There is a wish to cut and paste the flawed Republican candidates’ strengths into a composite nominee: Romney’s sobriety, Santorum’s conviction, Paul’s sense of outrage over debt, and Gingrich’s glib lectures about civilization—while pruning away their unique defects: Santorum’s self-righteousness, Paul’s otherworldliness, Romney’s Tom Dewey/George H.W. Bush patrician woodenness, and Newt’s tom-foolery.

Santorum and Paul cannot beat Obama. Romney is still the most likely to make it a close race; Gingrich possibly to win by a wider margin — or, more likely, to lose by an even wider one.

We are in for a rough ride, indeed.

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I. THE LEPER.

“LORD, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” Great is the intelligence and faith of the applicant. For he did not break in upon the discourse, nor interrupt the audience, but awaited the fitting time, and approached Jesus when He had come down. And he supplicates Him, not carelessly, but even with great fervour, and kneeling before Him, as another Evangelist says, and with genuine faith and a right opinion about Jesus. For he said not, ” If Thou wilt ask it of God,” or, “If Thou wilt pray,” but, “If Thou wilt.” Nor did he say, ” Lord, cleanse me;” but commits to Him the whole matter, and makes Him the disposer of his cure, and bears witness to the plenitude of His authority. If the opinion of the leper had been erroneous, Jesus ought to have confuted it, and reproved him, and set him right. Did He then do so? Not at all; quite the contrary. He even confirms and ratifies what was said: therefore He said not, ” Be thou cleansed,” but, “I will, be thou cleansed.” Not so the Apostles; when the whole people were amazed, they said, “Why do ye fix your attention on us, as though by our own power or authority we had made him to walk ?” But the Master, although He often spoke, with great modesty, what fell short of His own glory, in order to confirm His dogmas, here, when men were astonished at His authority, says, “I will, be thou cleansed.” Further, He extended His hand and touched him; to indicate, as I think, that He was above the law, and not beneath it, and that, thenceforward, to the pure nothing was impure. For His hand was not made unclean by the leprosy, but the leprous body became pure from the touch of His holy hand. St. Chrysostom, Hom. xxv. on St. Matthew.

Do you ever wonder why some people have zero interest in God, zero interest in Jesus, zero interest in the Gospel or in what the Bible has to say?  It’s because until we’re born again, we’re of the world, not of God’s kingdom.  If the only birth you’ve experienced is the birth of the flesh, then you’re of the flesh.  You’re not only not part of God’s kingdom, but you’re actually an enemy of his kingdom by birth.  Ephesians reminds us that before we were born again, we were spiritually dead.  Life only comes as Jesus calls us to himself like he called into the tomb to Lazarus.  The only way we can be “of the Spirit”, the only way we’ll ever understand or identify with the things of the kingdom is to experience spiritual new birth through the power of Jesus’ own Spirit.

Think of Nicodemus.  This was a man who had spent his life studying, learning, and even memorising the Scriptures.  He lived his whole life according to them and in devotion to what he thought they taught him about God, and yet when he was face to face with the Messiah, when Jesus told him that he must be born again, he couldn’t wrap his mind around any of it.  I’ve known lots of people like that.  I’ve known Bible scholars and bishops who know the Bible, but they don’t really knowit, because they don’t know Jesus and because he hasn’t’ given them a new heart and a new mind to see and to understand.  In 1 Corinthians 2:14 St. Paul tells us: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”  This is why there’s no other way into the kingdom than the new birth.

But, brothers and sisters, as much as we need to understand the necessity of new birth, we also need to understand something else Jesus stresses here: the new birth is the supernatural work of God.  How many people here were born the first time of their own will and on their own power?  No.  None of us is here on our own power.  We’re here because of our mothers and fathers.  In much the same way, we can only be born again on our Heavenly Father’s initiative.  We can’t do it on our own.  No one enters the kingdom based on his own effort or his own initiative.  We enter only on the merits of Jesus and we can only come when Jesus himself calls us and when his Spirit has done the work of changing our hearts.

To a large extent this is why examining oneself for spiritual fruit is so important – because if one has zero interest in the things of God, it is quite likely he or she is not of God.   And Scripture commands us to make our calling and election sure. (2 Peter 1:10)  Fr. Bill goes on to provide some helpful applications in the rest of the sermon, and if you’d like to hear it, you can find the audio here.

Bishop Colin Buchanan wrote in his “Is the Church of England Biblical” that:

The overt sixteenth century Anglican presuppositions here are threefold:
1 Scripture has a discoverable and trustworthy meaning;
2 the individual minister at least has to let that meaning impose itself on him;
3 that meaning has to be taught to the lay people.

These are not bad presuppositions for us now in our day.