Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

As Anglicans in North America we are starting a period of testing. Our efforts at unity will test us in ways many of us have not experienced and they will surely test our commitment, our willingness to live out these two commandments in the life of the Church. Our vertical relations to God and our horizontal relation to man are what will be thoroughly tested in the years ahead. For better or for ill the results of that testing will be seem by the world and reflect on its impression regarding the Christ we claim to serve.

The way we honor each of these commands is, of course, a matter of emphasis because Scripture tells us to break one law is to break the whole of it. Our vertical relations with God directly impact how we deal with our brothers and our horizontal relations with them reflects our relation to God and his Word.

There are several ways we can take care that we are keeping the first commandment in light of some common pitfalls found in American church culture today. By way of illustration, I recently had the pleasure of reading a book entitled, Not A Fan, by Reverend Kyle Idleman the teaching pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky which is the fifth largest congregation in the country. His prologue is especially moving.

In it he relates the story of one Thursday before Easter when he is feeling especially burdened about his Easter sermon. After all, this is one of the only two times that the “Creasters”, those that attend only Easter and Christmas will have to hear the gospel.

He is struggling, looking for something that will make the message more appealing so that people will come back the next week, something really creative that would be a big hit and get people talking and yet he is drawing a blank. He picks up the bible in front of him and cannot think of one single passage that will do what he wants with the large crowd to come.

Then the inspiration comes to not think about what Jesus would do, but to look at what Jesus actually did. What did Jesus do when faced with a large crowd? What Reverend Idleman found was that when Jesus faced a large crowd, He usually spoke a message that was likely to cause them to leave. He read in John 6 of the feeding of the five thousand, a story often related in our churches, but then he kept reading. That crowd, they didn’t go home after the dinner, they camped and stayed all night. When they woke up Jesus was gone and so they jumped in the boats and followed to the far side of the lake. On reaching Jesus He tells them that they are only following Him because He filled their bellies and that instead of chasing their next free meal they need to work at acquiring the bread of life. This discourse continues apace until it ends on this note in verse 66 “ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him.” It hit Reverend Idleman that they just left and Jesus did not chase after them. He didn’t send the disciples to do it. He didn’t soften the message, and he did not offer some creative incentive to get them to come hear the next sermon. He just let them leave.

Let me now quote directly the prologue

“As I sat in the sanctuary surrounded by thousands of empty seats, here’s what became clear to me: it wasn’t the size of the crowd Jesus cared about; it was their level of commitment.

I put the bible back on the chair in front of me.

I cried.

God, I am sorry.

Almost as soon as I said it to him, I knew it needed to go further. A few days later on Easter Sunday, a crowd of thousands gathered and I began my sermon with a choked up apology. I told the crowds that I was wrong for being too concerned with what they would think and how many of them would come back. I think over the years my intentions were good; I wanted to make Jesus look as attractive as possible so that people would come to find eternal life in him. I was offering the people Jesus, but I was handing out a lot of free bread. In the process I cheapened the gospel.”

That’s a pretty profound revelation for a mega-church pastor to have because usually the whole mega model is number driven. The point is that the offense of the gospel we cannot and should not avoid or blunt. It cannot be escaped and still be the Gospel. If we only end up making fans looking for the next free thing or big show and not committed disciples, or we ourselves become satisfied with only being fans ourselves then we are merely providing fuel for the fires of hell. We are likely to discover that our tare to wheat planting ratio is upside down. We have to be centered on Christ, and Christ crucified not the latest business model of how to do church or imported notions of what Jesus expects of us.

Speaking of imported notions, we need to be sure that when we speak of the things of God that we use His standard and rules of judgment. Paul commended the Bereans for doing just this because they continually went back and checked teaching against Scriptures. Historic Anglicanism, and by this I am saying all the way back to the first appearance of Christianity to the Celts a few years after the crucifixion, has always had a highly elevated view of Scripture. It our distinct heritage, But today we live in a modern, if-it-feels-good-do-it world where Scripture is often not the final arbiter of what is right and good, in fact it is often not consulted. It has reached a point to where even in the Church people elevate feelings and desires over the revealed word of God, where a feeling that I have a word from the Lord on this or that is more important than if Scripture prohibits it. To this North American Anglicans are not immune and it will test our very commitment to God’s revealed truth.

We are not our own, but His and it is His pleasure we must seek. We must seek to love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind. From man’s viewpoint this is quite an archaic and counter-cultural concept not relevant to our current cultural paradigm, after all we are way more advanced than those folk in bible times, but from God’s perspective it is a timeless truth, true culture, and very relevant to our being a fallen race in desperate need of restoration to relationship with our perfect Creator.

But this is only part of the test. We will also be tested by how we deal with those who disagree with us. Now I will tell you up front, although this concept is easy to grasp it is often difficult to implement in practice.

In presenting the gospel with all its offense to fallen heart of man, we need to avoid unnecessary offense. Why? Simply because the Gospel alone is offensive enough without our adding our own offense to it. Creating our own personalized offensive mini-gospel is not allowed. Note that I’m not talking about being politically correct or being afraid to hurt someone’s feelings with the gospel of Christ, but rather with us not creating our own offense by inserting ourselves other things, or even parts of the theology we have chosen to over-emphasize between Christ and those we are dealing with. This can manifest in various ways.

The first illustration I offer is one where Holy Trinity specifically does an outstanding job of navigating a veritable mine field of offense. One of the areas that Christians get very partisan and argumentative about is in regards to the musical styles used in services. Anglicans are about the worst of the bunch. If I have found any place where Anglicans will lose all charity, get hot under the collar to the point where they are about ready to declare the others heretics and damn them to hell, it is in this area. It is really amazing what people will say about each other if there is a disagreement between Anglicans on this matter. People grow very attached to their music. There is a spectrum of opinion, but to make the point here I am going highlight the extremes. Generally speaking, those who like the organ music like it big, loud, and complicated and also generally do not like contemporary music in services. On the other side of the musical coin there are those who like the praise bands and feel that organ music and the old hymns just need to die off an make way for the new, more culturally relevant method of doing things.

But there is another way, a musical via media of sorts that you have found that avoids the errors of either of those camps and instead of creating division, unifies. Hymns are used, they are not on the organ, but they are traditional and they are done quite respectfully so that those who want an organ find it difficult to be offended even though the music is being played on a guitar. And even the contemporary music doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a pop praise band concert but is subdued and worshipful. The musicians sit such that there is no mistaking that they are not sharing a stage with God, but instead acting as His choir.

Conversely, when the more contemporary person looks what do they see? They see some of the music they like, and it’s not as rockin’ but it seems to be OK like this. The hymns? Well they are still old, but they sound more simple and relational this way, somehow fresher in a new/old way. Here at Holy Trinity in your music, you have a working model of exactly what I am talking about when I talk about avoiding causing offense. It is easy for the musical commandments “Thou shalt have an organ playing only tradition hymns” and the another one “Thou shalt use praise bands so that thy music is relevant” to get in the way of “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” and when that happens one often finds that they eventually get in the way that other commandment about loving God as well.

Certain doctrines that contain some element of mystery that people can’t leave as a mystery but feel the burning need to explain every nuance of God’s mind about whatever it is cause a multitide of offense related troubles as well. We can, should, and do draw certain boundaries based on what Scripture states. We cannot, for instance, legitimately take a stance that breaks or denies the Incarnation nor the Creator/Creation distinction, nor can we discard the Trinity and remain Christians. But we also cannot speculate beyond what God has revealed. A fantastic guide for us to consider in this light is our own 39 Articles which are found in the back of the prayerbook, and specifically Article 17 of Predestination and Election. Instead of getting into some three-way Augustine/Calvin/Arminius smack-down the Article clearly stays to the text of Scripture, does not speculate on those things we are not clearly told, and does it all in an encouraging and pastoral fashion.

There are places we can go, and there are places we cannot. In Holy Communion there are certain places we can go (Christ is really present), and certain places we cannot (such as arguing an actual human corporal presence). But even then within the places we can go, if we try to go into more detail than that which God has given we will more often than not find ourselves in trouble. It is how many of the early heresies began, countering some other error and going too far. Queen Elizabeth, god-daughter and student of Thomas Cranmer understood this well and so when asked during the reign of Mary for her view on the Elements and real presence she astutely stated:

“Twas God the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the word did make it;
That I believe, and take it.”

In loving our neighbor we must show forth Christ. If we do not show forth the life and love of Christ in dealing with those God brings close to us with compassion, especially as we try to unify North American Anglicans, we may not only find ourselves blocking those watching from Christ but find ourselves becoming a stumbling block to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Christ’s ministry is one of uncompromising truth, but it is also restorative and compassionate.

In this I think Ecclesiastes, one of our books of wisdom, states words that we often need to hear, at least I know I do. This particular passage from chapter 5 regards going into the house of God, but I think it applies equally to discussions we have with our Anglican brothers in our current context and to our interaction with the lost sheep that we encounter, especially when we place some extra emphasis on the phrase “YOUR WORDS” and consider that as referring to our own words as opposed to His. It states:

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let YOUR WORDS be few.

Let OUR words indeed be few, and may His be many through us in order to be a light to the world and to bring love and unity in His truth to the people of the Lord.

Amen

Preached at Holy Trinity REC in Houston, Texas – February 5, 2012 – Septuagesima

I currently use a Franklin Planner with pages that have a little cartoon at the bottom to keep up with my schedule.  On one of the pages is a cartoon entitled, “Corporate Compassion in a Recession”. It depicts a frazzled looking character outside an office building window on a sizable ledge, toes over the edge, tie loosened, shirt unbuttoned, hair tussled, obviously considering a jump.  The other character in the picture is a man in a suit and tie properly done up leaning out of a window holding out a sheaf of documents to the man who is about to jump asking, “Would you mind filling out these liability disclaimers and dropping them off at personnel on the eighth floor?”

Obviously, the suited character suffers from a distinct lack of love for his fellow. Unfortunately, although the norm in our culture is not this extreme, I am afraid in many cases it is not too far off.  Think not?  Consider this …

We have executed tens of millions of our children at the altar of convenience since 1973 with one author even going so far as referring to abortion as a “sacrament” a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis or Diana whose followers we meet in Acts 19 as they try to kill the Apostle Paul.  Others have picked up the strain and this terminology is becoming more popular.

As the discussion of nationalized healthcare moves forward I have already read the words of so-called progressives discussing the elderly persons “duty to die” and have been struck to the heart to hear the revision of the term “useless eaters” once championed by the Nazi’s and their eugenics project brethren who felt that the poor and minorities were mere “weeds of society” in need of clearing.  These folk are denying, in their attempt to deny God, the image of God in every man.  What these actions really betray is an attempted attack on God by attacking His image bearers.  Yes indeed, the seed of the serpent is alive and well and as busy as ever.

Our passages today, the collect, the first lesson, and the second run directly counter to these things for they preach the gospel of love as it is meant to be preached.  Not of self, but of our Lord and our neighbors as bearers of His image.

Although we will be touching on all the passages and the collect, we will this morning be concentrating on the First Lesson taken from Deuteronomy.

In context, we find our First Lesson coming but a short time after a recitation of the Law in Deuteronomy 5, after the great commandment to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and might, and after God has written on the second set of stone tablets.  This pronouncement by Moses is, in fact, immediately upon his descent from that 40 day mountaintop experience with God.  He is addressing the people of Israel, and giving them the Law.  This particular passage summarizes the two tables of the Law in much same fashion as the words of our Lord that we hear in each communion service when our priest says:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith. THOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

All the Law and the Prophets, and the Gospel too, I might add.  This passage and the great commandment in Deuteronomy 6 is part of why John can truly say in our second reading:

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.  The old commandment is the word that you have heard.

Thus in our second reading we hear the echoes of the first.  John starts with loving God and obeying His commandments and then moves to our relationship with others as evidence of the condition of our relationship with the Lord following the pattern of Deuteronomy and following the pattern of the two stone tablets writ upon by the finger of God that Moses brought down the mountain.

Are these tablets given in Sinai the first evidence of these principles at work?  No.  We can go back further and see the example of Cain who demonstrates rather clearly that a faulty relationship with God will be reflected in our relations with others.  This pattern flows through Scripture.  We see it in Genesis, we see it here in the wilderness, in the prophets, in the gospels, in the epistles, and finally in the Revelation.  The vertical and horizontal, our relationship to God and our brothers, these cannot be separated nor can they be compartmentalized.

So, we see the context of the passage, how it fits in the flow of Scripture, and by extension into our liturgy.

So what?

We can see all of this and intellectually understand the intricacies of the text and yet still miss the most important context of the passage; that blessed framework in which it is placed.  It is a context that the Jews missed and that is why they developed so legalistically.  It is a context that many Churches proclaiming the name of Christ have missed and goes a long way to explaining how they operate as well.  It is a context that we cannot afford to miss.  It is the context of a righteous and holy love – real love.  A love that begins in a true love of God and extends itself from Him to those he has blessed with the bearing of His image.  Paul got it.  That is why he could say in I Corinthians 13:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NKJ ¶ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Given our popular culture’s history with the wrong kinds of love and it’s gross misunderstanding of what love really is, we may find ourselves reluctant to say that “all we need is love”, but it is we of all people who truly can say that.  For we have echoed through our Scripture time and time again the true nature of love.  The world does not understand love, not really, and this world’s confusion about love results in confusion about God.

Love, as displayed in Holy Scripture, starts with God.  It really does not matter where you go in Scripture, it’s really pretty inescapable.  Our passage today is one of those particular places in Scripture where God has provided a help for those who can be a bit slow on the uptake like me.  Here of all places, in the midst of the wilderness, in the middle of the Old Testament where the mean, cruel, nasty Old Testament God is (isn’t that what the world tells us?) here the nature of love is written large – and love begins with God.

Moses informs us of the requirements of our Lord.  We are to fear Him, walk in His ways, to love him, to serve the Lord with all your heart and soul and to keep the commandments of our Lord.  Long list, or is it?  Is it actually only one item written out so that we can better understand what is entailed?  We can try to separate walking with God and loving him, but walking with Him is essentially living His commandments, and what are those in summary, but to love God with heart, soul, and might and love our neighbor as ourselves. So walking in Him, it’s love.  Obeying His commandments, surely that is not love, but servitude, but it was Christ who said in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  Obeying Him, that’s love too.

What about serving the Lord, which surely is servitude.  Let’s consider service for a moment.  Christ said:

Mark 10:43-45   43 …  but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.  44 “And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.  45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Because of love, Christ served and His service was love.  Still we say, how can God demand our service?  This question often arises because of false assumption.  That assumption, very popular in our modern world, is that man is truly free.  But we are not.  We are born with a need to worship, to give our service.  Every man is born to it, the animals are not for they are not the imagebearers.  This is why no matter how intelligent various tests might show that a parrot, a dolphin, an elephant, a pig, or an ape to be, we never see them building altars or engaging in worship.  We, on the other hand, are designed for worship – it is our function.  St. Benedict, one of the saints with a most profound effect upon Anglican life, once said that “to work is to pray”.  We see this from the beginning when Adam was in the Garden of Eden, his very stewardship of the Garden was a service, a prayer to God, and it was done as such.  Our lives are as such.

Oh yes, there are those who profess to be free of a need to worship, free of such ignorant and backwards notions such as God.  These have no need for the supposed crutch of religion for they are free.  Are they?  Look at their lives.  Do they truly live outside of the creation mandate?  If you look closely enough, you will find that they are not so free after all.  They all serve something.  They may be engaging in self-worship, worship of a cause, a suspect scientific theory, wanton sexuality, their own belly and appetites, or even the illusion of human sovereignty, but invariably some idolatrous thing is plugged into the place where God belongs and they serve it with a vengeance.  Their lives revolve around it.  So you see the real question is not, “Are you free?”, but rather as Joshua asked, “whom do you serve?”  Service to Him, it’s love.

Basically, Moses might have distilled all these verses up to sixteen into two words, “love God”, but he didn’t.  He didn’t because the people he was addressing were slow understand.  He could have said then, “Love God, love Him again, love Him some more, do it even more, now do it always.” But Moses still would have been left with the same problem.  He was addressing a people who did not know what loving God meant.  Those are the people he was addressing.  Those are the people his words address still.  Even though the concept is simple, it is not easy for man.  Why?  Our next verse tells the tale. Deuteronomy 10:16 is a verse of great personal meaning for me.  Paired with 2 Timothy 3:16, God used this verse to deliver a hammer blow to my life and that of my family.
The New American Standard reads:

NAS Deuteronomy 10:16 “Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more.

There is gold in this verse for us all and it is no coincidence that it appears smack in the middle of this passage between love of God and love of neighbor.  Moses has just told the Israelites not only that they are to love God, but that God, the one who owns the heaven and the earth loved them first and set His heart in love toward them.  Then this dual command is given which can only be properly considered in the context of the Israelites’ covenantal experience.  When one thinks of circumcision the ceremony that occurred on the eighth day of a male child’s life comes to mind.  A child obviously did not and could not circumcise himself.  Someone else had to do it for him.  We have inherent the image of circumcision as something that is done to us, as opposed to by us.  Yet this verse says, “circumcise then your heart,” a clear command to the Israelites.  But how can this be?  To complicate things more just a few chapters later in Deuteronomy 30 verse 6 we are told:

ESV Deuteronomy 30:6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

So how can God command his people to do what only He can do?  The answer is that there are two actions going on working in conjunction to one end.  God circumcises our heart making us able to do those things pleasing to Him, to be able to worship him with our hearts and with our lives.  But, God does not force us to do what we are supposed to do.  The answer to the quandary is related to the last portion of verse 16, the stiff-necked or stubborn part.

Note carefully that God did not pick out a particular group and call them stubborn, and God did not say that some were stubborn or stiff-necked.  The implication is clearly that all the people He was talking to were.

Peter was an apostle and much loved of Jesus, yet Peter still denied Christ not once, but three times.  Paul the apostle was fervent and brave in his preaching of the Word and endured much more than we are likely to for Christ and yet despite his great faith, despite the fact that if anyone had gotten the stubbornness literally beat out of him that it would have been Paul, but we still know that Paul struggled against a thorn in the flesh and that he was frustrated because he did not always do right.

We all face the same struggle, even as the apostles did.  There is a relentless stubbornness that persists in the flesh of men.  This stubbornness is sin and in Deuteronomy 10:16 we are asked to put it away, resist it.  The circumcision of the Israelites which symbolized the promise of God and the circumcising of their hearts and our baptism which symbolizes God’s promises to us, these sacraments are God’s yet there is a sense in which we can make our baptism, our circumcision of heart ours as well.

How we take that thing which God has done and also faithfully execute His command regarding it is for us to truly lay claim it.  God has wrought the tool and we are to wield our circumcised hearts for Him.  What God has done in love, we are to do.  We are to bear His image in us to others, and this is where Moses takes us next.

Moses continues by reiterating who God is – the God of gods, Lord of lords the great, the mighty, the awesome God.  Functionally this sets up the words from the Lord he is about to deliver, but it also works as an encouragement for those who might still be staggered a bit by the last thing that was said.  For those that take those words to heart, the words are sure to act as an encouragement and comfort, while for those who persist in stubbornness or in stubbornly denying that they are stubborn then those same words are bound to illicit another reaction entirely.

Instead of listing several ways that men can love their neighbor God highlights through Moses three examples of those who held the bottom rungs of the societal latter.  The first two were often relatively unprotected members of society, dispossessed and often poor, the widow and the orphan.  The third was even worse, the sojourner. The stranger in the land that often God had brought near for redemptive purposes was usually looked down upon regardless of financial status.  He wasn’t ever truly “one of us” to the Jews. We see the same when studying the Jews of Jesus’s day when converts who were not actually of Jewish ethnicity were always seen as some sort of “second class Jew” they were never fully part of that “in” crowd.  A faulty and wordly basis, not based in the righteousness of God, was used to exclude those who may have been great saints but unfortunately lacked the financial where with all or proper genetic structure to be acceptable. Sadly, we see many of the same attitudes in churches who profess Christ’s name today.  Human nature is truly a constant.

By using these examples Moses does not need to go into an exhaustive listing of how to love your neighbor.  These are, short of maybe the leper, the hardest people for the Israelites to love.  It is these that are the most challenging.  If an Israelite can get past his personal problems to love these people (the widow, orphan, and sojourner), then he would really be loving his neighbors.  The Israelites are not allowed to skirt around this.  This particular problem persisted into the Gospel era and necessitated Christ’s telling the story of the Good Samaritan to challenge the Jews of that day, much as the Words of God challenged the average Israelite in the day of Moses.  His Words challenge us still.

God reminds us before these words concerning the widow, orphan and sojourner of His place, His power, but also of His impartiality and inability to be bribed.  We cannot buy our way out of those commands of God by doing other things.  We may vainly hope that He does not really care about that person as much as He does us, but God does not work that way.
So how do we apply this passage?  Let’s start where God starts.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might.  Sounds simple.  But simple and easy are not always the same thing.  We all have a war within us, even the greatest of saints had some sin that created in them a great struggle.  But remember the struggle is not the sin.  Temptation comes to all, resist the devil, flee from temptations.

Circumcise your heart, find those things in you that take you down the wrong path and deal with them.  God circumcises the heart, but some of this life is up to you as well.  When Christ addressed sin He said if your eye causes you to sin, you pluck it out.  He does not say that God had already dealt with it at conversion so don’t bother.  Embrace the promises of God, His support, His strength and His comfort and live, truly live – truly love.

If we love God as we should we will find that it is easier to love our brethren.  The Pharisees did not love their neighbors, the Samaritans, and is it any wonder?  Jesus said that the Pharisees were sons of their father the devil a liar from the beginning and a murderer.  Who those Pharisees served impacted directly on their capacity for godly love.  I’m not talking the love that makes us feed our kids such as supplied by the common grace of God, but love that springs from the circumcised heart, the soul in the deep grip of sanctification, the love that loves those considered unlovable.  This is the love that loves those who are not “one of us”.  Do we have it?  We should examine ourselves honestly in this.  How do we deal with those of our congregation in need?  How do we deal with those who are brought near?  How do we deal with the modern predicaments of widows and orphans in this culture?

If a woman in the Church lost her husband how would we deal with this?  Do we comfort ourselves saying, “I’m sure that she has family that will care for her.”  What if they don’t?  Do we tell her she needs to go get a husband?  How we care for them demonstrates how we love our neighbor.  The same goes for the orphan.  The early Church did these very, very well.

What about those who God brings near to us like the sojourner of old?  Do we love them, those whom God has brought close?  In church services how do we react to the dirty homeless man who shuffles in off the street.  Do we think, “Of course he’s here because this place is (fill in the blank with appropriate excuse). “ Warm? Air Conditioned?  Dry? Do we not realize that of all the places that particular person could be at that particular time that God has brought him here?  Brought him to God’s people?

What of the gay man who shows up one day?  He may have a nice car, and nice clothes the opposite of the homeless man.  God has brought him near.  Do we ignore him and hope he goes away?  Or do we with all haste begin beating him about the head with a large Bible while screaming for him to repent?  Or is love finding out why God brought him near and then showing him the way from there?

At the beginning of this homily I mentioned the unborn and the elderly.  We have in our passage today specific reference to the widows and the orphans which I believe directly applies to them.  It is at both ends of life that we are most vulnerable to both disease and marginalization.  In the calculus of a materialistic society these are the groups that contribute little and therefore are worth less.  History teaches us that it can be a frighteningly short step from worth less to worthless.  Scripture would concur which is why there is such an emphasis on being imagebearers found in it.  Our unborn that are sacrificed in the abortion clinics of this nation are orphans indeed.  For they have been abandoned by their parents and given up as surely as those dropped at the orphanage.  What of our elderly, many of which are widows?  What will become of them in our society with the rhetoric that is currently being put forth?  Our culture has already dehumanized our youngest and most vulnerable members and now tens of millions are dead.  The language of dehumanization is already being applied to our older citizens.  How many widows will join the orphans?    The early Church did not have fancy facilities, members were often the lower classes and more so they were regularly persecuted and marginalized.  Despite these apparent disadvantages which would often be excuses for doing nothing today, the church did astonishing works of charity on those hillsides of the empire.  They brought life where once there was death.  Our hillsides need combing as well.  Are we up to the task?  Can we love our neighbor like those early Christians did?

Our collect for today is a prayer for love, we could all use more of that –so it is a prayer I challenge you to keep close and use it often.  It says:

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever lives is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Love God.

Go love your neighbor.

Truly live by truly loving.

It truly is all you need.

Amen

9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.  10 Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.  11 There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.

This explains a lot of what we see in our Church today, where there is a battle raging, a battle that has been raging since the beginning of the Church, the battle over the identity of Christ.

One day Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”

14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  18 “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

This Rock, the faith that could only be revealed by our Father in heaven, is the foundation of Christianity.  This answer, that Christ is the Son of the Living God, is not the answer of men, but of God and those who truly follow Him.  Without Jesus being who Scripture claims Him to be, we are all lost.

That same question could be asked today, “Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asks it to His disciples still.  We should never forget that He also asks of us in our worship and in our very lives, to continually live out our answer to that question.  What is our answer and how does that compare to the answers of men?

In today’s second lesson, Jesus addresses this question in a straightforward manner to the Pharisees.  Claiming first a Father/Son relationship with God that was bound to ruffle the feathers of the Pharisees, but then going further and claiming that all who keep His Word will not see death.

The Pharisees are livid at this because Christ has put himself forward as God.  I am not sure why the Pharisees then ask Christ, “Whom do you make yourself out to be?”  It really should have been painfully obvious even to someone who did not believe that Jesus was God that God is exactly who He was claiming to be.  Biblically speaking, they could not have been too confused about God appearing in human form as God had appeared to Abraham in that fashion before the conflagration of the cities of the plain, a fact of which the Pharisees were well aware.  Abraham clearly addressed his visitor as the “Judge of all the Earth”.  Maybe the Pharisees needed some specific words in order to charge Jesus, or maybe they just needed something so inflammatory that no one would blame them if they killed Him in a fit of rage at His blasphemy.  A no-jury-would-ever-convict-me strategy, as it were.

Jesus answers them though, and culminates the discussion by saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”  The Pharisees then picked up the stones to stone Him.

They wanted to stone Jesus for blasphemy because they did not believe who He was.  They saw Jesus through the eyes of men.  The knowledge of Jesus as the Christ had not been given to them by the Father because although they gave lip service to one Father, the God of Abraham, in actuality it was the devil who they served.  They were of the seed of the serpent.

Some today, although professing to be of Christ’s Church, do not believe who He is either.  When confronted with the question, “Who do you say that I am?, they- like the Pharisees – spout the answers of men, the answer of the serpent instead of the answer provided by our Father in Heaven.

Who do they claim Jesus Christ to be?  Some say He didn’t ever really exist, hoping to avoid the question of who He is totally.  Others say He was a just a man, a Palestinian teacher and guru to whom zealots and opportunists later ascribed deity.  He was a revolutionary, others claim, here to guard the rights of the poor and neglected, empowering the proletariat against the abuses of the imperialists and secular and religious bourgeoisie.  Others yet, see Jesus as a glorified Santa Claus who heaps goodies on all those who but ask – with enough faith and no negative thoughts, of course.  Still others claim to be Christians but go as far as to consider Christ just another creation, an angel in Heaven, who was singled out for a special mission, a brother to Satan.

There is one shocking and profound example of the difference in the answers of men and the answer that comes from God in a recent exchange taken from one denomination’s discussion board.

In the course of a discussion, one man sought to clarify a matter by supplying God’s answer to who Jesus is:

“But, my friend, Jesus was God.”.

The response, came not from the person originally addressed, but from an ordained priest who took issue with the comment.  The priest said:

Jesus was not God.

He was a human being on earth with a mind limited to the worldview of his time.

The synoptic gospels are theologized histories with the meaning written in; the Gospel of John was an historicized theology.

It was a different time, different world view.

I see God through Jesus, but to say he was God is something Jesus – as a faithful Jewish man – would have heartily rejected.

All the I AM statements in John were the beliefs of the early Church, not Jesus’ words.

Your claim answers nothing; just exposes ignorance, and a pathetic, simplistic, interpretation of scripture.

Time to get real here, both historically and theologically – and to differentiate between the two.

As anyone can plainly see the answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” differs starkly depending on whether the answer is of God or of men.  This is a contrast that we should never hide from, lest we find ourselves profaning the name of Christ.

Those who claim Jesus is not God will invariably at some point attack the testimony of the Scripture as to the identity of Christ.  Undermining Scripture allows for the introduction of alternative authorities that are conducive to whatever aberrant view is being put forward.  This they believe will allow them to undermine the identity of Christ.

One argument that is often put forward, which does not so much seek to discredit Scripture as to ignore what it clearly says and act as though what is said plainly is, in fact, not really there at all, is the argument that Jesus never claimed to be God.  Most of the time, like our previous example, the person making the argument, for some odd reason (possibly ignorance), thinks that if we exclude the works of the Apostle John then we have successfully scoured the Scripture of all evidence that could lead to a conclusion that Jesus claimed to be God.  This is often accompanied by teaching that the term, “Son of God” in any context only means that Jesus was highly enlightened and in touch with the divine in himself, like a Semitic version of Buddha.

For those who actually make an effort to read their Bible this argument falls flat.  We have many examples of Jesus claiming divinity, so many in fact, that one cannot traverse the Gospels without continually tripping over divinity references.  Jesus did more than occasionally claim divinity.  Through His words and His miracles, He constantly and consistently claimed divinity.  So much so that a person has to almost willfully close his eyes to it to miss it.  Again as with the Pharisees, men without the working of the Holy Spirit cannot believe in Jesus as the Christ, Son of the Living God, but they should still be capable of seeing that God is exactly who Jesus unwaveringly claims to be.  We know that Jesus stated that the Pharisees were the sons of the devil, and yet even the Pharisees saw clearly what Jesus was proclaiming to be.  Even if we discount entirely the works of the Apostle John, divinity claims by Christ are inescapable.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus states, “You have heard it said … but I say to you” placing himself equal to God, the Lawgiver.  Later in the same sermon, He speaks of those at the judgment saying to Him, “Lord, Lord”.  Did not Abraham call his visitor, “Judge of all the Earth”?

In several miracles Jesus declares the forgiveness of sins.  He does not give absolution as one speaking the promises of God, as do our priests, but clearly is the forgiver of the sin – the sole purview of God.

Jesus claims to be the Lord of the Sabbath in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Christ claims to be with us even unto the end of the world, yet only the omnipotent God could manage such a feat.

And my personal favorites, where Jesus states that He has come to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and the Parable of the Lost Sheep, both of which refer to Ezekiel 34 where God pronounces judgment against false and negligent shepherds, saying,

“Behold I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out … I will rescue my flock … and I will set up over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he shall feed them, He shall feed them and be their shepherd … and you are my sheep, the human sheep of my pasture, and I am you God.”

When Jesus claims to be finding and gathering His sheep, He is not only taking the role of God as shepherd, but pronouncing judgment on the shepherds of Israel.

There are many more claims of divinity made by Christ.  Jesus claims to be God over and over and over.  The question is do we believe Him?  When asked by others, “Who do you say Jesus is?” we should always have ready as His disciples an answer that stands in stark contrast to the answers and teaching of men.  This will be critical for those here who, God willing, achieve ordination as they will have the cure of souls for a local flock.

The early martyrs died over the answer to this question.  But they only died the first death.

Faith is in the object of the faith.  Who Jesus is is an essential part of the Christian equation.  Without a Jesus who is God, Christianity loses everything and becomes just another system with another dead Asiatic guru.  There would remain nothing unique about Christ to save a lost and dying world. Thus the fix the liberal congregations find themselves in where the secular social gospel is substituted for the real one.  And is it any surprise, for without Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, what is really left?

We need to be sure we differentiate among those who believe in Him and those who believe in another Jesus.

There are two questions:

Who do men say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

We especially, those who seek to minister to others in His name, need to make sure these answers are radically different.

Amen.

Last week, we glimpsed in on the prophet Ezekiel, who God was instructing as to the expectations the Lord had of His prophets.  This week our reading takes us to the book of Jeremiah chapter 20.  Here we encounter Jeremiah, not so much in a theological sense, as in a personal one.  We find Jeremiah, newly released from a day in the stocks and in the throes of a bout of depression.  The Geneva Bible notes for this section of Scripture merely state:

“In this appears the impatiency which often overcomes the servants of God when they do not see their labours profit, and also feel their own weakness.”

That Jeremiah might be depressed should be no surprise.  See, Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, spoke to a people in decline.  A people much like ours.  These people did not want to listen to the Word of God, much less obey it.  They placed other gods above the Lord God. They defiled the Temple with a refusal to repent. They oppressed one another, and their religious leaders led the charge.  So it is in our nation today.  So it is that the godly speak the messages of God and hardly any listen. 

Even when people do listen, such as in the case of Charles Haddon Spurgeon who was often called “the prince of preachers,” there can be despondancy.  Spurgeon suffered horribly from gout and had episodes of severe depression.  Arnold Dallimore wrote in a biography of Spurgeon:

“What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know … even his desperate calling on God brought no relief.  ‘There are dungeons’, he said, ‘beneath the castles of despair.’”

The work of the Lord can be tough on men, and although our Lord will grant us strength a plenty to sustain us, He is not obligated to make it easy.  Indeed, in Scripture we find Elijah fleeing to desert and cave, Paul suffering his thorn in the flesh, David crying out to God in regard to his enemies, Job crying out in his misery, John the Baptist, in confinement, sending word to the Christ asking, “Is it truly you?”  Scripture is full of men who are great men, but they are just men with weaknesses much as our own.

If we look at the life of Jeremiah we find that really only four people listened to him.  There was Baruch the Scribe, Ebed-melech an Ethiopian eunuch (foreshadowing the eunuch in Acts), the short term governor of Judah, Gedaliah and Daniel who read his work in Babylon.  Four people is not so many for a lifetime career, but there it is.  That is what God allotted him.  It wasn’t that Jeremiah wasn’t faithful, not that at all, for Jeremiah was a prophet of great perseverance.  He had every reason, from a human standpoint, to give up and yet never did.  But just because he did not see the harvest does not mean that there wasn’t one. Who knows how many Jeremiah has inspired to stand fast over the intervening centuries.

Archaeologists digging in the remains of a school for imperial pages in Rome found a picture dating from the third century. It shows a boy standing, his hand raised, worshiping a figure on a cross, a figure that looks like a man with the head of an ass. Scrawled in the writing of a young person are the words, “Alexamenos worships his God.” Nearby in a second inscription: “Alexamenos is faithful.” Apparently, a young man who was a Christian was being mocked by his schoolmates for his faithful witness. But he was not ashamed; he was faithful.

As with Alexamenos, Jeremiah was remarkably faithful in the face of ridicule. The fire in his bones could not let him forget, could not let him be silent, in regards to the One he served.  This is so even in the depth of the depression in which we encounter him this evening.  Tonight we have a reading from a man living in a cycle of culture much like our own.  Short of a massive revival in this nation, we may all well, to varying degrees, partake in the cup of Jeremiah.  He is our brother, the prophet Jeremiah, whose suffering words the Holy Spirit considered important enough for us to hear.  This is the wail of a man of God standing against the tidal wave of a corrupted culture and as equally corrupt and false religion.  Let us hear with open hearts our brother, Jeremiah.

The reading tonight is divided into three pretty distinct sections.  In the first Jeremiah questions the validity of his call.  Remember, after all, that Jeremiah is looking around at this point and recalling that God commissioned him to “root up, tear down, to destroy and demolish, to build and to plant,”  and well on into his career there is precious little, actually none, of the building and planting to be seen.  To put this dejection into further perspective we only have to look two chapters back, to Jeremiah 18, where we read God’s Word to Jeremiah regarding the people:

NKJ Jeremiah 18:9 “And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 “if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it. 11 ” Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.” ’ ” 12 And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”

Jeremiah had a great love for his people, and it pained him horribly to watch what was occurring.  It is a mood that many an American can relate to in our time as we hear our culture utter those same words.

Jeremiah feels as if the Lord has seduced him, or more accurately forced him to prophesy, deceived him even because he sees nothing come from all his labor.  Jeremiah was so dejected that he decided to just shut up.  To quit.  The pain of ridicule would drive him to silence and he would neither speak of God nor utter His Words again.  Yet as much as he might will it, Jeremiah could not.  He says that God’s Word was in his heart like a burning fire, shut up in his bones.  It was such that it took effort for him to hold back and not speak.  And he could not.  Even though his enemies stood all around waiting for him to slip, he could not remain silent.  The Word of God will not be contained.

In our second section beginning with verse 11, Jeremiah seems to shift gears.  He is almost preaching to himself, needing to be reminded in the midst of frustration and depression that God is indeed sovereign.  He pleads his case before the Lord and although we are not told that God answered his prayer specifically, Jeremiah speaks with confidence and assurance that comes from knowing the nature of God and His faithfulness.  Ultimately, this might have made things easier for Jeremiah, or it simply might have been a momentary lull in his despondent mood where he is reminding himself not to worry.  The Word does that, you know.  It sneaks up on us when we are weak, ragged, or in despair.  Did you ever have Scripture come unbidden to you at such a time?  Did it give you the precise comfort that you needed to endure the trial of the moment?  So too, are the reminders of the Lord with Jeremiah.

The third section of the reading heads back into darker territory once again.  Jeremiah, who cannot rightly under Jewish law curse either God or his parents, in the depths of turmoil rather curses the day of his birth and then even goes as far as to curse the man bringing the news of his birth to his father, because the man did not kill Jeremiah in the womb.  Jeremiah bemoans his birth and wonders why he should have been born to a life of toil, sorrow, and shame.  In case we are tempted to accuse Jeremiah of having a pity party here, keep in mind that his life was, humanly speaking, composed of precisely those things, toil, sorrow, and shame.

Depression can be like drowning where a man comes up for a gasp of air only to sink back under its dark surface once again.  God allowed Jeremiah to suffer so.  We do not know why.  It might be that it was preparation for what was to come; it might have been so that those of us looking at Jeremiah later could see him as a man, like us.  A godly and faithful man sustained by God in a hard time.  We do well to recall that when later the Babylonians came to Jerusalem, they accorded Jeremiah a respect that his own did not.  We would also do well to remember that the fate of those who failed to heed the Word of God during the conflict with the Babylonians was often far worse than that of Jeremiah, both in this life and most assuredly in the next.  Jeremiah would one day find rest and peace.  Those who scorned him, God’s prophet, and in doing so scorned God, have an eternity devoid of either peace or rest.

If such things as came to Jerusalem come to us, will we hold up as well as our dear brother Jeremiah?  Will we be able to stand in the face of ridicule and scorn?  By the grace of God we will.  How are we doing so far?  How is the fire in your heart?  Do you feel it in your bones?  Are you unable to hold it in?

The fire in Jeremiah’s heart, that one he saw as a burden in our reading, was actually what kept out the cold.  Judah was in the grip of a spiritual freeze.  Permafrost had formed on the hearts of even the priesthood of the day, rendering their hearts as hard as stone itself.  And where their hearts were frozen, cold to God, and dead even, Jeremiah’s was all toasty, warm, and very much alive.  Still the fire that burned in him could not be contained.  Can ours?

Jeremiah’s fire cried out against the abuses of his religious leaders, against the idolatry of a nation.  Jeremiah, as well as Ezekiel, was a watchman.  For Isaiah 21:6 states: “For thus has the Lord said to me: ‘Go, set a watchman, Let him declare what he sees’.”  Jeremiah did; he was a faithful watchman.  Depressed and ragged, but a faithful watchman nonetheless.  Are we?  Or are we afraid to speak?

In certain churches pastors preach “peace, peace” where there is no peace.  We, they tell us, are to accept the winds of culture as the breath of the Holy Spirit.  The Bible, for them,  is an old, dusty tome and not relevant to our modern times.  They say that we are more evolved now and no longer need to believe those fairy tales.  That Bible is not the Word of God; it only contains the words of God, as if that were a small thing.  That their feelings are a better barometer of what God wants than Scripture.  In essence, for these, the voice of the people is the voice of God and whatever aberrant thing the people want is okay with God.  I was involved on an internet forum recently where a question was raised as to whether common law marriage (in this case they meant just living together) was acceptable to God.  One woman had been living with the same man for many years and commented that she figured it must be okay with God because she did not feel bad about what she was doing.  Her feelings, not God’s revealed Word, were the arbiter of truth.  Is there then a line, a place, where such a person would consider that although they are perfectly comfortable themselves that God might not be?  Looking around us today, it appears not to be the case and we have whole professed Christian denominations operating under the same illusion, or should I say delusion.  They preach peace and harmony with a world that hates Christ, instead of the return of the King.  Does this stir the fire in us?  Does it make God’s Word working in us restless?

Others worship a little itty bitty god of their own making, a god that can be stopped in his tracks by our merely thinking negative thoughts, or so they teach.  Their god is, on those days we are thinking positively and have properly banished our negative thoughts—well, their god is like some Prozac-popping Santa Claus ready to grant our every desire.  Or so they teach.  Does this false teaching in the name of our Lord stir the fire in our heart?  Does it yearn to get out?

Why do I mention these?  Am I just a contentious malcontent picking on others professing the name of Christ?  No.  Recall that the greatest opposition to Christ and His truth began not with the Romans, but with the Pharisees, those to whom the truth had been delivered and yet they rejected it.

Outside of the church there are troubles a plenty.  Our culture is feeding our children to Molech through encouragement of abortion and other parental abdications; our teens to Ashtaroth with today’s emphasis on wanton sensuality, fertility, and violence.  Our adults squander the Christian capital that made the life they have today possible and spit on the God Who provided it.  We are in many ways, especially spiritually, indistinguishable from Jeremiah’s Judah.

If Jeremiah was here today, we would be confused.  Here he would stand tired, ragged, depressed, and yet the very embodiment of being “on fire for the Lord”.  We tend to think of people “on fire for the Lord” who are hopping around all energetic, speaking fast, like Tony Robbins on crack.  But then there is Jeremiah who from what Scripture tells us could not have had less of an air of a motivational self-help presenter if he tried.  What a violation of our modern expectations.  Yet, Jeremiah was truly on fire for the Lord in a way few will ever be.  The Word of the Lord burned in his heart, burned in his bones.  He tried to contain it, but he couldn’t.  He couldn’t hold it, and the Word of the Lord burst forth from him and he continued to pronounce the Lord’s Word in Judah.

We have it easier than Jeremiah did.  We have the book.  We can present God’s Word to a dying world.  We can read it.  But even so, we also need the Word in the way Jeremiah had it.  Can you look at our dying world and contain the fire or like Jeremiah is it hard to hold it in?  If you are not burning up, then this Lenten season come to the Lord and ask him to set you ablaze.  Will it be glamorous?  Oh, no.  Will it be financially lucrative?  Sorry, afraid not.  Will it make you more comfortable?  Probably not in any way you imagine.  But if you are willing, open your heart and ask.

Pray.  Pray that you, me, our parish, our denomination, the Church militant all be set ablaze with the fire that Jeremiah could not contain.  Pray we be ablaze until we overflow, until we explode in a way unseen since the beginning of the Church.  Let us prepare the way for the return of the King.  May we all burn like Jeremiah – and be lights to lighten the Gentiles.
Amen.

Some days Ezekiel’s life probably felt a bit like that.  He would be right.  Not that his life was a shipwreck, or a mistake, or that his life would serve as a warning to others because of its disastrous nature, but rather he was called to be a watchman, a warning to his people of eminent danger they faced for their faithlessness.  It was he who spotted the enemy coming and put out the call to prepare.  Consider his first day on the job of being a prophet…

The book of Ezekiel begins with God pulling Ezekiel up into a grand vision of the wheels and calling him to the prophetic office to Israel.  In chapter two verse 5 we read God speaking to Ezekiel of Israel:

Ezekiel 2:5-7 5 “As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse—for they are a rebellious house—yet they will know that a prophet has been among them.  6 ” And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house.  7 “You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are rebellious.

And then, as if all that talk of briars, thorns, and living with the scorpions was not enough, just before our reading tonight in verse 7 of chapter 3 , God forewarns Ezekiel once more regarding what his career as a prophet is going to look like saying:

NKJ Ezekiel 3:8-9 “But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted.  8 “Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads.  9 “Like adamant stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not be afraid of them, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.”

So, right off the bat, Ezekiel is absolutely unable to be under any illusion that whatever does is going to make any collective difference.  So much so in fact, that he states in verse 14 after the Spirit had taken Him away, that he sat there astonished, overwhelmed in some translations, for seven days.  How would you like that for a first day on the job?

In our reading we come to Ezekiel seven days later, the shock has worn off a bit and God is looking to reemphasis the duty of his ministers.  You see the prophetic office was not always about foretelling the future.  More often the role of the prophet was to convict the people of their sin, a covenant prosecutor as it were.  It was a ministry of restoration and reconciliation whereby the prophet by stating God’s case sought to convict the people in their sin and faithlessness and bring them back to the Lord.  Since each of us is called of God to spread his Word, to work out our dominion mandate, in a real way the prophetic office is filled when God’s people set His Word before the world.  Ezekiel was given Word from God in visions and such, but I would remind you that we also have the Word of God.  With our Bibles we are able to set before men, the counsel of God.

Today is Ember Wednesday.  Ember days were traditionally, since the 5th century days, of prayer and fasting, especially for those about to be placed into ordained ministry with their ordination to be held on Ember Saturday.  The imagery of the watchmen fits well with this season, but it is also Lent in which we all are already engaged in a season of repentance.  These verses find special application to the ordinand, but we need to be careful in making this special application that we do not fail to grasp the universal ones.

God presented four possible cases to Ezekiel that illustrate the blessing of obedience and curse of disobedience for Ezekiel.  Two of the cases involved those termed wicked, two involved those referred to as righteous.  Two of the cases involved Ezekiel warning the person, yet three involved the death of the particular person.  Let’s look at these illustrations.

In the first case we read:

Ezekiel 3:18 18 “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.

Here we have wicked man number one.  He is wicked, but unwarned because Ezekiel has not presented the Word of God to him.  Since he is unwarned, how can would this wicked man know what to do?  As the Apostle Paul says in Romans:

Romans 10:14-15 14 ¶ How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?  15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent?

Ezekiel was sent, but he must preach in order to be heard.  He must dispense God’s Word to those who are wicked, those who are treading the wicked way.  Wicked man number one dies in his wickedness, but because Ezekiel has been unfaithful to God and failed to warn this man, he is dead in his trespasses and sins and God lets his prophet know that he will be held to account for this.

In the second case we read:

Ezekiel 3:19 19 “Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

Here Ezekiel has preached to the wicked, as God has instructed him to go do to Israel.  As God has predicted Israel would not listen, so this wicked man spurned the warnings and ignored the Word of God.  This man dies in his sins, but God lets Ezekiel know that although the Word was spurned, Ezekiel’s obedience will not be forgotten.
God then lays before Ezekiel two more cases, those of the so-called righteous men.  In the first case we read:

Ezekiel 3:20 20 “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.

It is important to God that His Word be kept ever before those who are, or even who appear righteous.  Remember those who in Matthew 7:22 said, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?”  to whom Jesus Christ responded, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”  This man in Ezekiel by all appearances is righteous.  If anyone ever doubts that our righteousness is as filthy rags they only need to study this verse. Here is a man who seems righteous and yet has turned from the right way to commit iniquity. Iniquity such that God brings about his death.  When he dies, his dead faith cannot sustain him and his righteous deeds are remembered no more.  Because Ezekiel has not kept the Word before this man God reckons his blood to Ezekiel.

The final case God presents to Ezekiel is that of another so-called righteous man:

Ezekiel 3:21 21 “Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.”

In this final case we have the guy sits in the pew right next to that last guy.  He appears to be righteous, and when the Word is presented to Him he listens, takes heed, and lives.  He does not turn to iniquity and Ezekiel’s faithfulness is remembered by God.
But wait, didn’t we forget someone?  What of the wicked man who repents? What of the righteous man who stumbles and repents?  To that I say that they are the same as the last.

The wicked man, or let us say formerly wicked man, who repents and turns to the Lord is forgiven.  As God promises in Jeremiah and Hebrews, He remembers this man’s sin no more.  He is a new creature, the wicked man he was is dead and a righteous man is born.  He is as the last – he will live.  And the watchman’s faithfulness will be remembered.
What of the righteous stumbler?  You mean the one like Moses, King David, and the Apostle Peter?  God says in 1 John 1:9 that, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  This man is cleansed – he lives, and the faithful watchman is not forgotten.
We have set before us as watchmen, our Bishops and our priests.  They are the preachers who set the Word before us.  We also have other watchmen, our brothers in Christ who care about us, love us and are loathe to see us stumble.  These may even take the form of our friends or even, shocking as it may be to the youth of our day, our parents, whom I can testify even at 45 years of age are faithful watchmen for me – and for that I am thankful.  Collectively we should join with others in being watchmen to our Church, and watchmen to our culture.  In that our Bishops and priests will be taking the point.  As in the early Church, and as in the time of the prophets, the attack will come most directly to those riding point, our clergy.  Pray for them.

In looking at this reading in Ezekiel we need to ask ourselves a couple of rather direct and uncomfortable questions.  Because they are uncomfortable, I am going to do you a favor and instead of just telling you to ask yourself, I’m going ask you instead.  I ask that you hold whatever answers you have in your heart and ponder them deeply in this season of Lent.

Which of the people that we have discussed are you?
Are you the wicked in need of repentance?  Come to the Lord, repent and turn.  Live.  There are two deaths.  The first is but a passing on, the second is a life lost forever.  The first comes to all men, the second can be avoided.  Christ calls you through His Word, come to Him.

Are you the one that appears righteous?  Do you do the right things, but know something is wrong?  The watchman calls, “Repent!”  Give yourself over heart and soul to the one who saves and live.  He forgives all who come to him with contrite hearts.

Are you the righteous?  You turn from sin when you see it.  Like David, while in this mortal coil, you are occasionally a bit stubborn or slow to repent, but when you see it you lay those specific sins at the altar of forgiveness.  You regularly come and confess for God to forgive even those things you do not see because you are aware that we are but sinners and all fall short.  You know that we are so much the sinner that we often are painfully unaware of exactly what sins we have committed.  If so, you do well, for you have listened and heeded the watchmen sent to proclaim the Lord to you, but for you there awaits another question.

Are you a faithful watchman?
This is a question that each and every Christian must wrestle with no less than Ezekiel.  We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We watch over our own souls, do we pay any regard to theirs?  I am not saying that we are to be busybodies or to become self-appointed inquisitors, but that we are in righteous love to be concerned with the spiritual state of those around us.  God has brought the people in your life near to you.  What are you doing with that?
As parents we are specifically called to perform the duty of watchmen to our children.  We are to train a child in the way he should go, to teach him when rising up and laying down.  We are to be their watchmen giving warning of the dangers coming toward them.  Do you?  Do you speak God’s Word against the sins of our culture?  Do you discuss these things with those brought near to you?  Are you a faithful watchman?  And if you sense you are not, what are you going to do about it?

Make no mistake those who are ordained into ministry have the greater burden here.  This is plain throughout Scripture.  But although the greater burden is there, not all of the burden is.  I do not know your spiritual state, but I ask that you ponder these two particular questions that call out to us this Lenten season and how they pertain to your particular spiritual situation and walk with God.

Which of the people that we have discussed are you?

Are you a faithful watchman?

Amen

In 1st Kings chapter 19 we are told of Elijah, who at that time was living in the wilderness – the last of the prophets.  All the others had been killed.  Elijah was lamenting his current state of affairs when the Lord spoke to him and told him to go out on the mountain and stand before the Lord.  When the Lord passed by there was a great and mighty wind which even broke stone apart, there was an earthquake and then a fire.  But the Lord was not in these, but in what followed, a still, small voice.

There is a still small voice running through this passage a very human voice that is also the voice of God.  And we will find as we listen to it that it is some of the things that Jesus did not do in this passage that will help us as we minister His Word.

Now, let’s be careful not get too overly into the Elijah analogy, because unlike the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, Jesus is in this whole passage.  He is the Christ of the Transfiguration, silencer of scribes, healer of the sick and possessed but for all that running through this passage for those who would hear there is a still, small voice, whispering to us It lies under the power, under the supernatural events, it lies where we live.

Our passage from Matthew 17 is also mirrored and expanded on a bit in both Mark 9 and Luke 9 so in looking into this we will draw also from those accounts in order to get a fuller picture of the scene.  As we take a tour through the accounts see if you can spot some things that Jesus did not do that might affect a pastoral ministry.

The passage begins with Jesus, Peter, James, and John coming down from the high mountain after the Transfiguration.  The other nine disciples that had been left behind were arguing with the scribes when Jesus arrived.  As is the way of men when there is trouble of this kind, a crowd had gathered around to see the spectacle.  Upon seeing Jesus the crowd was amazed and ran up and greeted Him.  I am immediately reminded of the way crowds will run up to a newly arrived celebrity.

Jesus, of course, knows what has been going on but like God in the garden asking Adam why he was hiding, he asks the scribes, “Why do you dispute among yourselves?”  The scribes are unable to hide and do not answer, maybe, like my cat,  they think being silent will make them disappear.  Just moments ago so brave with the disciples they are much more timid when the Master arrives.

The answer to Jesus’s question when it does come, comes from a character of the sort we see often in the New Testament, the grieving parent.  This man has brought his son to be healed and quickly explains the boy’s condition to Jesus and indicates that the disciples had proven unable to help the boy.  Jesus responds by saying, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”  Now one would think, given that the man had just commented that the disciples couldn’t help and given where this account ends up that these words were directed to a lack in the disciples, but the consensus of the commentators is that these words were, in fact, directed to the scribes, the man and the multitude.  Indeed, Chrysostom even goes as far as to state that Jesus acquits the disciples here.

When he is brought to Jesus the boy immediately goes into a full fit on the ground.  Jesus turns and addresses the boy’s father and asks him how long the sickness has gone on.  The father responds that it has been so since his son was a small child and that if Jesus can do anything, please do it.  Jesus responds according to the NAS, “If you can! All things are possible to one who believes.” The point being that the hold up here is not with Jesus, but the father and his faith.  The father who immediately understands responds with a prayer that has to be one of the most wonderful prayers ever uttered: “Lord, I believe, help me in my unbelief.”  He’s saying, “I’m believing with all I can muster, but I know that I still have some corner of me that does not yet fully believe, and I need help.”  No cocky statement of belief here.  No lie of desperation for a son who is writhing on the ground, but only a meek, humble, and honest confession and plea.  If only we would always remember to pray as such.  And our Lord, as is his wont, once again shows compassion to a grieving parent and heals the child completely.
After this the crowd must have dispersed a bit because the disciples were then able to speak to Jesus apart from them and they asked, “Why could we not cast it out?”  And Jesus responded saying to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.  However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”  Jesus teaches the disciples about faith.  In this case they were not equipped.  They had little bitty faith, and it needed to be strengthened, the remedy for that being prayer reinforced by fasting.  This was not a case of adding prayer and fasting as if they were some magic combination of works that would cast out this certain demon but rather a case of common faith not being enough for the task at hand.

So there it is.  The account of Jesus healing the demon possessed boy.  There is much that is stated, but let’s go back and look again and see what pastoral implications we can draw from this account that are not usually paid attention to.  When we do there are some things we are not going to do.  We are not going to concentrate on the conflict between the followers of Jesus and the scribes.  We are not going to pay any attention to the actual miracle of healing this child.  We are not going to deal with the mountain and the mustard seed.  For any of you who are now wondering exactly what there is left I’ll tell you.

We are going to look closely at Christ, the Living God, the Incarnate One.  We are going to look at how He conducts himself in relationship to other people in this account because as the only perfect man whoever was, He has as much to teach us about being truly human as He does to teach us about being theologians.  Our ministries, as is our Christ, are to be Incarnational so it is to our peril that we ignore one half of that equation.  So let’s look at what Jesus didn’t do in this passage and how it relates to our relating to people we encounter in our walk.

First, Jesus left nine apostles on the ground when He went up on that mountain.  He took only three.  He knew exactly what was going to happen and yet He did not tell the disciples that were left, “Oh yeah, and while we’re gone.  There is going to be a guy is going to be bringing this possessed kid around, don’t deal with him, just leave him for me and I’ll get to him when I come back.”  It was important that the disciples work with these people that came, and it was important for the disciples to learn these lessons.  Jesus was the safety net, but He let his people learn what they needed to learn in the most effective way possible and that often meant doing.

Second, Jesus did not hold back from asking questions.  Do you ever wonder why Jesus Christ, member of the Trinity, ever had to ask one single question ever?  It wasn’t so He could figure something out.  It was for the benefit of those around Him.  Asking questions often leads people to answers that they need to get to on their own, answers that they would only forget if you just handed them out for free.  Why did the scribes not answer?  Well, shame would be my guess.  Shame is one step in the road to repentance because it reminds us of our fallen imperfect state.  Jesus did not need to ask the question, the scribes needed Him to ask it.  Did the scribes repent and turn to Christ?  We are not led to believe any did here, but Christ, in asking His question gave them yet another opportunity.  We need to ask questions when ministering to folks, even though we may know that answers because first off we may not really know everything we think we do, secondly because people may need to process and work through the answers, and thirdly, honestly, because sometimes it is just really comforting that someone cared enough to ask.

Third, Jesus did not let a mountain top experience taint his compassion or diligence in dealing with the people around Him.  He came down off that mountain and healed a boy.  He did not bask in the afterglow but got right down into the middle of things, with the same compassion He had always shown.  His gentleness with the father is an exceptional example.  We cannot let our spiritual highs keep us out of the trenches as tempting as that may be, as much as we may want to stay on that mountain, or at least feel like it a little longer.  We have to be about our Father’s business.

Fourth, Jesus did not fail to keep the spiritual perspective primary.  Did you notice in the account that after the boy was brought to Jesus that he started having a fit?  And that it was while this kid was on the ground rolling around and foaming at the mouth that Jesus then turns and asks the father more questions about the boy’s condition.  Imagine your child is at the doctor and he is foaming at the mouth rolling around the room, he’s convulsing and the doctor looks over at you and asks, ” So, how long has this been going on?”, a bit shocking to say the least.  Yet, Jesus was concerned about another issue, an issue of death, an issue of the second death of the father, the death that is truly forever which was exiled with a father’s prayer.  “I believe, help me in my unbelief.”  How can I say this?  Do I know that this man walked his life with Christ?  I have no records of such.  But this man believed and prayed to Christ to help in his unbelief and our God is a God of mercy for those that truly turn to Him.  We know from the results, Jesus turned and cleansed the boy according to a father’s faith, a faith greater than that of the disciples whose faith was too small to result in healing.  What of those around us?  Many have faced and are sure to face a time when there is a physical situation and a spiritual one paired together and although it is well and good to help people in their physical sphere as we rightly should.  We also do well to remember that the first death is only temporary, and the second is forever.  To many of the leaders in churches across this country that profess the name of Jesus seem to have forsaken worrying about the second death, wanting rather only to deal with the here and the now.  I could name names, but likely you know of several already.  Jesus shows in this account that healing the spiritual can do a world of physical good.

Fifth, Jesus does not chastise or berate the disciples.  Did you notice that? In fact, it is not even Jesus who later brings up the incident, but the disciples.  Jesus is a good pastor, teacher and manager.  His disciples are being prepared to go out into the world and lead his Church and he is training them well.  They are for all intents and purposes third year seminary students.  Granted, casting out demons is not standard curriculum at most seminaries now days, but Christ was running a very special training program.  The disciples were learning and wanting to learn.  A willing student will often come ask about things where they require knowledge.  They know that they do not know and a good teacher will allow them to discover this within reason.  What does this mean to us?  Well, we should, as a rule, not correct our people in front of others, if at all possible.  The disciples did not question Jesus until they were apart.  This is proper.  We should strive to be gentle and productive in our teaching, as Christ was in this instance.

St. Benedict postulated that Christianity is lived out in the ordinary.  That it is not the so-called great experiences that grow us and show us for what we are, but the boring humdrum every day beat of life.  We see this in the gospels with the ministry of Christ. Despite all the great miracles, the great sermons, the great everything lies a subtext.  Shadowed out by all the spectacular and supernatural things it is great and wonderful in itself.  It is the small unnoticed acts, the probing caring questions, the organic relationship stuff that binds all the flashy parts together and makes them mean something to us.  These are the things that often give us clues as to how we are to truly live.  We learn a lot from this subtext but too often we do not pay it that much attention.  This is sad because in doing so we miss out on a part of the incarnation that is in many ways the most like us, in some ways truly the most relevant to the humdrum detail of our lives.

There is a Chinese legend about a group of elderly, cultured gentlemen who met often to exchange wisdom and drink tea. Each host tried to find the finest and most costly varieties of tea, to create exotic blends that would arouse the admiration of his guests.  When the most venerable and respected of the group entertained, he served his tea with unprecedented ceremony, measuring the leaves from a golden box. The assembled epicures praised this exquisite tea. The host smiled and said, “The tea you have found so delightful is the same tea our peasants drink. I hope it will be a reminder to all that the good things in life are not necessarily the rarest or the most costly.

May we all find such value in the ordinary and eminently human subtext of the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

Our Gospel reading today opens with these words.  Hard words these.  They leave no room for quarter.  No room for vacillating.  As sure as the defenders of the Alamo you are challenged to step over the line in the sand.  You cannot straddle this fence.  In or out.

It is often thought that these words go with the section of the Sermon on the Mount that comes before, that section on building up your treasure.  It could probably to some extent do that fairly well, especially considering how easily men are ruled by their treasures.  But it really goes here, although the application may not be readily apparent when skimming though the text.  In spite of how the text following this assertion begins, This statement is often taken as akin to a proverb or truism tossed out to the listening crowd on the mount.  It is only after we have let this text speak to us;  let it make us uncomfortable;  let it make us squirm – uncomfortable with the facing of its truths – that we begin to truly appreciate the application of these words to those that follow and the weight those that follow add to these.

We should make no mistake, in this Sermon Jesus is talking to those who are His.  Those, who should come to embody the beatitudes, in imitation of our Lord.  In the specific instance of our Gospel reading He offers us a glimpse at the proper sizing of our faith, and His idea of a healthy attitude about our lives.  He knows we are beset by trials, and in His glorious compassion He offers this wisdom and teaching to address an area that is very, very difficult for many of us.

Do you have anxiety about life?  Do you doubt?  Do you worry?  If so then today’s Gospel lesson, indeed, all the readings for this day are designed to speak to you specifically.  Listen then as Jesus continues His sermon:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.  Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

“Therefore”, Jesus begins.  Therefore, so, on this account, for this reason, because of this, I say unto you.  Jesus is linking what He is saying very directly to His comment on serving two masters and indicating that these words follow quite naturally from those that have come before, the ones about serving two masters.

We are told to take no thought for our life.  No thought of food.  No thought of drink.  No thought of clothes.  But what does that mean?  Are we to be like some Disney animation and wait until the birds and squirrels and other animals come and bring us food and sew our clothes?  Does that mean we are to sit and not think about life, about our provision?  Not exactly.

“Take no thought” is actually an older English idiom for “don’t worry” or “do not be anxious”.  It is man’s lot to work, as Paul indicates in Thessalonians where he states that a man who will not work shall not eat.  Working is not the problem here.  Jesus is not warning us off of work, but rather warning us off of worry.

Here, we are initially called by Christ to realize that there is more to life than food and clothing.  It is so simple, but simple is a sometimes a different thing than easy and often this is not easy for us.  Yet it should be.

Jesus gives us some examples for our edification so that we may understand more clearly what He is talking about. This is so that we may, seeing His examples, really believe.

Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them.  Are not ye of much more value than they?

Jesus bids us here to behold the birds of the air.  To look, to gaze to observe these beings as God provides for them.  He reminds us that it is OUR Heavenly Father who feeds them.  This is one of the indications that Jesus is talking to His own for only His of all of the people of the Earth can rightly claim God as Father.  In pondering this truth we are reminded of Jesus’s discourse with the Pharisees where He tells them that they are the children of their father, the devil.  As our opening verse states clearly a man cannot serve two masters for He will serve one or the other.  There is no middle ground, no mushy inclusivity.  We are adopted children of the Father of the Christ or we are with the Pharisees the sons of Hell.  Are the children of the Living God of greater worth than the birds of the air?  This questions rhetorical nature should indicate to us that indeed we are.

Now there are certain circles of animal rights activists that would dispute that assertion.  They will rent billboards claiming Jesus’s imagined sympathy with their cause and assure us that under heaven a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.  But Christ tells us in our gospel reading that this – this is not so.. There are even some Episcopal diocese of another persuasion that maintain the egalitarian notion that all things are a part of God, examples being, you and I, the animal kingdom, trees, and even rocks.    This is also not so.

As Christians we are the sons of the living God and our heavenly Father provides for us.  We need not fret and worry or be anxious that we are abandoned for even the birds which do not labor for their sustenance are cared for and if they are, how much more so the children of the living God.

All of that said though, I will not stand here and pretend that there are none who pray, and have their needs are miraculously delivered.  As an example, there was a man in England who ran several orphanages which were upheld by – prayer.  This pastor never asked for donations – never begged a dime – he merely prayed telling the Father his needs and they were always met, sometimes even unto the last minute.  The orphanages he ran were not small and he tended to over 10,000 children over several decades in this fashion.  This pastor also distributed thousands of copies of Scripture and supported over the span of his life over 180 missionaries all while never taking a salary, but merely relying on the Father. This pastor’s name was George Muller.  He was given a gift of faith and God used him mightily to show that He does answer prayer, He cares actively for His children.

Even so, George Muller worked.  He was busy about the Lord’s business and none would have ever called Muller lazy.  As his faith was a testament to the Lord, so was his work.  One quote in particular from Muller speaks the truth of our Gospel lesson today:
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of faith is the end of anxiety.
Muller’s faith did not allow him to fret and worry.  Does ours?

Jesus asks next what we expect to gain by all our worry and anxiety:

And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?  And why are ye anxious for raiment?

Christian, has any worry that you have had, any worry you may now have, right now at this moment, ever added even the tiniest of moments to the length of your life?  Ever?  We know that God has everything in control, including the moment we die.  Although that is no reason to abandon proper stewardship of our bodies or lives; it should sober us to the reality that worry does nothing for us.  Modern science indicates that worry is, in fact, a killer.  It takes a toll on your whole body.  And why not?  Man was created for faith not for worry.  Is worry compatible with faith?  Is it a worthy pursuit of those who are His or is it sin?  What does Christ say of this?  Jesus continues:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Where before we were told to behold the birds, now we are presented another assignment.  We are to consider the lilies of the field, to meditate on them.  The people on the mount are once again given a plain example, one they will understand from their everyday lives, but also an example that they will recognize from their religious training.  Often in the teaching of Jesus He will refer to a portion of another passage meaning to bring to mind the entirety of that other passage.

These references take us back to our Psalm today, Psalm 103.  In this Psalm we find comfort and confidence for those who are His.  We are told that He satisfies our mouth with good things.  We are reminded several times that great is His mercy toward them that fear Him.  We are taught that although our days are as grass we flourish as the flower of the field.  We are assured that the merciful goodness of the Lord endures for ever and ever upon them that fear Him.  Surely the multitude on the mount took great comfort from these particular words of Jesus that day.  So should they comfort us as we allow the words of Christ to reach us, affect us and assist us in the building and healing of our faith.

Our problem is that little faith.  It is not that we do not have any, lest we could not be His, but we have little.  And what little we do have we all to often fail to exercise.  There are several instances just in the Gospel of Matthew where these words or those quite similar to them appear.  The first is here in Matthew 6 but the others occur in chapters 8, 14, and 16.

In chapter 8 we see Jesus use this term in reference to the disciples who are afraid in the boat during a storm on the Sea of Galilee -right after He has asked them why they are afraid.

In Chapter 14 we see the term used with Peter who had been walking on water for a while before beginning to sink.  Jesus asked him, “Why did you doubt?”

And lastly in Chapter 16 we see this phrase used to chide the disciples.  He asks them, “You men of little faith, why is it that you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? “  Then Christ reminds them of the thousands that He has fed with so little.  They saw these things and yet still lacked faith.

“Little faith” in none of these instances is regarded as a positive, in fact, quite the opposite is true and in each instances of little faith there was fear, doubt, and worry.  It appears that Muller’s observation about the inverse nature of worry and faith holds true, so if we consider that this relationship is inverse, then we really have little option but to consider worry as sinful and unworthy of the Children of God.  We need to take care to realize that as the sons and daughters of the Most High that He will care for us.  He will not forsake us.  Allow this to inform and build your faith.

Then for a second time in our passage Jesus instructs us to not be anxious.

Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

Here He works the other side of the argument, highlighting some of what we have previously discussed.  Here Jesus lays out the worries that are temptations to His people and tells them that this is what the Gentiles seek.  No Jew in the first century would have appreciated this comparison to the Gentiles.  “Don’t be like them!” Jesus tells us.  They do those things, you know better.  You know that your Father supplies all you need.  He speaks the same to us.  Do not be as the world!  You know better.  John of the Cross in the 16th century instructed aptly:

Live in faith and hope, though it be in darkness, for in this darkness God protects the soul. Cast your care upon God for you are His and He will not forget you. Do not think that He is leaving you alone, for that would be to wrong Him.

And is this not the message of the Collect today?

KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable for our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

He is always holding us up, always merciful, always watching, always our faithful Saviour and Lord.  If we see this properly we will be forced to conclude with John Calvin that “Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ.” And warm it is indeed.

Jesus then returns us to the first of this reading, reminding us which master we are to serve.  He does not ask or plead.  He tells those the mount and us as well.  Do this!

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

R.L. Dabney, speaks as powerfully to this as any man I have ever read.  What he says in his work, “What is a Call to the Ministry?” is far superior than anything I could begin to pen myself and so I present to you a portion of what he says.  Please listen and consider carefully these words in light of our Lord’s admonitions regarding what we are first to seek and our ability to only serve on Master.

[Scriptures] plainly teach that the only condition of discipleship permitted by Christ to any believer is complete self-consecration to his service. In this the self-devotion of the minister is just the same as that of all other true Christians. If a Christian man proposes to be a teacher, physician, lawyer, mechanic, or farmer, it must be, not chiefly from promptings of the world or self, but chiefly because he verily believes he can, in that calling, best serve his heavenly Master. If he hath not this consecration, we do not say he is unfit for the ministry only, he is unfit to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. If any man think this standard of dedication too strict, let him understand at once that he is “not fit for the kingdom of God … For did not Christ redeem the whole man? Did he not purchase with his blood all our powers, and our Whole energies, if we are his disciples? We profess to desire to love him with our whole souls, and therefore what reason is there which demands a part of the exertion and service in our power which does not also demand the whole? That professor of religion who contents himself with exerting for his Saviour a portion only of the efficiency for which his capacities enable him confesses himself a hypocrite. The modicum of religious effort •which he renders is not truly rendered to Christ, but to self-righteousness, or to a guilty conscience, or to public opinion. Had the motives which exacted this partial service been genuine, they would assuredly have exacted the whole.

These words sting, but they sting true.  Serve one master, seek Him first, serve Him with all you have.  In doing so you will find this next is a bit easier, sometimes.

Be ye not therefore anxious about the morning; for the morrow shall take care for itself: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This is the third time in our reading that Christ has told us, “Do not be anxious” as if He really expects us to do this, to not worry ourselves and be anxious.  I cannot help but be reminded of the old rhyme that goes:

Never trouble trouble
Until trouble troubles you;
For you only make your trouble
Double-trouble when you do;
And the trouble — like a bubble —
That you’re troubling about,
May be nothing but a zero
With its rim rubbed out.

It might be absolutely nothing that worries us -  or nothing that we need to be worrying about.  So why do we put so much effort into it?

God is patiently waiting for His people of little faith and He is calling us to be people of Big Faith.  Where that best occurs is also in the place where it is hardest to achieve – in the hum-drum day to day grind of our lives.  Each day, one day at a time.
Have you ever studied the old martyrs?  The ones from Roman times, or even our beloved Oxford Martyrs?  What faith to meet their deaths and their Saviour with such joy!  I would say that they had plenty to worry about, yet they did not.  When I look at them, I have to say to myself, “What do I have to worry about?”  If God was enough, and faithful enough to carry His people through that, to make that burden light, then why are we worried?”  What threat can tomorrow really bring?  Gustav?

We meet here today under threat of a storm in the Gulf.  It may go to New Orleans, it may come here.  We can prepare ourselves as so we should, but we should not worry for We are His.

As we enter this time of Holy Communion consider these things and then come to the Lord for His healing and comfort..

Some of you who are here today may be harboring a storm of worry in your heart, trying to carry a heavy burden of anxiety that your Lord never intended you to carry.  Take no thought and rest your cares on Him.

Some may be struggling with giving their all to Christ, holding back some piece of themselves, afraid to let go of that last bit.  Fully engage in the service of the Lord whatever your call in life.

Others yet may be struggling with the grip of the world, with priorities that are not godly nor a reflection of what Christ is asking of you.  Seek ye first, the kingdom of God.

Come to Holy Communion and “Cast your care upon God for you are His and He will not forget you.”
Amen

Preached at Holy Trinity, Houston, Texas

The 52nd General Council of the REC concluded on Friday October 24th. One key motion was passed that is most pressing and is, therefore, provided here.

Forasmuch as the Reformed Episcopal Church has affirmed the teaching of God’s Word that abortion is the taking of an unborn human life, and inasmuch as we have recognized the duty of all faithful Christians to work to protect the unborn and restrain the sin of abortion on demand, we hereby move that the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church direct the clergy and laity of the Reformed Episcopal Church to make a political candidate’s position on the Sanctity of Human Life the highest priority in discerning for whom to vote regardless of political party represented or office being sought.

Being a postulant for Holy Orders in the Reformed Episcopal Church, I am especially thankful for the Synod and our Bishops being supportive of bold preaching and teaching for the cause of life.  May the Lord richly bless the Reformed Episcopal Church and her Bishops.

Today, as we consider our readings, we come to realize that like Henri Nouwen, our readings present to us the concept of prodigal in several different lights each with its own unique contribution to our understanding of what it is to be prodigal so that we can avoid it.  Given how we usually view the concept of prodigal it is easy to see the younger son, the wild and reckless one, as the prodigal – but what does prodigal really mean?  Really?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually use this word outside of the context of this particular biblical parable.  Webster’s says that prodigal is defined as extravagant, wasteful, lavish, “not economical.” But it is the definition of prodigality that nearest hits the mark for us today.  Prodigality, we are told, is extravagance in the expenditure of what one possesses, particularly of money, but not always.  We are also informed that by Roman law if one was a notorious prodigal he was treated as non compos – not of sound mind or insane.  So in actuality a prodigal is going to be anyone who is wasteful, lavish, or “not economical” (all terms denoting some measure of disrespect or devaluation) with what one has been given.

It is here we join the younger son who asked, in a sense demanded, that his father fork over his piece of the inheritance early, and so the father divided his wealth between his sons.  It was customary for the older son to get a double portion, meaning the younger, assuming that there were only two sons, got roughly 1/3 of the wealth of the family.  The young son, being a foolish youth and the poster child for wastefulness, blew his inheritance on wild living.  After the money was gone, a famine came and he had to hire himself out.  And so we come the this young man brought low, from rich young partier to a keeper of pigs.  What a rude awakening for a young Jewish man.  We are told that he was so hungry that he longed to eat even the food destined for the swine he tended.  But verse 17 starts “and when he came to himself” giving us again the idea that indeed the young man had lost all of his senses earlier and was finally coming around.  When he came to himself he realized that even servants in his father’s house were better off.  His whole experience was so humbling that he sought to return and seek servitude in his father’s house.  No more the proud rich boy, he was ready to return, repent, and await his father’s judgment.  A sure sign of his humility appeared as he met his father.  His father had seen him from afar and ran to greet the young man, hugging him and kissing his neck.  Had this young man not possessed a truly humbled heart he might have just kept his mouth shut at that point hoping for the best.  But like any truly humble heart, his desired confession and so he told his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight I am no more worthy to be called thy son.”  His words echo another prayer that we find in Luke 18 from a certain tax gatherer in the Temple who cried, “God, be merciful to me a sinner,” and just as Jesus pronounced that that tax gatherer returned home justified, so was the younger son that we call prodigal.  God awaits all His children, those that newly come to Him and those that stray for a time and have to learn some things the hard way.

In the story of the prodigal son we also meet another individual who has some remarkable similarities to someone in the Luke 18 parable in the Temple.  Considering our definition of the prodigal, which is in a nutshell the wastefulness in the expenditure of what one possesses, we see that the older son in our story and the Pharisee from Luke 18 have some striking similarities.  Most obviously, both have a hardness of heart toward those who do not live up to the standards that they have set.  Both consider themselves righteous.  The Pharisee with his, “Thank God, I am not like other people,” and the brother with his protest that he had never, NEVER, transgressed his father’s commandments.  Really?  How many parents here would be able to keep a straight face if your child told you this?  How many of us could honestly say these words to our own parents, that we never disobeyed anything they commanded?  Never, not once.  Any takers?  Me either.  This is a problem of pride, of a heart gone hard.  But since prodigal doesn’t refer directly to any hardness of heart how is it that we can class this son as a prodigal?  Well, I not only would class this son as a prodigal, but in many ways I would class him as a greater prodigal than his brother, for he who had all, all the possessions, all the time with his father, all the instruction during the younger son’s absence, all the security – all this, he wasted.  He never understood what was truly important.  Is this not what the Pharisees did?  They had the Scripture, they had the Temple, they had all that they needed and like the elder son they were jealous when they found out that some of the other sons might be saved as if there were only so much of God to go around.  In their hardheartedness, as with the elder son, they forgot that God’s grace is inexhaustible and another getting some does not diminish our part in the least.  When we consider these two brothers we see one who has come and repented, justified before God and man, he wasted the temporal but returned in repentance and gained the world.  And another, who has worldly advantages a plenty who seems to do everything right, but whose hardness of heart and self-righteousness will send him home unjustified, having wasted what was given to him.

Although this parable can be seen on an individual level it also applies on a corporate one.  It is good for us to remember that this particular parable is biblically set in the context of three parables about things lost that are found.  Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees directly in this passage in response to their challenge of his eating with publicans and sinners.  These stories are striking indictments of the Pharisees.  I doubt any Pharisee missed the implication in this story that they were intended to be represented by the elder son and those repenting “sinners” by the younger.  We often cast the prodigal in the poorer light, but despite his waste, despite his lack of estate, it was he in the end that was the richer son.  What he gained could not be measured.  Our epistle reading today reemphasizes that corporate nature of this parable.

Today’s epistle reading presents for our edification the people of Israel, corporate prodigals.  They were baptized, they ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink which we are told is Christ, they were a people set apart for God.  Yet, God was not pleased with most of them.  They craved evil things and despite much being given to them, they wasted it.  They worshipped idols.  They engaged in immorality.  They grumbled about what God gave them despite what God had so obviously and spectacularly done for them.  It all seems so stupid from our perspective.  They saw the plagues.  They saw the sea part.  They walked the dry land and turned to see the drowning of Pharoah’s army.  Every day and every night they had the pillars of cloud and fire guiding them.  They could see the pillars God’s ever present supernatural guidance – and yet, they still strayed.  The people of Israel were the epitome of prodigal writ large.  They embodied both the initial disobedience of the younger son, and the hardness of heart in the older.  The worst of both worlds as it were.  If one were to aspire to be a prodigal, and wasteful of the gifts which God provided, then a better example could hardly be found than the people of Israel.  It might be tempting to take some solace in that, except our epistle reading tells us that these things happened to be an example to us and although we often look back at them and think, “How stupid.”  “If I saw that stuff, I would never complain.  “I would never turn my back on the Lord.”  “Thank God, I’m not like (those) other people.” Which begs the question, is it really the people of Israel who were slow on the uptake, that had to get in trouble over, and over, and over?  Or are we the slow ones?  Were they allowed to get into trouble over and over and over because without such a blatant and repeated set of examples we would never get it?

Have we proven more able to avoid corporate prodigality in our nation than was found in the nation of Israel?  We are told they were baptized into Moses, drank the same spiritual food and drink, which was Christ.  This is great, we are baptized into the people of God, we will eat and drink of Christ in our C,ommunion this morning and we are the New Israel.  Living in our supposedly more enlightened and learned times we’ll do a much better job than that old disobedient Israel, after all we have the benefit of their example.  Will we?  Remember, we are looking corporately at the moment.  What exactly was it that Israel was charged with?

They were charged as idolators, putting things before or in the place of God.  Although the REC is patently pro-life there are other denominations that give to fund abortion.  In this country we have lost over 30 million of our children to the god of self, of convenience, they were simply in our way.  And those who claim the cause of Christ helped pay for it in their offering plate at church as a people of God.  I ask you, is the god of modern convenience any less a false god than those to whom the Israelites prayed in the wilderness?
The people of Israel were charged with immorality.  What can be said here?  How many problems does this culture, not to mention those who claim the name of Christ have with immorality?  We often marry indiscriminately, when we can be bothered to choose marriage at all, and it’s not only in the pew, but in the staff of the Church.  Has anyone here not heard of at least one pastor having an affair, or a youth worker molesting children in some congregation?  Is not the New Israel beginning to look more and more like the old one?

Ah, but what of gumbling?  Don’t we grumble.  Grumbling can be outright complaints at God as the children of Israel oft engaged in.  They were bored, same old, same old.  Manna, again.  Can’t we serve something else for Communion?  Can’t we spice up the liturgy a bit?  Maybe chant in rap?  Or maybe we can have some of that sexy mega-church dance action going on up front, that’ll get the young people really fired up.  My brother is a preacher, and he was in one church where they were upset because he preached too much on sin.  People did not want how they imagined life to be disrupted by being reminded that this was not how God intended it to be, which brings us full circle to idolatry again.  God gets in the way.

Our epistle speaks very strongly to the possibility of a people playing the prodigal in a totally corporate fashion.  But what of us?  You and I?  Our collect today speaks to this.  It states, “Grant us, Lord we beseech thee”.  We are asking God for His aid.  “The spirit to think and do always such things as are right.”  It should come as no surprise that we need to ask this.  We don’t do right, any of us.  The ante-communion service in our Prayer Book emphasizes this elegantly when at the first of the month we recite a litany of the Ten Commandments saying after each one, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.”  And why would we say such a thing, except to acknowledge through our liturgy that we have broken God’s law, that we have devalued and wasted some of what was given to us, acknowledging that we are prodigals too.  We are wasteful.  We are not economical with what God has given us.  Some of us are wasteful of our time, others of economic gifts, yet others of the affections of their hearts, but we all stand convicted as fallen men.  We all play the prodigal in some fashion.  Our collect continues with our admission that we can do nothing good apart from God and that through Christ we want to be enabled to live according to His will.  His will, not ours.  This is the prayer of a prodigal child returned, confessing to a loving father who has awaited joyfully for that return.

We are all prodigals, therefore “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Some of us, having been baptized, went far away into a foreign land and wasted what we had been given.  We had to learn the hard way.  Some of us may still be there, afraid to come home and dine with our Father.  I know I was.  Don’t be afraid.  Come home, confess to your Father as we say together our General Confession in Holy Communion and dine at the table of heaven.

Others of us are like that older son.  We never really went to the far land, at least not physically, but there is more to distance than miles.  We realize that our attitudes have been more than a little self-righteous and our hearts a bit too hard.  We look at our brother in the church and knowing personally about his sin, are a bit, maybe just a teeny bit, resentful about his place at the table, as if he had to earn his way in, or there wasn’t enough of God’s grace to go around.  Maybe it is some small and petty resentment that we humans like to grasp onto from time to time that separates us from rejoicing for and with our brothers.  I’ve been those places too.  Whichever it is, God is speaking to you and saying, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.  It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is found.”  Like that father in our parable to his sons, Our Father beckons you to enter in, come to the table here and dine as part of the children of the Father God.  Leaving behind self-righteousness, bitterness and hardness of heart.  Soften your heart, rejoice for your brethren.

Come, my brothers and sisters, and as we continue our service for Holy Communion prepare to dine on our spiritual food and drink which is Christ.  Come home and feast.  The dinner is ready.  Our Father is waiting.

An MP3 version of this sermon may be found at St. Francis Reformed Episcopal Church.

Sermon delivered July 20, 2008 at St. Thomas Reformed Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas.