own failings. This is why we confess our sins every time we gather together. Repentance is the turning away from death and the turning to life.

            All of that is to say – the unease of our conscience, the uncomfortableness we get when someone talks about a sin we struggle with, all of this is the Holy Spirit urging us to repentance, and it is in trusting Christ, it is in longing more deeply for an intimate relationship with Him, through the Holy Spirit, that we grow and turn and flee from our sin. So, today if you hear God’s voice – calling you to repentance, do not hardness your heart, but cling all the more to Him.

            God is faithful – in the case of Jeremiah – he is faithful to a small number. Think for a moment what the Jeremiah says here – “I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.” He is not taking the whole of the people, but a tiny percentage. A couple from a family, or just one from each city. Of course, we are not meant to read this literally – but throughout scripture, when things get bad, we see a remnant remains. We see a small group remaining faithful to God’s words and promises and no matter what culture says they stand firm, they do not sway.

            Here we get the first part of the lesson for us as a small church – we are not a remnant in Christendom – but we could argue that we are within American Anglicanism. Still the mainline church persists, heading down a more and more wild path of idolatry, and sensuality – and we pray for them. Still, they are large and financially well off. It would be easy to look over and say “ahh, maybe if we capitulated on this or that things would be better.”

            But friends, we are called to stand firm, stand firm in the orthodox Christian faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. As Richard Mullins wrote in his song about the creed – we do not make it but it is what makes us – So, though the world may say over and over again – capitulate! We will do no such thing, rather by the grace of God we will stand for Christ, we will rest in His word, we will proclaim his word. Our goal is not to grow to be some huge cathedral – but rather to remain faithful to the end. By the grace of God may we do that.

            He goes on to promise good shepherds – the description of a good shepherd here is important – we often tend to have a worldly definition of our spiritual leaders. We ask – is he charismatic? Does he speak well? Does he have a great visionary plan for 2020? What is it that God says – the good shepherd is one who is after God’s own heart and he feeds God’s people with knowledge and understanding.

            Christ, of course, was the best shepherd, the true good shepherd. He both followed the model of Psalm 23 – his rod and his staff comforted God’s people – he beat away the wolves with the rod, calling selfish teachers vipers, and pointing out self-righteousness as it occurred. His staff drew in those who had wandered. Not with soft words, but with words of Love, with words that revealed the nature of the heart, called it to repentance and then showed the even greater nature of God’s grace in which those broke by their sin and the cruelty of the world found hope.

            Christ being fully God and fully man had the heart of God, in his humanity he longed for nothing more than to be fully united with God and as such he followed God perfectly in the way in which we faith to do. He is the perfect man after God’s own heart.

            Even secularist see the wisdom of Christ – see that he taught well, even pagans know that he taught as one who had shocking authority – though they wouldn’t use such language. Christ taught with the authority of God that the people would know God, would understand His ways, would grow in His ways, Christ taught them and teaches us to turn away from the world and turn to the kingdom of heaven.

            Likewise, as the body of Christ we all must desire to have God’s own heart. It is critical for our leaders, for myself, the bishops, other priests, and deacons of the Anglican Province of America to long for God’s heart, to prayerfully be men who follow God’s ways and desire what He desires, but it is equally critical for our leaders at All Saints to long for the same thing, we elect godly men and women to our vestry to make critical temporal decisions for the church, and appoint godly leaders for our lay lead ministries. But same is true for each and every one of you – I pray that each individual person at All Saints is growing in this longing, growing in the desire to know God, to know and do His will.

            Therefore, our spiritual food is knowledge and understanding, the spiritual food I hope and pray that I feed you is not fluff, but substantial, that leaves you feeling full, that leaves you in a deeper knowledge of who God is, what he desires for you and all people, and how to walk more intimately with Him. I pray this earnestly for all people, for I am far from perfect, but I hope and pray the Holy Spirit is working in all of you in this.

            Recently, I have been working on eating better. I really like pizza and macaroni and cheese, but in eating the right amount of the right things, like veggies, and not cheese, I have noticed that I have more energy, and I am generally in a better mood. The same in true for our spiritual food – if we eat junk, we will feel the effects of it, if we have a solid diet of spiritual pizza, we will not grow, but if we have a theologically rich and healthy diet – we will grow – we will become stronger for the kingdom – we will have more energy for the sake of Christ.

            Now, the fruit of this growth is this, Jeremiah says, that we will be multiplied, we will grow – but what does this mean?

            It is easy to think – if I remain faithful to God’s word and will, God will bless me with material possessions or in some physical way. That is to say we buy into one form of the prosperity gospel or another – the first fruits of faithfulness to God isn’t getting everything we want – the first fruits of faithfulness to God is getting what we need – spiritual growth.

            I do pray that God continue to add to our numbers at All Saints, I pray that we see more people coming through our doors, I pray that we see men and women’s hearts converted to Christ – but first I pray for you all, I pray that the words I say, the direction I give, the fellowship that is had, the love that is shared between us all – builds you up, calls you all to Christ, deepens your trust in Him. Not because I am brilliant, or we are somehow magical or special, but because we reside in the Holy Spirit and he sanctifies our actions and deeds. To us, in our faithfulness given by the Spirit, God is faithful and he gives us spiritual growth, spiritual multiplication.

            Secondly, and I think we have hit on this a bit already – but we remain faithful to the word of God because God remains faithful to us. God is faithful and good – but it can be tempting in a world of plurality and sensuality to go light, to tickle people’s ears with easy words – to preach a sermon about self-help, give people “ten steps to a better Christian you.” But we have seen the fruit of this moralistic therapeutic deism, and it isn’t good. No, we are called to stay faithful to the word of God, and God will be faithful to us.

            Perhaps, in our faithfulness God will continue to grow His church, and if so, glory to God, or perhaps we will plug along remaining a small church, with a small voice in the community, and if that be God’s will for us – then glory be to God! Let us give glory to God, not by what we can measure in numbers, but by what he is doing in His people’s hearts and life.

            And what of this fruit? What do we pray He is doing in our hearts, and in the hearts of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

            Earlier I read a small portion from Galatians five where St. Paul describes to works of the flesh – he continues, first about these fleshly doings, and then about the fruit of the Spirit, he says, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things (that is the sin list from earlier) will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

            For St. Paul – the Christian life requires a sharp turn away from the ways of the flesh, and towards the way of the Spirit, but we notice – that like what Owen said – this turning away is not one of our own works, but it is one in which we keep in step with the Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives us the growth. As we grow in Christ we put away our fleshly ways, we put away our childish ways, we turn away from those destructive desires that so often held us before we knew Christ, and we keep in step with the spirit. In our Spirit enabled faithfulness, we will see these fruits grow in our hearts and be manifested in our lives – we will see: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Not as ones who are perfect, but as ones whose hearts have already been captured, and look forward to our sanctification and eternal rest in Christ.

            Now we have this peculiar phrase from Jeremiah “they will no more say, ‘the ark of the covenant of the Lord.’”

            Does any one remember the Indian Jones movie series? There was one, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, I believe, where Indian Jones battles Nazis to find the Ark of the Covenant first. In her history Israel makes a mistake and trusts not in God, but in the gift from God. The Covenant, and the ark in which it was kept was a gift from God for his chosen people, and it was a reminder to them when of God’s faithfulness. But at some point they saw whenever they carried the ark into war that they won, and they started to think “ah, well, we have the ark, so we will always be victorious.” The villains in the Indian Jones movie present a perfect representation of the problem. They also thought, “ah-ha, if I have this ark which guaranteed God’s people victory, then we will have victory.”

            The movie is kind of silly – and certainly completely lacking in any semblance of theological soundness and has almost no basis in historical reality – but it does a strangely good job at telling us how easy it is to trust in the gifts God has given us. The power did not lay with the ark, but with God’s faithfulness to His people.

I wonder – is there something in your life – a good gift that God has given you – that you are trusting in? This might be a good thing to pray about this week – especially as we come upon thanksgiving. Ask God if there are areas that you are trusting in His gifts to you, instead of trusting in Him as the author and giver of life, the giver of every good thing.

            If we see that we are trusting in the wrong things – repentance necessary for it isn’t simply turning away from our overtly sinful actions but a turning away from internally sinful actions, turning away from those things that we trust in that aren’t God. As we grow – we will become quicker to recognize those things, and quicker to turn away from them, and turn to God. I pray that we would all be this way. I pray that we would be quick to turn from our sins, and quick to rest in God.

            Now Jeremiah describes a new Jerusalem – we get another description of a New Jerusalem in the Revelation of St. John – which picks up on this theme. The theme of exiles waiting for the return to their home land. For we are all exiles, we are all waiting for the New Heaven and the New Earth. We are waiting for this new Jerusalem – which will be adorn like a bride – the bride for Christ. But the best thing about the new Jerusalem will be this – she, we, her residents will dwell with God!

            No longer will we be separated from God, no longer will our sin and strife be impediments that make such a great chasm – but God will dwell with us, and we with him. For in eternity we will be finally, fully freed from our sins. Finally, we will worship God with every other nation, and people from every other tongue, and how beautiful will that be? How good will that be?

            In these latter days the church has become fragmented, some estimates say there are over 30 thousand denominations and too often these denominations do not get along, and these numbers don’t even include all of the independent churches. God’s vision for his people is quite clear – it is not for a schismatic people, but rather one united people. This vision for unity is part of the reason why we pray for other local, gospel centered churches, as many of them pray for us. This is why on some days you might find me downtown having a cup of coffee with one of the pastors from these other churches. This is why we must be charitable to God’s people and love them well.

            There are reasons I am Anglican – I think Anglican theology is thoroughly biblical, I think it is healthy, right, good, and Biblical to have episcopal oversight of parishes, I think Anglican worship is in line with how the church has worshipped for nearly two-thousand years. I am an Anglican by conviction. But, my dear friend who is a Baptist is so by conviction – for very similar reasons I just mentioned for myself, my dear friends who are Presbyterian or Lutheran, or independent are so for the same reasons. So, we talk about our differences, but we do so in love, and we extend each other charity.  We seek Christian fellowship with other orthodox believers.

            Friends – let us love our brothers and sisters in Christ, regardless of what their denominations, or lack there of are, for one day John 17 will come to be, and we will all be one, by the grace of God, in Christ.

            This morning Jeremiah calls the people to repentance – calls God’s people to faithfulness. We saw that God is faithful to his people, we saw God wants to draw us in, and that God will bless our faithfulness. So as we enter this season of Advent next week let us turn from our sins, let us remain faithful, and let us look forward to the day when we will all be one on Christ. For Christ came into the world to save sinners, for Christ came, died, and rose again, and on that great last day He will come again.

            In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A Homily for Trinity 22

A Homily for Trinity XXII

November 17, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Isaiah 66

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

            For whatever reason, when I’m thinking about the season of Advent I tend to confuse it with Lent, not anything about the actual season but the words themselves. Perhaps it is because both seasons are purple, perhaps because they rhyme, or perhaps because they are similar in nature. But where in Lent we are repenting and drawing towards our need for our death to self to be reborn in Christ, in Advent we are preparing – preparing to remember Christ’s incarnation, preparing our hearts to be a continual dwelling place for Christ, and preparing with joy-filled expectation for the return of Christ.

            In two weeks we’ll enter into this season of Advent, which in our prayer book and lectionary it starts the new church year. I have often thought of the church year as being a lot like breathing, it provides life to the church but it just sort of happens, and if you don’t pay attention the year goes by without much thought. It is easy enough to sit in the pew and never really notice it. Realistically, there’s not much you need to do about it, just check the calendar and the next day comes. Yet, to cut the church year out, is to lose a beautiful opportunity walk through the life of Christ, to prepare for his birth, remembering his childhood, his ministry, his own preparation for his death, the last supper, his death itself, and his rising again, then we learn again to live as the spirit endowed church, and to look forward to Christ’s return.

The calendar gives the opportunity to reflect Christ’s life, and to meditate upon in. As Advent approaches we look forward to his birth. Yet – we don’t simply look back, as we prepare our mind, souls, and bodies for our celebration of the birth of Christ we also celebrate and recommit ourselves to Christ coming into our lives. Finally, we look forward to the return of Christ.

Last week we asked ourselves the pertinent question – do we long for Christ’s return?

As we read the lessons and come closer to Advent and into the season itself, you will notice that the lessons start to look more and more eagerly forward to this coming of Christ, this completion of the kingdom of heaven, when all will be made right, when “all flesh shall come to worship before (the Lord).” So, this is why we’ve turned our eyes to the prophets in the last few weeks of our year in the Old Testament. This is why each lesson lately seems to be doubling down on the last and drawing us closer to this eager expectation of the return of Christ. This is why we are being reminded again, and again to pray “come Lord Jesus, come.” 

In our Christian sub-culture we don’t often talk about the return of Christ. I think this is another one of those side effects of modernism or perhaps of the abundance in which we live, though I am less sure than on other subjects, but if you think about it, it makes sense. The return of Christ first means a disruption of our modern comforts, and an entrance into something unknown. It is also a stumbling block for the knowledgeable. It is supernatural and as such it does not fit into Bultmann’s schema of demythization.

But the return of Christ has been the hope of the Church since its inception, the return of Christ is the hope and prayer of the martyrs who cry out, “how long oh Lord, how long!” The return of Christ is the hope of all those who suffer for the kingdom’s sake, the return of Christ is the fulfilment of his promise for all those who seek to live the beatitudes, the return of Christ is the hope of the poor in spirit, the persecuted, the humble and humbled, the return of Christ is our hope, and so we join the martyrs in that great pleading song and prayer and ask “how long O Lord, how long.”

And why is that?

This morning we get another vision from Isaiah – Isaiah who has spelled out the things that will happen without repentance, without a turning back to the Lord. But, we read the final chapter, and it ends with a note of hope, a firm note of judgment, and then the end in which all shall be well.

We are first reminded that the Lord is not concerned with the works of our hands, but with the posture of our heart. Let us face the reality, it is far easier to make a haughty building, or a conceited statue, or some proud efface than it is to humble our hearts before the Lord.

There is a goodness in creating beauty to the glory of the Lord. For centuries the Christian church made beautiful cathedrals, and lovely churches that dot European cities and towns. Many of these are marvels of engineering and artistry. All of this stemming out of an age we too often call dark, but this misnomer comes from those who called themselves enlightened. The age was anything but dark.

The medieval period was known for these buildings that were built to the glory of the Lord – but if we read this lesson seriously – should they never have been built? I think it depends on the posture of their heart. Again, and again, the Lord blesses and endorses human creativity that is done to the glory of God, that is done to point mankind’s eyes upward, that reminds us of a greater and more beautiful truth than anything we can find within ourselves.

We need Christian Artists, story tellers, poets, and craftsman that participate in creating this beauty, that point us towards that deeper truth, that don’t create trite and empty fiction, but that speak to the truths of life, of beauty and suffering, of love and heartache, of contentment in our gifts, but excitement for the future. We need creatives to speak to the deeper truths in life.

But the heart of the creative, and all people are to be hearts of humility, we are not to have a heart of pride. It is far easier to create something beautiful and be proud and say “look what I have done with my own hands and my own talent,” than it is to say God has given us the gifts – whether it be a gift with numbers, or words, a paintbrush or potters soil or clay – all our works, whether of hand or mind, all our ability whether it be of strength or thought, and even all our inability, all of it is a gift from God so that we might glorify Him, and have life abundantly.

But what does God prefer? I hope it is becoming clear, does God prefer that we create audacious works of grandeur, puffing ourselves up? Or does God prefer that we remain relatively unknown, slowly fading into the background of life?

If we must choose, choose humility. If we cannot create beauty without becoming proud, then chose humility, your humble life will create more genuine beauty than the greatest artist could ever do with his sculptor’s chisels or painter’s brush.  

And why?

“heaven is (the Lord’s) throne, and earth (his) footstool, all these things (his) hand has made and so all these things came to be!”

My life has been a life of inordinate privilege – I lived along the rocky coast of Maine, I could walk to the ocean in a few minutes and sit on the shoreline and contemplate life. I had a house in the beauty of Appalachia where I could watch the clouds and fog dance around mountain peaks while I sipped my morning coffee. I’ve spent entire summers in national parks, and sought to see the beauty of God’s creative nature. My friends, if you haven’t noticed how profoundly beautiful this created world is – please take a moment this week, drive through our mountains and let your eyes and hearts be filled with awe as you feast upon that beauty. And now think of this – if this earth is only God’s footstool – can you imagine the beauty of God’s heavenly throne? Surely – even our most noble acts of creation will pale and be dull in comparison.

Let us humble our hearts before his heavenly throne, so we will one day know the exulted beauty of Him who made all things – who made the humble ant and the mighty mountain, who designed every bird to fly with perfection and the deer to frolic with grace, who planted the trees, and made dry the deserts, and who stitched together each and everyone us. Oh for the beauty!

 

Here, our lectionary jumps forward to verse ten where God tells us to “rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all  you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her.” Within the literature of the church, it is not uncommon to read these passages metaphorically, looking at Jerusalem as a type of the church – that Jerusalem acts as a prefiguration of the church, and the church as a prefiguration of the New Jerusalem which we look forward to dwelling within.

So, we rejoice, and mourn for the church, mourn when we hear of her sin, and see her suffering, rejoice when we see her victories, when we hear of new people turn away from their sins and coming to Christ. Rejoice when we hear and see Christ’s love poured out from within the spiritual walls of Christ’s body, and mourn when we see her fail or wounded.

And why should we rejoice? The Lord “will extend peace to her like a river.”

It was interesting to me, while visiting Israel earlier – our tour guide, an older Israeli man, noted to us, with a hint of mourning that the name Jerusalem means “the city of peace.” The name had never really occurred to me. There are a couple of these promises in the Old Testament that point to something greater – something deeper than simply a temporal and earthly promise.

The first is the promise that God will put a descendent of David on the throne forever – but the throne is gone, and there is none that are enthroned – except, that is for Christ, who is a descendant of David and his ascended to his rightful throne in heavenly where he will come from to judge the living and the dead and will rightly remain forever.

Another is this promise of peace, this promise that He will rejoice for Jerusalem will be a place of peace.

Our tour guide noted that after World War II and various reorganizations of the land, the UN had hoped that Jerusalem would become an international city, controlled by multiple governments, but we know that didn’t work out. Now, Israel soldiers regularly patrol the streets.

I heard once, and I don’t think this anecdote is true, but it does help us get a deeper understanding, that Israel was once tremendously verdant, but the tromp of soldiers’ boots over the millennium had so worn out the soil that it is now far more arid. I’m not sure that this is the cause for the desert-like ecosystem we now know Israel for, but it does remind us of how conflict ridden that territory has been.

So, is this promise void?

No! absolutely not, rather we are waiting, eagerly and excitedly for the coming of the new heaven and new earth – when all God’s people will dwell in peace in the new Jerusalem, the new city of God’s peace for humanity.

And how will God bring about this radical shift? It will be the day of judgment.

We live in a time when judgment is a dirty word – when we think “how could God possibly be loving and judge. Perhaps, simply because we have all been the victims of unjust judgment, or perhaps because we all know too well how badly it hurts to be told we are wrong.

But, we know we fall dramatically short of the glory of God, dramatically short of that which God calls us to do. We know that there is a little part of us that creates something amazing and we think “man, I’m good,” even if we created it to the glory of God and so in all of this our hearts and consciences condemn us and we dread this idea of judgment.

Yet – it is Christ faithfully dwelling in us that frees us from this judgment, and it is the Holy Spirit that sanctifies us and draws us nearer and nearer to God.

So – God’s judgment frees the faithful to look forward to the future, frees us to empty ourselves of pride, vainglory, arrogance, and all things that condemn us, and allows us to trust in God wholly. At the same time – we know personally, or from watching the world that there is unspeakable evil that lurks and walks through the land. We know that this cannot be how it is supposed to be. It is God’s judgment that will drive that out.

And we know his judgment is not arbitrary or impersonal. Sometime ago I was thinking about karma as opposed to God’s judgment. The judgment we are promised from God is often delayed as we watch the wicked flourish and the just suffer and so we wonder about it, but God’s judgment is right because he knows each and ever person, he knows their hearts, minds, and souls, he knows our motivations, this is confirmed in our reading this morning. Karma, as I understand it, is merely a force, an accountants ledger, if you will, and at the end of the day all things must be balanced out, it is impersonal and uncaring for a force cannot care.

No, I think I prefer the personal judgment of God to something so impersonal. I prefer the sanctifying fires of one who knows my broken and sinful heart and who loves me, to the actions of an ambivalent actuary, or a force that must balance its books. God’s judgment is not arbitrary, but it is thoroughly fair and in that he can make all things right, as only one who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent can. God’s judgment is an act of love and care, not some cosmic balance sheet.

My friends, I hope you’ve seen and understand in all this that God’s judgment is personal, intimate, and most importantly – it is good and right.

Finally, God will make all things new, he promises in the last days that he will restore creation – and give redeemed humanity new heavens and a new earth. The beauty of this new heaven and new earth will be that all will worship God all the time.

Our lesson this morning ends with this poetic statement “from the new moon to new moon, and from the sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.” This promise is echoed in the book of Revelation when St. John tells us that all will confess, and every nation shall come to worship the Lord. Those things that divide us now will no longer, and we will be one people under God, one people walking with the Lord in all things.

I think when we say this – that we will worship God all the time – it is much more than simply what we do on Sunday mornings, though that will be a part of it, but that all our actions will be acts of worship, as we strive to do in the present.

The mystic Julian of Norwich, once on death’s door had an apocalyptic dream which she recorded in her little book “Revelation of Divine Love.” In this comes her famous line, which if you’ve probably heard me say.

She wrote “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This world can be fleeting, scary, and stressful, it can feel overwhelming, but in God’s love – in his apocalyptic and sanctifying fire – in his coming which we look forward to

 – all shall be well – and all manner of things shall be made well.

Let us, therefore, look forward to this, let us be eager for this, let us persevere in all things for Christ’s coming in the last days and the re-creation of the New heavens and the new earth all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Kingdom Focused

God Will Heal

 Homily for 19 Trinity

October 27, 2019

All Saints Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Jeremiah 30:12-22

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

 

 

            This morning Jeremiah paints a picture of stark hopelessness in the first four verses of our reading. A picture that would lead anyone to despondency if it were addressed to them. In this, we remember when enter into the mystery of pain any number of things can lead us to that.

There are three reasons that come to mind – first the providence of God is one reason we may suffer – in the moment of suffering we may not know  why things are as hard as they are, but we know they are hard. The book of Job gives us an example of this. All we know is that Satan walked into the heavenly court and threw down the gauntlet and God accepted it. Job was innocent. Despite the protests of his wife and miserable friends there was no reason for him to feel such pain. Rather – we learn from the Book of Job that God is sovereign, and though we may travel through valleys of darkness God does not abandon us, and through our suffering God is glorified.

Or we may suffer because of the sin of others. We can think of both large cultural suffering or personal suffering that has been brought on not by our own wickedness but because someone has opted to do something wicked to us. Joseph, outside of Christ, is the best example of this in scripture. He did not deserve to be sold into slavery, he did not deserve to be cast into jail, and yet he did.

Christ, of course, is the ultimate example of suffering for someone else’s sin. Christ was the perfect person, and yet he died the most shameful death. And what do we do with this kind of suffering? We are called to a posture of humility and joyfulness – which is harder than it sounds – but if Christ suffered so darkly – how can we expect any better than our Lord?

And what of the pain that comes out of it? It is Christ who can heal our pain, our shame, our heart ache.  This is not some empty promise, but a real and active promise – St. Gregory of Nazaianzus summarized it best when he wrote “that which he has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His God head is also saved. If only half of Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.”

St. Gregory is arguing for the reality of the incarnation of Christ – that Christ is fully man and fully God – but the incarnation is practical for our salvation, redemption, and healing. It is not as though Christ came and set us free, and was like the deist’s clockmaker God, and said “welp, that’s enough,” and walked away. No, Christ actively heals those pains. For Christ experienced loss of friends, experienced betrayal, experienced slander, experienced deep and dreadful shame. If we give these pains to Christ – Christ is capable of healing even the darkest struggles of our hearts. For he assumed a fully human experience in order to bear the darkness and pain that humanity all too often experiences.

The author of Hebrews further affirms this when he wrote “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” In other words, Christ fully knows what it is to be human, yet lived perfectly, and can therefore bring every heartache, joy, pain, love, tear, laughter, sorrow, and delight before the heavenly throne, and in that he can heal us and bring us to the deepest of joy.

My friends, if you are struggling from bitterness, anxiety, or pain from past hurts – I know it may seem impossible – but give those pains to Christ – he can and will heal them. It may take time, it may take hard conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ – it may take years of prayer and love – but Christ can and will heal you.

But there is a third kind of suffering – the suffering that we bring upon ourselves. This isn’t like when we try to carry too many heavy objects and drop one on our toe, nor like when in comedies where the husband becomes quietly ambivalent to his wife’s frustration until she looses her cool. Though, it also isn’t entirely unrelated because the first probably came out of pride and the second out of a lack of love. It is deeper than these trite examples.

First, we need to take a moment and understand what a prophet is in scripture. Prophets did have some unique charismatic gifting and connection with God. This of course is particularly important to bear in mind when we consider our theology of scripture. For the books which we have of theirs’ we consider the word of God. That is to say what St. Paul said to Timothy – “all scripture is breathed out by God… that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” So we can know the prophets of scripture had a special endowment of the spirit.

But more central to how we read them is their specific calling – the prophets were called to be covenant enforcers. Don’t imagine the strict old maid school mistress who runs around brutally correcting everyone for her delight – imagine instead the voice of truth crying out in the wilderness of relativity.

When we think of a prophet – let us think not of someone who is constantly “getting a word from God,” but of one who has drunk so deeply the word of God that he or she can correct with love – can recall us to the truth of God, can speak truth in such a way that it reminds us of Christ, our first love, and begs us to return. No, a true prophet does not look for a new revelation, but sees all the revelations found in scripture and reminds those around him of it with love.

So what we have happening in this morning’s reading, it is not the random suffering of Job, nor is it the suffering brought on by other’s sin directed towards us – what we read of comes out of a status of habitual sin. This sin did not happen in a vacuum, nor was it that Judah was simply allowed to sin for awhile and suddenly out of the blue God is darkly condemning them – no – if having the covenant was not enough, they had sufficient warning from other prophets beyond the covenantal promises given by God.

Fairly early on in the history of the nation of Israel there was a split between the northern and southern kingdom. Both kingdoms were rebellious – but the words today were to the southern kingdom, which had sufficient warnings – to get to what we read today – it took not one, not two, not three, but four proceeding prophets to the southern kingdom before we get to Jeremiah. Their messages were all the same – repent, turn from your sin, you have violated the covenant, return to God. 

Having been confronted time and again by God, Judah is, yet again being shown the curse of habitual sin. Habitual sin leads us to an incurable disease, and the great destruction of relationships.

The Lord describes first the horrible state in which he has found his people – “their hurt is incurable, their wounds are grievous, there is no medicine, no healing.” Sin, outside of God’s redemptive care leads us to a hopeless place. Sin damages our bodies, souls, and minds. Sin leads us to believe what we read her today – there is no hope for us. Sin, when left to its own devices destroys.

Let us not pretend sin is less terrible than it is. It causes death – Adam’s first sin, and the curse that came because of it has been passed on to all of us – and is the reason our bodies are slowly breaking down, sin is the reason for the inescapable reality that eventually all our bodies will fail us, and we will die.

Some have pondered why the continuing Anglican churches have clung so dearly to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. A major reason is that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer retains a robust theology of sin. It is not that there aren’t decent liturgies in the newer Books of Common Prayer, but a careless or wishy washy priest could navigate around the confessions that acknowledge how deep and dreadful sin can really be. No, we need to look our sin in the face and acknowledge as we did this morning that “there is no health in us.”

Sin, my friends is a deadly disease.

Sin also destroys relationships – God tells Judah that “all your lovers have forgotten you.” Now, we need to understand this – when we read that their lovers have forgotten them – we see the picture the Old Testament often paints of  God’s relationship with his chosen people, which is of husband and wife and when his people stray – scripture shows them as an unfaithful wife. So, in this case the picture of lovers does not paint the picture of some virtuous woman with loving friendships, but that of one who does not stay faithful to her husband. Yet, having abandoned her husband, those whose arm’s she sought have also abandoned her.

When we abandon God, we lose our one true and surest relationship, when we turn our back on him, we lose the stability to love people how God has called us to love.

This doesn’t mean that non-Christians can’t have good and loving relationships – of course they can! Psychology and common sense tell us that secure, loving bonds are a basic human need. But sin causes these bonds to stress and strain. This is why there is so much heartache in the world, why marriages dissolve, why there are tensions in friendships, why true, life-giving emotional and spiritual intimacy feels so terrifying and even impossible to some.

Without the grace of God – too often we tend to ask “what can I get out of this relationship” not “what can I give? How can I give myself for the other? How can I die to self so that God is glorified in all of this?”

We see this in the first sin – a part of the curse is the rise of dissension between Adam and Eve.

Sin, destroys and deteriorates relationships.

Then the Lord, through Jeremiah asks the question – “why do you cry out over your hurt?” It seems to be a strange question – but the implication is not that they are crying out to God with repentant hearts – it is not that they are crying out to God for healing – for mercy – it seems more likely they are crying out to their lost friends – to their lovers – to their false idols – and false securities. If we cry out for hope from anyone or thing other than God, we will be let down.

For we learn – their pain is incurable. Yet, we know that even the criminal on the cross with Christ could find redemption – even a sinner such as me can find redemption, but I cannot find redemption within myself, or the idols I’ve constructed in my heart, or the sin which plagues my life. No – redemption is found in Christ. Our guilt is great and our sin is flagrant – but Christ can save, Christ can heal.

Suddenly – the passage turns. The end of verse 15 marks a pivot point for God says “I have done these things to you.” What things? God has given them over to their sin and allowed them to dig a hole so deep that it would seem they could not get out.

Here we must wrestle with our theology of God’s providence, and his sovereignty. I know we’ve talked about this before, but I think it is something worth revisiting from time to time. God’s sovereignty does not mean that we are mere automatons. It does not mean that we have no will – but humanity’s free will also doesn’t mean that God is that clockmarker who wound-up a clock several thousand years ago and is not kicking back in his recliner up in heaven watching how things play out.

No – God both allows us to sin – but if we chose to pursue sin he gives us over to deeper and deeper sin. God’s sovereignty and humanity’s will is a mysterious dance that may make sense when eternity comes, but for now is a bit more baffling. We have a will to choose, but God orders all things. So, he allows us to dig our own hole and he gives us over to our sin.

But with this statement we also pivot to hope – those who have been Judah’s punishment will see punishment as well. Sin does not go unanswered. So, we see Judah will be redeemed.

As Christians we are called to cry out for justice, called to care deeply for those who have been hurt by injustice, and fight and pray for their redemption. Friends, this is what social justice is, this is why we have a prayer for it in our prayer book. The term has been coopted to mean something else in our culture, but this should not dissuade us from caring any less for the least in our community and country. No, we are called to care deeply, and pray passionately, and speak boldly for those who have been hurt or wounded by injustice.

But, we know that because sin still wreaks havoc, our justice systems will fail, we know that the unjust will from time to time flourish while the just suffer. As we’ve seen our reaction should not be ambivalence, but we always have hope. For we know that though the unjust may have their day today – ultimately God is the judge and arbiter of all things. Ultimately, evil will not go unpunished, ultimately, all shall be made right. So, let us keep our hope in God, let us not grow weary.

And now the good news of the passage we read this morning comes tumbling out – Just as God gave Judah over to their sin, just as God allowed us to stay stuck in the mire of our own sin – he will restore health to us – he will heal our wounds.

Earlier, we saw that God can heal the wounds we bore undeservedly – the sins that have been done to us – but God does not stop there. Christ died for the sins which we have willfully committed too – he can heal the shame of our past, the pain that those sins have brought upon us, he can heal the disease that has corrupted our bodies.

This doesn’t mean that if we sin we won’t still bear the scars of that sin – but first comes spiritual healing. I was thinking this past week about how our bodies may bear the scars of our sin to our death – but God can heal the effects of those sins, whatever they might be. So we may limp for the rest of lives because of youthful foolishness, or we may ache, or struggle – but God can certainly heal spiritually and emotionally, and he can use our past to His glory.

There is nothing that he cannot heal, and in the resurrection – we shall be restored to what God intended humanity to be. So take heart – God will heal, God will provide justice, God will and does redeem, even the worst of us.

Verses 18-21 God promises the restoration of Judah – he paints for them a grand picture of their redeemed life. For us – we are not promised worldly wealth, or physical security – but we are promised spiritual wealth and spiritual security. This wealth and security transfers over to eternal security.

In Christ we are both wildly rich and spiritually secure. We must reject the prosperity Gospel’s false claims that knowing Christ means that he will bless us with all our worldly desires, but know that if we count all loss as gain as St. Paul did, we are being made spiritually rich. We are being blessed in becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful, patience, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. When we have the privilege of knowing God – and have these virtues, then we are rich indeed.

Likewise, we have security in Christ – Jesus warned us about protecting ourselves from the one who can destroy our soul. This of course is the devil, but we also know that it is in Christ that we have protection from him. Christ is our security. In all of this we are reminded that the world is instable, that there can be ups and downs, that we may very well suffer temporally, but ultimately, we cannot be snatched away from Christ if we rest in him.

God promises to punish those who are against his people – while we are called to pray for our enemies and love them – we know that some may curse us for this. We should not lose heart but continue in prayer. This is a hard thing to do, when the hurt is so deep. Yet, we know what happens if they do not repent, do not turn from their wickedness. The deepest darkness and pain awaits them.

Once we have a realistic view of our terminal disease of sin – and the affects that it has had on others – the reality of what will happen to the unrepentant will pang our hearts with compassion. We once knew that same darkness and hopelessness. So let us pray fervently for those who do not know our joy, let us pray fervently for those who hate us, let us pray fervently – and never lose hope – placing our trust totally in Christ, in his mercy and wisdom.

The passage this morning ends with the most hopeful statement: “you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

There is a tension in salvation – one that is important to recognize, and have a firm understanding of. It is the tension between the reality that Christ saves individuals and that he is saving for himself a bride, the church. It is not an either or – but rather a both and. We must come to Christ alone, and give our whole lives – our selves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable and living sacrifice, as the liturgy says. We must give every last bit of ourselves to God.

Yet, this is not done alone, but in community. It is done as one body, it is done in the local community of the church, which is in communion with all the churches all over the world, who are in communion with all Christian people throughout time. To quote the poet – no man is an island. In Christ we are connected, we are being made a bride for Christ.

We are being saved individually, and corporately. We are not alone, God is making for himself the church, His people, and he is our God.

Today we were reminded of sin’s dark reality, that it is deadly – Jeremiah warned Judah about it – and we receive the same warning time and again. So let us pray for the grace to flee sin, let us pursue Christ with passion, let us pray that he would be healing us, that we would know him intimately.

The great Anglican poet T.S. Elliot wrote after his conversion to Christ the following, as he meditated upon Good Friday:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel:

That questions the distempered part;

Beneath the bleeding hands we feel

The sharp compassion of the healer’s art

Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

….

The dripping blood our only drink,

The bloody flesh our only food…

Eliot – vividly reminds us here of both our mortal wounds that sin has left us with and the hope that we have in Christ. My friends – let us not take sin lightly – but let us lean deeply upon Christ. For he can heal all wounds, and in that he is glorified.

Finally – let us remember the words of the Anglican puritan theologian Richard Sibbes, lest we grow despondent: There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Wholly for Christ

A Homily for 18 Trinity, 2019

October 20, 2019

All Saints Prescott, AZ

 

Text: Amos 8:4-12

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

 

            One of my favorite poets from the last century is Robert Frost. His poetic observations of the world have long inspired me to be more thoughtful about how I live. One of his lesser known poems is called “Departmental” and reads as follows:

An ant on the tablecloth
Ran into a dormant moth
Of many times his size.
He showed not the least surprise.
His business wasn't with such.
He gave it scarcely a touch,
And was off on his duty run.
Yet if he encountered one
Of the hive's enquiry squad
Whose work is to find out God
And the nature of time and space,
He would put him onto the case.
Ants are a curious race;
One crossing with hurried tread
The body of one of their dead
Isn't given a moment's arrest-
Seems not even impressed.
But he no doubt reports to any
With whom he crosses antennae,
And they no doubt report
To the higher-up at court.
Then word goes forth in Formic:
"Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
Our selfless forager Jerry.
Will the special Janizary
Whose office it is to bury
The dead of the commissary
Go bring him home to his people.
Lay him in state on a sepal.
Wrap him for shroud in a petal.
Embalm him with ichor of nettle.
This is the word of your Queen."
And presently on the scene
Appears a solemn mortician;
And taking formal position,
With feelers calmly atwiddle,
Seizes the dead by the middle,
And heaving him high in air,
Carries him out of there.
No one stands round to stare.
It is nobody else's affair
It couldn't be called ungentle
But how thoroughly departmental

 

            Frost is not lamenting ants but the way in which we tend to departmentalize what we do. He is lamenting our cultural struggle to be whole people. This morning we heard a stark reminder from the prophet Amos that we cannot departmentalize our lives.

 

It is always interesting and a little challenging to preach these portions of the prophets, because it would be very easy to slip into works righteousness. That is to say, it would be very easy from this text to say “you must care for the poorest and most vulnerable around you in order to be saved.” Yet, we are saved by grace, through faith in Christ. So, how do we understand this passage?

            First – we must recognize that our behavior is bad – while it is possible that we can perform virtuous acts without Christ, if we created a balance sheet, we would see our thoughts and actions do not line up with the perfection of God. We fall far short of his glory.             

            Secondly – it reminds us of the importance of the law – it is the law that condemns us. We read the Decalogue once a month so that we can see our lives spelled out in front of it. We can see our need to repent, the need to cry out to God “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” Incline our hearts to keep them because so often we are inclined to buck against them fiercely – in thought, word, and deed.

Likewise, when we read something like this, it should convict us – to repentance, and to a renewed trust in Christ. So, in that repentance we are set free from our sin, but called to something deeper, called to love better. Ultimately, we should be made uncomfortable when we read the prophets, but we should also recognize that we are freed by grace, and as our lives are transformed by that grace we are called to a sanctified life.

            That is the baseline from which we will jump off of, the prophets should convict us, call us to repentance, call us to a deeper trust in Jesus, and call us to love as Christ loved.

            Now, who is Amos? On the surface he was blessed to live in a time of prosperity – Syria had become besieged by the Assyrians, and as such their assault on Israel had stopped. This allowed Israel to flourish.

            But in this flourishing they became wealthy, and their wealth was not gained by virtue and hard work, but by cheating others and by taking advantage of the poor. Their wealth was gathered by trampling down those who God’s people are called to love – the poor, the outcasts, the neglected, the shunned by society, the foreigner, and the unwanted.

            And so, we get to the charge Amos lays before Israel:

Hear this, you who trample the needy

    and do away with the poor of the land,

saying,

“When will the New Moon be over

    that we may sell grain,

and the Sabbath be ended

    that we may market wheat?”—

skimping on the measure,

    boosting the price

    and cheating with dishonest scales,

buying the poor with silver

    and the needy for a pair of sandals,

    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

 

            The condemnation stands in stark contrast to the commandment we heard from Christ this morning in the gospel reading – “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” We learn from Amos that the people of Israel were flagrantly breaking the second half of the greatest commandment, not only were they not loving their neighbors as themselves, they were buying and selling their neighbors into slavery!

            How we love people shows a lot about our attitude towards God. For remember Genesis 1 which reads –

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

    So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

 

Men and women, all men and women are created in the image of God. That means when we treat men or women unkindly, trample them down, we are defacing the very image of God. Let that sink in for a moment. How we interact with co-workers, clients, contractors, those we meet on the street, spouses, and friends reflects our heart towards God.

            I had an incident this past week where I snapped at someone. My reaction to the situation surprised me, and I felt bad immediately afterwards. As I thought about it – I realized my reaction was not rooted in frustration with the person but with a lack of trusting God. I had a meeting shortly after that and I was nervous about it and my fear about caused me to snap unkindly. My reaction had everything to do with a lack of trust in the Lord and his provision and very little to do with the small annoyance I was stumbling through at that moment.

            The calling of the Christian is to love our neighbors as ourselves. The Christian community is to be a beacon of love in a world where sacrificial love is so undervalued, where anything goes but genuine care for another’s soul. So let us be convicted, let us learn to love others fully and trust wholly in God’s provision.

 

            Amos leans further into this charge – Israel had trampled the needy – a large portion of the law was concerned with how we treat those in the community who are most in need. Perhaps the most radical of these was the year of jubilee, which was supposed to occurred every seven years, in that time all debt was to be forgiven. Instead, the people who Amos was charging were taking advantage of the very people they were supposed to care for.

            So this continues to press us – how are we treating those in our community, our neighbors? Do we treat them with love or distain?

One of those scary things we can do is pray that God would reveal to us the ways in which we’ve failed, but it is a good challenge – let us take the time this week to ask God – who do I need to love better? How have I failed to love those in our community well? Show me how to love better.

            But the charges laid out by Amos get worse, and here it can hit home in another way, perhaps we have loved well, but where does our mind go during worship? The second part of the charge is that they longed for the Sabbath to be over so that they could get out there and make more money. Sabbath was created first as a time to glorify God, but also because our hearts, minds, and souls need a time of rest, time to renew. Not only do we sully God when we do not take a sabbath, a lack of rest wears down our bodies.

Here is the question that we need to ask ourselves, where is our mind when we come to worship? Are we longing for it to be over so that we can get to tasty treats at coffee hour?

So we can get home and do that house work we were planning on?

Are we longing for it to be over so we can go and watch sports?

Friends – the time of worship together is so critical to our spiritual formation – drink this time in, delight in it, rejoice that we have the freedom to spend time together and worship the Lord who died for us!

Rejoice that we get an hour and a half together to read His word!

Rejoice that we get to sing holy hymns of praise that are older than us and that countless brothers and sisters that came before us sang!

Rejoice that we get to break the bread that is his body! And drink the wine that is his blood!

Rejoice that we get to read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest His word!

Rejoice, and let this time be the sweetest of time in the week, not a time of rote duty that you just need to get through, but rejoice and be glad for it, for this time is a gift.

My friends – if it were not enough that we were distractible beings, be aware that the devil will stoke up our distractions. I have found in my worship – private and public that so often errant thoughts wander in. Be on guard against this – let us learn and pray that we are daily loving God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Let us learn to be given deeper and more intimate to worship.

 

The next part of his condemnation is that the rich were cheating to get richer – he notes that they make their ephah small and their shekels great. An ephah was not small – in fact it was 22 liters, while a shekel was quite small at 2/5^th of an ounce. So, they were misleading about volumes and worth to make more money. We are called and charged be honest in all matters, including matters of money.

Next they were selling the poor for silver – there was a system in biblical times of indentured servitude. Do not confuse this with slavery, either of our country’s past, nor of what is being described here. This was designed to allow people to work off their debts they had for a season and in exchange the worker would be provided for and their debt forgiven. However, here we learn that people were actually being bought, sold, and traded.

 

So, judgment comes. As I was reading this passage I found myself confused by this statement that God swore “by the pride of Jacob.” I thought – what in the world does this mean. As I read, I came to realize – this in and of itself was a judgment on them. It was an ironic statement, God normally swears by his name, or himself – but here he swears by his rebellious people. So little regard did they have for God that knowing this, God swears by them and not himself!. They viewed themselves as gods.

The first two judgments are an earthquake and darkness. Take note that these the same two judgments that take place at the crucifixion of Christ. Although the world may spin into darkness, we never lose hope for we always have Christ by our side.

Let us also remember that our tendency is to want to be comfortable. However, it is in the discomfort and adversity that we draw closer to God and grow ever more dependent upon him.

With these two truths in mind, let us thing about an event from this past week where a politician made a rather shocking and unsettling statement about churches and taxes. We can, for a moment, ignoring the blatantly unconstitutionality of what he said, recognize that it was alarming, to say the least.

It would be easy after a statement like this to stoke the fear of people, and many have, but let us instead seek to comfort one another. We are promised that persecution will come,  and that in adversity the church will flourish and so news of the possibility of persecution should not overwhelm us with fear.

But more than that, we are not called to stoke fear. Rather we are called to love. St. John tells us in his first epistle that love drives out fear. So instead of worrying, instead of being scared – let love dictate how we live, and not fear. Do not be afraid though the ground may tremble and the darkness may fall – whether that be metaphorically or literally. For judgment will come, and the world will tremble, but Christ is with us to the end.

 

Now we get to the third judgment – these are the hardest words – for in that third judgment a spiritual famine comes.

I have found as I’ve grown in Christ, observed the world we live in, and talked with people that sin compounds. It grows inexplicably greater, once one is given over to it, the growth is explosive and people become numb to its effects.

St. Paul talks about this in his letter to the Romans, he tells the readers that those who chose licentiousness grow worse and worse. So it is with sin – but Paul’s words and the words of Amos beg the question: does God turn us over to it, or do we just dive deeper and deeper?

I think both – when we choose a sinful life style we end up getting sucked into this unending pit until we can no longer hear God. It is both a direct result of us turning our back on God and God’s judgment upon us.

Our reading ends this morning with the bleakness of the Word of God going silent for God’s people as they chose their sin over revelation from God. I do not want us to end in hopelessness so let us turn to Amos’s ending – which is a promise of restoration, he writes:

 In that day I will raise up

    the booth of David that is fallen

and repair its breaches,

    and raise up its ruins

    and rebuild it as in the days of old,

and again:

I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

    and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.

 

My friends – though we may have sinned, though we have fallen, though our hearts and minds may have wandered from the living Lord – take heart – he his rebuilding us. In Christ we are being made new, in Christ we are being made spiritually rich. Do not grow dismayed that the world around us trembles, do not be dismayed that there seems to be an impending spiritual darkness, but cling to Christ and learn to make him the center of your life, let Him saturate all that you do – all your thoughts, words, and deeds, for he died to set us free from our sins, and in Him we are made children of God. Let us therefore reflect the love that Christ has for us in how we interact with the world.

In the name of the Father, and t

On Angels and Demons