Free the Iranian people
Support the people of Iran as they struggle to win an election and oppose those who would subvert any chance for democracy and human rights in Iran.Having read some rather discouraging economic news over the last few days, I had hoped we might be receiving better reports soon – but Brown Manure, Not Green Shoots by Dr. Nouriel Roubini in Forbes magazine is quite pessimistic. For example, he thinks real estate prices have further to fall:
Home prices have already fallen from their peak by about 30%. Based on my analysis, they are going to fall by at least 40% from their peak, and more likely 45%, before they bottom out. They are still falling at an annualized rate of over 18%. That fall of at least 40%-45% percent of home prices from their peak is going to imply that about half of all households that have a mortgage–about 25 million of the 51 million that have mortgages–are going to be underwater with negative equity and will have a significant incentive to walk away from their homes.
If I am reading this right, Dr. Roubini thinks real estate prices will fall another 10-15% from where they now are. That is certainly not going to help the economy recover. This is a pretty interesting article – see what you think.
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From the Rev. Johann Vanderbijl of the Anglican Church of St. George the Martyr in South Carolina, here is another excellent sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, based on Romans 8:18-23 and Luke 6:36-42, and titled Our Only Hope:
Psalm 91; Romans 8:18-23; St. Luke 6:36-42
Our Only Hope
In the 2008 movie “Doubt”, Father Brendan Flynn confronts the rumors about his alleged misconduct with a young boy being spread by a nun with an attitude by telling a story on the topic of gossip. A parishioner went to her priest for confession. One of the sins she confessed was the sin of gossip. As part of her penance, the priest told her to go home, take one of her best feather pillows as well as a large and sharp knife, to go to the top of her apartment building and to then stab and gut the pillow with the knife. Once she had done this, she was to come back to him. A while later she returned having done what he had told her to do. And when he asked her what had happened she described how, when she gutted the pillow with the sharp knife, the feathers blew everywhere and anywhere the wind took them. When he then told her to go back to retrieve every one of those feathers she protested and said it wasn’t possible, as she had no idea where all the feathers had gone. “That,” the priest replied, “is gossip.”
Now, this is a very powerful description of the uncontrollable nature of gossip, don’t you think? A little story, seemingly innocently whispered in the ear of another, becomes a deluge of feathers blowing in the wind…and the damage is irreversible and the words irretrievable. But isn’t every sin we commit against our fellow human beings like that? What we say and what we do is irrevocable. Once we have spoken that unkind word…once we have made that snide remark…once we have sullied another’s reputation…once we have committed a wrong…we simply cannot withdraw it…it is there…it is permanent…it is irremovable.
Our only hope then is forgiveness…that whoever we have wronged would free us from the guilt that is ours (whether we acknowledge that guilt or not) by forgiving us. But isn’t that the essence of the message of the Gospel? Since the Fall, every one of us is in need of forgiveness because every one of us has sinned. And therefore, forgiveness should come easily to those of us who really understand that we, ourselves, have been forgiven. The guiding principle of our daily conduct should be that the one we profess to follow loved us so much that He willingly laid down His life for us while we were still His enemies…and consequently, we must strive to do the same.
It is for this reason that Jesus can demand from us, His followers, that we not only love those who love us, but that we love our enemies as well…that we do good to those who hate us…that we bless those who curse us…that we pray for those who spitefully use us. This is why He can expect us to be merciful because He has been merciful to us. This is why He can command us not to judge others as if we are above or beyond judgment ourselves. This is why we are not to condemn because we ourselves have not been condemned. This is why we can forgive as we know that we have been forgiven…forgiveness is the only way forward as there is no way we can ever undo the wrongs we have done…without forgiveness, we would be at as much of a loss as the woman whose priest told her to gather up every feather from the gutted pillow.
St. Paul picked up on this theme in his Epistle to the Romans. In the chapter just before the one we read from today in our Epistle reading, the Apostle spoke about the despair he experienced with his battle against sin. “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man,” he wrote, “but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Then with a cry of frustration he continued, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” You can hear it, can’t you? How can I ever retrieve all those feathers? How can I ever undo what I have done? How can I be set free from the sins that stand against me accusingly? I…I who have been forgiven for my own wretchedness…I have stood in judgment over and against a fellow forgiven sinner. I who am in need of forgiveness have withheld forgiveness from another. I have slandered another for whom Jesus died. How can I ever undo what I have done? “O wretched man that I am! (O wretched woman! Wretched child!) Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Who? Only Jesus. “I thank God,” St. Paul wrote, “through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Because God chose to forgive us in Jesus, we can be set free…we can be released from the impossible task of re-gathering the wrongs we have done…in Jesus we are given a new, fresh feather pillow…intact and whole…as His broken Body has repaired our brokenness. “If the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” St. Paul said, “He Who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.” Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation…we who are in Jesus have been forgiven…we are free…
But the portion of Romans 8 which we read as our Epistle lesson for today teaches us that this freedom is given even in the midst of suffering and strife and struggle…creation itself was subjected to futility because of the sins of humanity. And so, together with creation, we who have been forgiven…we who have been set free…we who have been given the firstfruits of the Spirit (the guarantee of what is yet to come)…we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the redemption of our body. But until that time, the only hope we have is to be forgiven and therefore, we should be all the more ready to forgive. We have been saved in this hope and should persevere in this hope and live out this hope in the way we conduct ourselves towards our fellow fallen creatures.
Dearest brethren, are there some feathers you have been trying to gather up? Something you said or something you did that caused more damage than you could have imagined? Or perhaps you have just come to realize today how wicked your words or deeds have been…perhaps it has never dawned on you how irreversible your actions really are. How impossible it is to retrace your steps and undo what has been done.
Together with the rest of humanity you too have only one hope…to be forgiven…to be forgiven by our Holy God and to be forgiven by those whom you have wronged. If this is your only hope, would you quit messing with the log in your fellow forgiven sinner’s eye and be merciful…be kind…be loving…be forgiving as you yourself are in need of mercy, kindness, love and forgiveness?
Dearest brethren, the Eucharist teaches us many things…but the primary lesson we must learn and relearn every time we come before our Lord’s Table is the fact that the only hope we have in this life is forgiveness…a forgiveness granted freely to all who accept it in Jesus. But the lesson we all must learn as we leave His Table is that we who have hope because we have been forgiven must extend that same hope to those we meet in a world which remains hopeless without His forgiveness…a world which may learn of His forgiveness only once they have experienced and observed it through us.
© Johann W. Vanderbijl III 2009
I would say this sermon, among other things, is another eloquent reminder of the power of the tongue to harm and destroy. May God help us all to show by our words and deeds that we understand this, and to be able to show, instead of such a power, the Power that can save and give hope.
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From the Rev. Dr. S. Randall Toms of St. Paul’s REC in Louisiana comes a very good sermon on the Parable of the Great Banquet, titled Excuses, Excuses, Excuses. This message is of course based on Luke 14:15-27, and Fr. Toms has some good thoughts on our excuses for sins of omission as well as sins of commission. This portion in particular is really something our culture needs to hear:
There are no good excuses. No one is pointing a good at these people, forcing them to engage in this kind of behavior. Many children have been bullied and never picked up a gun and took revenge. Many people have lived in abject poverty, but never killed a wife and family. Many people have been guilty of injustice, including our Lord Jesus Christ, but did not seek to retaliate. We do these things because deep down inside we want to do them, because we are evil at the core. People want to be vicious and cruel, and they just wait for the opportunity to be so. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people, especially when they lose their tempers and say things they shouldn’t, say, “I’ve been waiting for many years to tell you just what I think of you.” You see, that desire has been there for a long time. All they lacked was the excuse, and they have been eagerly awaiting for that other person to do something so that they could finally pounce. Whenever someone insults another person and the offended party strikes back, you can bank on it—that person has been waiting for that opportunity for a long time, and deep down inside he is so happy he finally got the chance to let loose. Then, we can say to ourselves, “ I’m really a good person deep down inside, but he just pushed me over the brink.” Liar! You did it because you wanted to do it.
Nowadays, with our advanced scientific knowledge, we are excusing all kinds of sinful behavior with the justification that we are just born this way. We are born, biologically, with the tendency to engage in such behaviors, so we shouldn’t say that these behaviors are sinful, because they are just natural. And you know what? I don’t have any argument with them. I think they are right. I think we are all born twisted and perverted. Everybody since Adam, with the exception of our Lord Jesus Christ, was born that way. This is our doctrine of original sin. We are all born with sinful tendencies. Article 9 of our Thirty-nine Articles reads:
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated….”
When you say, “I want to engage in this sinful behavior because it is only natural,” you are right. It is only natural. Ever since the fall of Adam, it has been natural. But the whole point of the gospel is to deliver you from what is “natural,” to give you a new nature that can fight against what you find so natural to do. This is why Christ came into the world. Notice that our Article states that this infection of nature remains even in the regenerate. These tendencies that you find in yourself to do what God’s word forbids continue even in the Christian, and he must fight and struggle against them all the days of his life.
Indeed: if the Apostle Paul struggled against sin (see Romans 7), how much more should we feel the need to war against it every minute of every day? This is another message from Fr. Toms that is worth reading and pondering.
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This video gives political columnist Dr. Charles Krauthammer’s reaction to the news of Sarah Palin’s stepping down as governor of Alaska. To say the least, he is not enthused about her future political prospects:
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In some circles the concept of “the Proverbs 31 woman” is often talked about as a model for women seeking to live a godly life today. As one might hope, the series on the Book of Proverbs being preached by the Rev. Vaughan Roberts of St. Ebbe’s Church, Oxford in the United Kingdom has an audio sermon most relevant to that idea: The Wife of Noble Character. This sermon is based on Proverbs 31:10-31, and I do think you will find this to be a most helpful message indeed.
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Here is a beautiful performance by pianist Yundi Li of this piece by Chopin:
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I am a bit late in posting this, but through 1:00 pm Eastern Time AnglicanTV is broadcasting from the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in London. This can be viewed at this link. This is an event worthy of our prayers and support – please give this a look and see what you think.
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Speaking of our needing to know where our security is, as talked about in the Rev. John Yates’ sermon mentioned in our preceding post: for a good example of how this is relevant now, see The unemployment time bomb is quietly ticking by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. This article in The Telegraph of the U.K. paints a gloomy picture indeed:
The Centre for Labour Market Studies (CLMS) in Boston says US unemployment is now 18.2pc, counting the old-fashioned way. The reason why this does not “feel” like the 1930s is that we tend to compress the chronology of the Depression. It takes time for people to deplete their savings and sink into destitution. Perhaps our greater cushion of wealth today will prevent another Grapes of Wrath, but 20m US homeowners are already in negative equity (zillow.com data). Evictions are running at a terrifying pace.
But I do think the author is hopelessly out of it when he says “We are fortunate that the US has a new president enjoying a great reservoir of sympathy, and a clean-broom Congress.” Come on, now: the Congress of Christopher Dodd, Harry Reid, Harry Byrd and Ted Kennedy is a “clean-broom Congress”? Is something lost in translation between British English and American English?
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From The Falls Church in Virginia, here is an excellent audio sermon by the Rev. John Yates, titled Be Clear Where Your Security Lies. This sermon is based on Luke 18-18-29 and Rev. Yates draws lessons for us from the encounter between Jesus and the “Rich Young Ruler”. This is part of a series on “Money, Things, Security, and Eternity” currently being preached at the Falls Church.
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I continue to be impressed with a series on 1 Corinthians being preached by the Rev. William Klock of Living Word REC in British Columbia. The next in this series, a sermon titled Revealed by the Spirit, is based on 1 Corinthians 2:1-16. Fr. Bill points out one very important aspect of the Holy Spirit’s ministry – counteracting the world’s spirit:
Every one of us starts out under the influence of the world’s spirit. We’re born sinners. We’re born fallen. Everything we do, say, or think is clouded by the sinful spirit of the world. We can never understand God’s wisdom. Consider all those people who read the Bible, but are never saved, who never obey, who misinterpret and misapply what God says there. They’re reading it through worldly eyes and with a worldly mind. But those whom God has called to himself, he has given his Spirit. Why? He gives us his Spirit to regenerate our hearts and renew our minds so that we might freely understand the things he’s given us; that we might see the world around us with new eyes; that we might read his Word with understanding; that we might hear the message of the cross and receive it as wise instead of rejecting it as foolish.
Consider the disciples. Did they take Jesus’ message to heart when they heard it? No. They argued with him. They even got mad at some of the things he said. Right up to Pentecost they kept looking for a Messiah who would be an earthly king. Consider all those Jews who had the Old Testament scriptures in front of them all the time. The scribes and Pharisees who held in their hands God’s Word, inspired by and spoken through men by the Spirit. And yet they were the ones who rejected the Lord Jesus. Consider again all those people in the world today who read and even study Scripture, but still reject Christ and who spend their time coming up with arguments meant to undermine Scripture because they don’t like what it says.
And yet what happens when the Spirit enters them. At Pentecost the Spirit came for the first time and the disciples suddenly understood what the mission and ministry of Jesus were all about. Consider Saul of Tarsus, Pharisees of Pharisees, studied and versed in the Law and ardent persecutor of the Church. And yet when the Spirit came and indwelt him he suddenly understood God’s Word and became the Apostle to the Gentiles. Consider someone like C.S. Lewis: an atheist and harsh critic of Christianity who set out to prove the Bible false. And yet the Spirit fell on him too and gave him understanding, compelling him to put his trust in the very Messiah he had spent his whole life considering to be a fool.
As Fr. Bill has pointed out here, we are basically born spiritually blind, and it is only in the light given by the Holy Spirit that we are able to have “new eyes” that we might see His truth. If you’d like to hear this sermon, you may do so here.
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