The Rev. Robert Hart on hearing the Word (2 Cor. 11:19-31, Luke 8:4-15)
For the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the Rev. Robert Hart of the Continuum blog posted this sermon for Sexagesima that I thought made several important points on the need for our truly hearing the Word preached to us. This sermon is based on 2 Corinthians 11:19-31 and Luke 8:4-15, and I will simply quote one brief excerpt on the need for believers as well as nonbelievers to truly hear the Word preached:
You see, the people who need to hear are not only those outside the Church, yet to become believers. Everyone needs to hear the word of God. It is the seed that has that power we call life; that power that alone can grow and bear fruit. If conversion were as simple as a one-time decision, this parable would have a very limited application. But, conversion (though often including a major life changing epiphany), involves for most of us a lifetime of turning every day away from sin and darkness to God and His light.
The words that our Lord Jesus spoke, in concert with all His prophets who had come before Him, had more to do with hearing than with listening. Without the grace of God, we cannot hear His word.
Fr. Hart is very much correct in what he goes on to say in the rest of the sermon: that we must pray for the Lord to give us understanding when we hear His word preached to us, and this in turn requires humility. All in all this is a most powerful message, and a timely one for this season.
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The Ven. Dr. James T. Payne: “The last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 19)
Here is another Septuagesima sermon, this one by the Ven. Dr. James T. Payne of St. Thomas of Canterbury REC in Texas, and titled The last will be first, and the first will be last. This is an excellent sermon on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, for Dr. Payne has some good insights into what being saved by grace means for us in this world:
And what if we are saved, not by merit, but by grace.
This is the fundamental truth grasped anew by Luther and Calvin and the Anglican Divines during the Reformation. We are saved not by works, not by our merit, but by God’s grace.
So if its not about us, and not about what we do, but about what God does then the story is about how God’s generosity reigns supreme. The Kingdom of God is not a meritocracy, it is a grace-tocacy.
The disciples didn’t get it, this grace-tocracy. So they jockeyed for position and tried to earn Jesus’ favor. They hadn’t quite grasped the non-logical love of grace.
Mature Christianity is knowing that we don’t earn or deserve what God has given us. We don’t worry about someone “getting away with something” or getting more than they deserve, for we ourselves are getting away with something and getting more than we deserve. How joyful life becomes when you understand that in this world salvation is a gift, not a reward for work well done.
In this world of grace, we strive not to out-pace others, but to serve others.
To assume that God owes us more is to assume that we are more worthy than others. But in fact, we may have just been blessed sooner than others. In that we have been relieved sooner of our fears, anxieties and guilt. Is this not a reward and a blessing?
Someone coming to Christ late in life has not “gotten away with something” they have lived a life without the peace and assurance that comes from a covenant relationship with God.
We can jockey for position and crawl over others as we wrestle to what (we think) is the top, or we can remember God’s generosity, remember that all we have is a gift from God, remember that the Lord has personally called each of us into a life-giving relationship with Himself.
I suppose we could say that if God owes us nothing and all we have is a gift from Him, we should simply be thankful for what He gives us rather than being envious of what we perceive others to have been given, as well. “All is grace”, as some say!
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From Charles Colson comes a video that perhaps we should all think about at this time in history. In this video, we see Chuck Colson describing how the greengrocers in Czechoslovakia were forced into a lie. Defeating the false promises of communism in Czechoslovakia required the same fortitude and determination as it will for Christians to defeat the Great Lie today. Watch the video and see what Colson calls “The Great Lie”; I cannot disagree with him at all.
Tonight I came across an book available to read online by Bishop A. P. Forbes, who was Bishop of Brechin in the Scottish Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century – An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles. This text is interesting to me, I suppose, because Bishop Forbes was one of the Tractarians and was an associate of Pusey, Newman and Keble. Hence I found it not surprising that this particular book reminds me of Tract 90 by Newman to some extent. It does give an idea of where the Tractarians were on the Thirty-Nine Articles at this time (the book was published in 1871 (and is dedicated to none other than Pusey!)
If you like to think about how some elements of the Church of England evolved over the course of the nineteenth century, this book is interesting.
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A remarkable sermon for Septuagesima, The Pierced Soul from the Rev. Dr. S. Randall Toms of St. Paul’s REC in Louisiana, has a great deal of meaning for this season of the Church Year. In this sermon, based on Luke 2:22-40, Fr. Toms, takes the prophecy of Simeon that Mary’s heart would be pierced (which most assuredly was fulfilled) and points out that our hearts should be pierced as well:
But most of all, our souls should be pierced when we gaze upon the cross and realize that it was our sins that placed him on that cross. During this Lenten season of the year, we engage in a great deal of self-examination. We examine ourselves in the light of the Ten Commandments and see how we have broken the law of God. We look at our Lord’s teaching on the sermon on the mount and other places in Scripture and see all the ways in which we have failed to live up to God’s holy standard. We take down our devotional books that describe for us how to examine ourselves during this time of year, and we see that, both inwardly and outwardly, we have broken God’s holy law. Since we have broken God’s holy law, we deserve judgment and condemnation. But our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross take our judgment and condemnation away from us by suffering in our place. During this Lenten season, when our sins are revealed to us in such a powerful way, our hearts should be pierced when we realize that those sins we committed made the cross necessary. Our sins pierced the Son of God just as surely as the spear of the Roman soldier. If we realize that our sins pierced him, then surely our souls should be pierced. In Rev. 1:7 we read, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” Of course, there were those such as the leaders of Rome and the Jewish religious leaders who were directly responsible for piercing him, but the truth is that we all pierced him. When we realize that we pierced him, then we are pierced, and like the women gathered around the cross, we lament those sins that placed him on the cross.
But though our souls will be pierced during this Lenten season, the great grief will be turned into joy. Mary’s soul was pierced as she saw her son hanging on the cross, but three days later, her Son came forth from the tomb, victorious over sin and death. Though our souls are pierced because we realize our sins placed him on the cross, we realize that the cross has taken away the wrath due to our sin. On Tuesday, we celebrate the day that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple to offer those sacrifices. But what we are really celebrating is that Jesus took away the need for those sacrifices ever to be repeated. He, once for all, became the burnt offering and the sin offering. He took the place of the lambs, the pigeons, and all the other animals that were sacrificed in order that people might be purified. Jesus Christ, the first born of the father, gave himself as our Passover lamb, and now his blood, sprinkled on the doorposts of our hearts saves us from the wrath of God. As we come to celebrate the sacrament of Holy Communion, our souls are pierced because we realize as we humbly kneel here that our sins made his death necessary; but we are comforted by feeding on his body and blood, for we know that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, those sins that put him on the cross.
As Scripture tells us, by His stripes we are healed – and so His sufferings during that time are the remedy for sin-sick souls. This is another first-rate sermon by Fr. Toms – please read it all!
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Since I’ve mentioned my own perception that we don’t have many sermons on the Old Testament in our churches, I’d like to mention that there are three audio message s on the First Book of Chronicles by the Rev. Brian Elfick of St. Andrew the Great in the United Kingdom now available. These sermons give us a look at the first nine chapters of that book, and Rev. Elfick draws excellent points from these passages:
- Who do you think you are? (1 Chronicles 1:1-9:34)
- The unstoppable might of God’s king (1 Chronicles 9:35-12:40)
- True worship (1 Chronicles 13:1-16:43)
If you are looking for some thoughts on these passages of Scripture, these are worth your time!
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From The Falls Church in Virginia, here is an excellent audio sermon by the Rev. Dr. John Yates, titled A Big Gospel for a Big World. This sermon is based on John 20:19-23, and Rev. Yates has a lot to say about missions as this is part of a series on that subject. He also says that this passage is about:
- peace (for Jesus tells His disciples “Peace” twice, and in fact He has just been crucified and resurrected to give them just that – peace with God);
- power (for He tells them to “Receive the Holy Spirit”) and
- purpose (to be used by God to proclaim the message of the Gospel and forgiveness of sins to all)
But there is much more to this sermon and Rev. Yates has some tremendous insights into the Great Commission – see what you think.
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From the Rev. Roger Salter of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church near Birmingham, here is a meditation titled “Look Upon Our Infirmities” which is based in large part on the Collect for the Third Sunday after Epiphany:
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Rev. Salter, as you will see, quotes quite a bit from the Scriptures in this meditation to help us see how the Lord has promised He will sustain us in our helplessness:
The French Old Testament scholar Edmond Jacob contends that the basic biblical affirmation about man concerns his inherent feebleness as a creature. James Edmeston the hymnwriter makes the same admission, “All our weakness thou dost know”. The Scriptures lament that we are but mere “flesh” in contrast to the powerful and enduring “spirit” nature of the Lord. Frailty is written into our constitution. We are notoriously vulnerable in so many ways. Our limitations are soon discovered. Our capacities, mental and physical, are quickly exhausted, and our energies rapidly depleted. The Book of Job arrives at this verdict, “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; he flees like a shadow and does not continue” (14:1-2). It is no wonder that the contemporary version of the collect pleads with the God upon whom we rely, “Mercifully look upon our weaknesses”. Elsewhere the Prayer Book supplements this request with similar recognition of our dependence, “Lord God, the strength of all who put their trust in you, mercifully accept our prayers; and, because through the weakness of our human nature we cannot do anything good without you, grant us the help of your grace . . .” (Trinity 1). “Keep us, we pray, under the protection of your good providence . . .” (Trinity 2). “Lord God, the protector of all who trust in you, and without whom nothing is strong or holy . . . “(Trinity 4), and so on. Throughout the classic Cranmerian manual of Augustinian doctrine and devotion (BCP 1662) the helplessness of man without divine aid, physically, mentally, and spiritually, is stated repeatedly. Our very evident puniness is the obvious incentive for calling upon the divine power continually. We were made to be upheld and sustained by God in everything. “Listen to me . . . you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and will carry you: I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:3-4).
Often our innate weakness is denied or hidden. We endeavour to counter it with feats of strength or accomplishment to repudiate the fact. We blush at our inabilities and conceal our inadequacies. Nothing is more frustrating or humiliating than to find that we are hindered or rendered impotent by so many restrictions of mind and body – the problem that confounds, and the performance that proves impossible. Many skills and superior strength are not at our command. Our faculties weary under intense exertion or stress, and our physical frame collapses under the strain of extreme exercise. However we may compare ourselves with others of our kind our feebleness as a species is apparent. No doubt the largest lies that we succumb to are the myths of our self-sufficiency and feeling of indestructibility. We are shocked when our heroes fail or suddenly fade away. But life is transient and even those with the strongest constitution tend to wilt under trial. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall” (Isaiah 39:30).
The honesty of the Bible is amazing and appealing. Its candour and impartiality is a mark of its divinity. The Lord’s servants are never idealized. God’s mightiest men and most noble representatives had their glaring weaknesses and proved to be of mere flesh and blood like ourselves. Their strength lay in the call of God, total reliance, and close obedience. Samson’s physical power and prowess were only equivalent to those of ordinary men when he foolishly permitted his hair to be clipped in contravention of the condition governing his exceptional strength (Judges 16:17). Moses wavered in firmness when supporting Israel in battle with the staff of victory (Exodus 17: 8-16) and sinned under provocation when the people murmured (Numbers 20). David sinned grievously when lured by temptation and committed murder and adultery (2 Samuel 11 &12). Noah lapsed into drunkenness (Genesis 9: 20-21). Hezekiah fell prey to pride (2 Chronicles 32: 24-26). The same king needed a sign to support waning faith (2 Kings 20: 8-11), as did Gideon (Judges 6: 36-40. Elijah caved into despair and resentment (1 Kings 19: 3-50). Abraham’s distinctive exercise of faith was seriously interrupted in the face of certain crises that threatened his safety (Genesis 12: 10-13& ch 20). Great biblical figures evidenced great fallibility at crucial points in their lives when virtue or constancy were necessary but their deviance was designed to disclose the foibles and fickleness of human nature and the need for divine intervention to put and keep things right. The lesson of the Bible, summed up in the attitude of Jesus, is that man is not to be trusted and will only disappoint, and that only God is absolutely reliable. “But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in man.”
The fact and felt presence of our weakness ought to have several effects within us and in the way we deport ourselves in daily life. It ought to establish a humble demeanour before God and man. God knows our feebleness exhaustively, and it doesn’t take long for folk to discover our feet of clay, feet that soon protrude from beneath any cloak of pretence or protectiveness. We all display a different persona in our unguarded private life. Our weakness ought to keep us constantly reliant upon God. Confidence and competence fluctuate and may completely dissolve under certain conditions. The mind is extremely delicate and passes through its various seasons. It can be easily troubled or tilted off balance. Exceptionally gifted persons have been rendered ineffective and unproductive by negative suggestions or incidents. We function, even at the most basic levels, only through the favour of God upon us and his breath and energy within us. Our weakness ought to keep us sensitive and compassionate toward others. Sin is never to be condoned, and we are never exempted from the condemnation we ourselves level against it – a tendency we have when we observe it in others. But human infirmities ought to attract our sympathy and supportive endeavour. Our afflictions and addictions, our confusion and delusions, our fears and anxieties, our quirks and constrictions, our awkwardnesses, handicaps, and annoying traits are symptomatic of a fundamental disease that infects every human heart and haunts every mind. We lost our soul-health when we abandoned God and all of us have our ills as a consequence. We are culpable as rebels, and invalids as a result of self-imposed injury. Pity ought to be mutual and generous among us.
The grace of God is utterly sovereign, undeserved, and uncaused outside of the divine determinations, and yet we see a bias in the Lord towards the helpless and the afflicted because of the leaning of his nature towards kindness. It is the way he chooses to be. We see how he kindles this kindness in human hearts even when judgment is deserved and suffering ensues. Our weakness, Edmond Jacob opines, is surely what moves God to pity, and surely Jacob’s sentiment is sound. We are errant but his care is not erased in spite of our disobedience and recalcitrance. Our badness does not, and cannot, defeat his goodness. God is compassionate; “He forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return” (Psalm 78:38-39). Even when we are aroused by righteous anger (do we check that it is?) we must remember that, “ ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Only his vengeance is fair and proportionate. When we are oppressed with the strongest sense of our weakness we may take courage in the truth that the Lord’s compassion is abundant. “Mercy triumphs over judgment!”
That is an interesting point: that His vengeance is fair and proportionate – but His grace is through no merit of our own. All the more reason to be deeply thankful to Him who delivers and sustains us.
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From the good people of Jesmond Parish Church in the United Kingdom, here is a sermon on another book of Scripture we don’t often hear about – the Book of Judges. This message is titled The Kindness and Severity of God and is by Mr. Ramzi Adcock. This message is based on Judges 10, and Mr. Adcock talks about these three aspects of God that are shown us in this passage:
- A God who is Jealous and Angry
- A God who says “No”
- A God who helps those who do not deserve it
These are certainly not things we hear every day, particularly when we don’t always study the Old Testament – so this sermon may be something of an eyeopener for some of us. But Mr. Adcock in this sermon affirms a Biblical view of idolatry, for example, in the first of these headings:
So, what is God teaching us about Himself? God is jealous and angry when his people serve false gods instead of him – this is still true today.
Serving false gods is the spiritual equivalent of adultery and is called idolatry. The idea of idols may seem weird to us making us think of little wooden statues and incense sticks etc. For example, the god of the Ammonites mentioned in v6 was Molech and worshipping him involved killing children. Our issue may not be serving Molech, but we are still guilty of idolatry. We need to recognise what our own idols are.
We depend on idols to give us what we want – to be all that God is – in control of our lives and powerful. We look for fulfilment in things around us, wanting to be served, live in comfort and worshipped by those close to us. Our idols are the things we depend on or trust in to give us this.
It follows therefore that idols aren’t always things that are inherently bad. However, if we rely on these things for fulfilment or to try and take control of our lives, rather than trusting God, they become idols. For example money, cars or houses can be a way to gain god-like power. Our career, education or our success in areas such as sports can be a way to gain god-like control in our lives. Our family or our friends or our boyfriend or girlfriend may be how we seek god-like fulfilment or acceptance. Or sex, drugs, TV can be what we depend on for comfort and god-like freedom from responsibility, suffering and stress.
By following after things other than God for fulfilment, control or power we reject God as rightful ruler of our lives and we turn our dependence from Him onto other things. This makes God both angry and jealous, resulting in God’s punishment – in this world as we face the consequences of living a life our own way and after we die. God has not changed from the Old Testament and his anger is the same today as it was for the Israelites.
Sin was, and is, taken so seriously by God that it angers him and unless we take it seriously, we will try to treat God as a useful friend, forgetting he deserves our worship and forgetting that he is a God who is jealous and angry.
Jesus is God and so he showed us the same thing. Throughout his life, he taught that we have turned away from God, are spiritually dead and belong to the devil. We are taught that this leads to eternal punishment and no one in the Bible spoke more often, or more frightfully, about hell than Jesus.
Note that Ramzi Adcock goes on to talk about the grace of God in this sermon – and yes, it is indeed revealed in the Old Testament! And as his graphic below shows, it is available to those who repent. This is definitely a sermon worth reading!
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From the Rev. Charles Camlin of Holy Trinity REC in Virginia comes another excellent sermon, The Image of God. This sermon was preached for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, and is based on Genesis 1:26-28. Like other sermons we have seen for that Sunday, we hear in this sermon a clear pro-life message, and after all, that is one very clear implication for us in what Scripture tells us about each of us being created in God’s image. But Fr. Camlin also goes on to talk about the image of God in four aspects:
- the image of God at Creation;
- the image of God after the Fall of man;
- the image of God in Jesus Christ; and
- the image of God in redemption.
This is what he tells us about the image of God in our redemption:
So that leaves us with how this true image of God is restored in us. Jesus Christ came as the Second Adam to re-form and re-establish a new humanity in Himself. St. Paul, in his great chapter on the resurrection of Jesus Christ says this: “And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”
The culmination of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ is that we might be made like Him. In the incarnation, He becomes the New Man and is also the model for a renewed humanity. And He has poured out His Spirit on those who belong to Him. So now we who have put on Christ are daily being renewed. We are being formed and fashioned into His image. The Apostle says this: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
So we have seen that in the beginning, God created man in His own image. Man was endowed with great gifts by His Creator. However, man rebelled against God’s explicit command and this brought sin and death into the world. The image of God was marred or warped. Left to his own devices, man would have spiraled into complete degradation. But God would not let that happen to His good creation. He sent forth His Son to take up human nature. The image of the invisible God became man. He came and refashioned God’s image in man. And now man, by God’s grace through His Spirit, is being re-formed and re-shaped into the true image of God—the likeness of Jesus Christ.
This is indeed part and parcel of our salvation: our being conformed into the imago Dei, through the grace of God. There is a lot more in this sermon – please read it all.
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