The Rev. Samuel Edwards: Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity
From the Rev. Samuel Edwards of the Anglican Church of the Holy Comforter in Alabama, here is his sermon for this past Sunday:
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (2006)
And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. [Luke 19:41-42]
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
The events recorded in today’s Gospel take place on the first Palm Sunday. Jesus is on the approach road to Jerusalem. Just before he sends his disciples to find the colt on which he will ride into the city, he tells his followers the parable of the talents [Luke 19:12-27]. You will remember that in this story, two of the three servants to whom their lord entrusts his money use it to increase his wealth, while the third, who is afraid of him and of failing, doesn’t even try: He simply hides his portion and gives it back to his master unused. His lord condemns his faintheartedness and takes the talent from him and gives it to a servant who has already received – and used – what he was given for the purpose for which it was given to him. The master says that, “to him who has will more be given, but to him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
If we keep this in mind, it will illuminate what happens next: In the midst of the rejoicing procession in which the crowd hails Jesus as the King who comes in the Name of the Lord and strews his way with branches and with their cloaks, Jesus looks at Jerusalem and weeps over it. This seems an odd thing to do in that context. But it isn’t, for he alone in all the multitude sees what is ahead for the city, and why. It will be laid flat within the lifetimes of many in that same crowd, and the Temple that was in it has not to this day been rebuilt. The reason for this is that it does not know the things which make for its peace – it is more concerned with its own physical preservation than with becoming the light to the nations which it is called to be. It does not know the time of its visitation – which is this very day. Focused on itself, it not only fails to recognize, but before the week is out, it will have done to death its true king.
The lack of knowledge of which Jesus speaks is not a lack of book learning. Of that Jerusalem had plenty. Instead, it is the ability to see how what is taught in the books – in this case the Book – applies to how we conduct ourselves in our daily living. The lack of knowledge that brings Jesus to tears is not so much the ignorance of the untutored masses, but the foolishness of those who were held to be wise, especially in their own eyes. Being intimately acquainted with the laws that govern the behavior of human beings, Jesus knows that within five decades this failure of vision will bring catastrophe upon Jerusalem and death or generations-long exile to its people. Who would not weep in such a case, for what is so sad as divine giftedness that falls short of its promise, and for whom is it so sad as a member of the people who come so close but don’t quite make it? What is so repetitive a component of human history?
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been.”[John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller]
The fall of Jerusalem that Jesus foresees will not be the first time it has happened: We first hear of Jerusalem in the story of Abraham, and apparently it is at that time a site of the worship of the true God. Melchizedek, the “priest of God Most High,” meets Abraham when he is returning from his great victory over five kings, and offers sacrifice and Abraham gives him a tenth of all the spoil. But by the time of the Exodus, the city has become a site for the worship of pagan deities. It finally falls to David – the last of the Caananite cities to be conquered – and again becomes the site of the worship of the one true God. But over time, heathenism and compromise creep back in and the people are corrupted and God gives them into the hands of the Babylonian king, who breaks down the walls and destroys the Temple and takes the people into exile. There they stay until Babylon falls and the Persians allow them to return and rebuild the walls and the Temple. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson.
God has renewed his grant to his people of a place where he will make his presence to abide, so that it may be a house of prayer for all peoples, a place for them to draw strength for their mission to be a light to the nations, yet now they have allowed it to become a den of thieves and a salon for self-congratulation. Jesus goes into the Temple this day and drives out the corrupt bargainers and their clientele. Sadly, it is very probable that a week later most of them were back, snickering over the antics of that madman who was now (so they thought) safely dead and buried, having gone and got himself crucified by the Romans.
It must be that the inspiration by which, centuries ago, the compilers of our lectionary yoked this Gospel with its accompanying Epistle contained within it the intention that we understand the one in light of the other: Paul speaks to us in his letter of divine gifts. He is surely aware of the tears of Jesus shed over that most divinely gifted of cities that would not use its gifts for the purpose for which they were given. Just as surely he is mindful of the warning in the parable of the talents that he who will not use the gifts his master gives him will see them taken away from him and given to another who has not allowed his faith to be trumped by his fears.
Paul begins by telling us how to recognize the difference between authentic and fraudulent spiritual gifts: No one, he says, who speaks by the Spirit of God, can contradict or distort the teaching of the Lord Jesus, so if someone is doing that, it is some other spirit that is speaking by him. In the same way, no one can recognize the Lordship of Christ without the operation of the Holy Spirit in him.
One implication of this is that, though there are many sorts of gifts, they all come from one Source – the Holy Spirit who makes present Christ, the perfect Image of the Father . They are also directed toward one objective, which is the good of all. He lists a number of these gifts without implying either that the list is comprehensive or that everyone gets just one of them. Indeed, one person may receive five talents, another three, another one. What Paul clearly does teach is that these gifts are necessary for the full health of the communion of faith in all its expressions, from the Christian family and the local congregation to the Church in its universal _expression. They are not the property of the recipients, but the material of their stewardship, held in trust under God for the benefit of the whole body in the accomplishment of its mission.
For that body has a purpose beyond its own mere survival – a threefold purpose for whose accomplishment the gifts are given to its members. At every level, it exists to worship God in Spirit and in truth, to provide an environment in which its members are brought to holiness, and to bring into the common life in Christ those who are as yet outside of it and who, if they remain outside of it are in peril of their lives to the degree of eternity. At every level, the Spirit of God endows it with the gifts necessary to fulfill its purpose in the environment in which it is set. The challenge for the members of the body comes in keeping their minds clear, their eyes open, and their ears attentive, for if they do not put these gifts to use they are at risk of becoming complacent about the gifts and possessive of them.
If that happens, they are liable to have their gifts taken away and bestowed upon others whose pedigree may not be so impressive in their own eyes and in those of the world, but who also have not grown so dull and blind and hard of hearing. When that happens, the tears of Jesus flow – tears not of frustration (for his purpose cannot be unfulfilled), but of sorrow for those who cannot partake of its fruit only because they will not. (“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not.” [Luke 13:34]) It is at such times that the severe mercy of him who entered the temple and cast out its corrupters may yet again be inflicted upon his church in hope that some of them, at least, may yet be awakened from their sleep, know the time of his visitation, and seek his face.
Many of us here have seen this sort of thing happen in our own lifetimes and in our own church tradition. In very truth, many of us are here and not elsewhere because it has happened. But in equal truth, so long as we are in this flesh, we are at risk of having the same things happen to us as happened to those from whom we came out. None of us is immunized by simple membership against the complacency about and misdirected possessiveness toward God’s gifts that have brought low so many from the time of Abraham until now. If we succumb to such attitudes, and remain in them, there is but one guaranteed outcome: “Thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”
The only remedy against this – or, if the consequences are already in operation, the only medicine against mortality – is grounded in that grace that ever seeks entry even when we bar the door of our hearts against it, that pursues us even if we flee from it, that we can escape only by denying both it and ourselves. What makes possible the reception of that grace is an attitude of faith, repentance, charity, and thanksgiving. The simple appointed means through which we receive it are soon to be set before us. By the grace of him who in these his holy gifts gives us his own life, may we so take them as truly to receive them and so be built as living stones of the Temple not made with hands, whose foundation is the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
I’d say Fr. Edwards’ statement about the purpose of the Church is something worth remembering: “For that body has a purpose beyond its own mere survival – a threefold purpose for whose accomplishment the gifts are given to its members. At every level, it exists to worship God in Spirit and in truth, to provide an environment in which its members are brought to holiness, and to bring into the common life in Christ those who are as yet outside of it and who, if they remain outside of it are in peril of their lives to the degree of eternity.” May we all seek to fulfill this “threefold purpose” in our churches and in our own lives.
