Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity–2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

–Mark 7:37.

Over my 22 years in Holy Orders, I frequently think about the nature of healing and the miraculous. In the clerical vocation, we are witness to both—the seemingly ordinary healings that occur almost every day and the truly miraculous which happens more frequently than we might think. In light of our Scripture lessons, I think it is an appropriate time to consider healing–real healing, miraculous healing by our Lord Jesus Christ.

My friend the late Fr. Lou Tarsitano used to tell a story about his time serving in Denver some years ago. The priest at a neighboring parish was considered one of the “town characters.” He ran a sort of “science of mind” operation, full of the type of “metaphysical” talk about the unreality of the human body and the “illusion” of the physical world that is more appropriate to sects like Christian Science than it is to orthodox Biblical Christianity.

This fellow’s diocese didn’t seem to mind his preaching that the right “spiritual knowledge” and thinking the right “spiritual thoughts” could make a person healthy, happy, and rich. His doctrine seems to have been the ancient heresy of Gnosticism--the belief that there is a secret knowledge of life and success to be learned only outside the Bible. He had a big following, which looked good on the annual membership reports, and he always paid his substantial diocesan assessment on time.

These words are not an advertisement for “faith healing”–or rather faith healing that relies on men and not God’s grace. They are the promise of the healing of the faithful in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are a call to confess the sin that is the original cause of all illness and sorrow, and a divine oath made by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost that God will always hear our prayers and answer them as he knows is best for us.

Today that may mean the healing of our bodies, but it also means, today, always, and forever, our redemption from sin, sickness, and death by the Blood of Jesus Christ. It means that if we will benefit from it now, God will raise us from our sickbeds; and, if not, he will most certainly raise us from the dead to eternal life and health in his kingdom. In the words of St. Ambrose, so we may be truly healed through the breath of eternal life breathed upon us by the grace of his sacraments and be opened–opened to true life in Christ. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2023
(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

AI tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

St. Luke 18:14

This morning our theme is straightforward. Pray, and do not give up The setting is familiar. Jesus had just finished telling His disciples a parable “to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). In it the Lord taught the value of persevering in prayer, because “God [will] bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry to him day and night” (Luke 18:7).

We explore the parable that follows several times in the church year, with good reason. The parable of The Pharisee and The Tax Collector is rich in the lessons it has for us. It is linked to Jesus’ parable about persevering in prayer. Specifically, the parable of The Pharisee and The Tax Collector deals with the attitude with which we offer up our prayers. “[For] without the proper spirit, our perseverance in prayer will be for nothing.” (Mark Copeland, The Parables of Jesus)

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable” (Luke 18:9). He directs His teaching specifically at those in the crowd around Him who were self-assured, convinced, of their own moral purity and ethical standing. They were so very proud of their perceived moral standing before God and consequently looked down their noses at almost everyone else.

So, we hear again these words. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ’God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’” But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Literally, this is the Jesus Prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

This man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:10-14).

Let us take a closer look at the two men, “one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” A Pharisee was a member of the Jewish faith set apart to maintain and further the divine cause. (Craig Evans, Luke) They were laymen zealous about keeping the Scriptures, the oral law, and traditions pure. They were the pious ‘church-goers’ of their time who attended every Scripture study and rigorously sought to obey every law of the faith.

Oh, and the Pharisees knew how to pray. In fact, as one commentator notes, “they applied themselves to the art of prayer (Emil Brunner, Sowing and Reaping: The Parables of Jesus).”

Perhaps today, we have grown accustomed to thinking negatively of them as soon as we hear their name. However, Pharisees were highly respected and looked up to in their community. They were the ‘elders’ of the church so-to-speak. We need to see them as honored members of the Jewish community in order to fully understand this parable.

They were the good guys; the best of the best of Jewish citizenry. It is important to remember that Jesus is speaking of one specific Pharisee and not the whole group.

A tax collector was at the other end of the spectrum. He would have been perceived by the community as the worst of the worst of Jewish citizenry, perhaps even lower. Tax collectors, in the Scriptures, were Jews who worked for the ruling Roman authorities. They were considered both extortioners and traitors - extortioners because they were notoriously noted for collecting more taxes than was owned and pocketing the difference – and traitors because they served the occupying power of Rome. Again, Jesus was speaking of one specific tax collector and not the whole bunch.

So, as the parable opens we must remember to view the Pharisee positively. Ostensibly, he is the hero. The tax collector is to be viewed negatively. He apparently is the villain of the piece.

Next, we have the two prayers. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself. (Luke 18:11,12). O Lord, it is hard to be humble when I see how rotten others are compared to me. Thank you, Lord I am not like those people, you know, people who steal, who do bad things and who cheat on their wives, or even like this guy over there who works for Revenue Rome. Yes, Lord, I am one of the very, very few who does more than even the Law requires. You know, I give a tenth of all I get to the temple while everyone else just gives a tenth of their income. I also go without food and water, I fast from sunrise to sunset twice a week and not just once a year like most other folks. Yes, God, thank you that I am not like these other people.”

Now the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. (Luke 18:13) This man literally “slumped in the shadows” way at the back of the temple, out of sight. He would not even lift his eyes to heaven as was common amongst those who came to pray. Rather, he pounded his chest over and over again crying, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”

There are two diametrically opposed outcomes. The tax collector went home from the temple “justified before God”. He was forgiven. He received a new right standing before God. He had received the blessing King David spoke of in Psalm 32: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him…” (Psalm 32:1-2).

The Pharisee went home not having been justified before God. He went home with nothing. Why the two different outcomes?

Beloved, note the spirit with which each prayed. The: Pharisee considered himself morally and religiously superior to others. He literally despised those whose spiritual caliber was perceived to be less than his own; he praised himself and condemned his neighbor. He exalted in his own religious practices and trusted in his own good deeds to make him acceptable to God. This man acted as if God owed Him something for his goodness. As a result, he utterly failed to see his sin and therefore, his own need for God.

The core problem besets so many up to this day. He is a man who measured himself to others rather than to God who is absolute in holiness. It is a negative life in which he built his self-worth on the perceived moral failings of others.

How sad that this Pharisee, zealous for the faith and well-versed in the Scriptures, had somehow overlooked passages like Isaiah 64:6: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away.” Or Proverbs 20:9: “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?” Or Proverbs 3:34 as recorded in James 4:6: “God opposes the proud….” The lack of a humble and contrite (repentant) heart separated him from God.

What of the tax collector? In a few brief verses, we learn that recognized the holiness of God. Unlike the rich man who passed by Lazarus, he knew the great gulf that lay between himself and God. We hear that “[he] stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven”

This is a man who recognized the sin in his life. He did not hide it or deny it. He recognized his need for God’s grace and pled for it. “[He] beat his breast and said, ’God, have mercy on me, a sinner”

The initial question is what is the spirit we bring to prayer? What is the attitude of our hearts when we speak with God? The Bible says, “God gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). “Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).

God told the prophet Isaiah, “I live in that high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts” (Isaiah 57:15). Remember as well Jesus’ own words in this parable: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

How then shall pray? What does the Lord’s parable teach us about the spirit with which we are to pray? What is the proper attitude of our heart when coming before God?

Pray with a spirit of humility recognizing that we are sinners saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8). Pray knowing that even the privilege to come before God is a gift (Ephesians 3:12). Pray knowing that God will turn away a prayer saturated with pride, selfishness and the defamation of others. God will welcome a contrite prayer, a prayer which is honest about our spiritual state, and our need for God’s grace.

“The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17)

Pray knowing that it is to an absolutely holy God we speak (Isaiah 6:3). Pray knowing that God will hear a plea for mercy. He will honor a plea for help and forgiveness no matter who we are or what we have done (1 John 1:9,10).

Pray the prayer of the tax collector for he went home right before God. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE TENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.”

- I Corinthians 12:4-6

Traditionally they have been called “child prodigies.” Although educators often label them as “gifted and talented.” They are young people blessed with unbelievable intelligence, amazing artistic talents, or seemingly unnatural physical abilities. Several years ago, there was a news story of a girl in England who had an IQ of 161-greater than Einstein's.

We have all heard stories about a twelve-year-old graduating from medical school, or a six-year-old playing concert-worthy classical music on the piano. Examples of child prodigies would include Mozart who learned to play the piano at the age of four. He composed his first pieces of music at five and at age eight, he wrote his first symphony. Another example would be Pablo Picasso who had already become an accomplished and renowned painter in his teenage years.

Although their stories astound us, such gifted individuals are very rare. They are the exception to the rule as we say. The vast majority of us are astoundingly average. Yet. as I look at you today I can say with confidence that each of you is gifted.

Before you deny being gifted remember that I am not the one saying you are gifted. God says it of you and God cannot lie. Listen to God’s description of how you are gifted. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but they have the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kind of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

In St. Paul’s inspired words, we hear God say to each of us, “YOU ARE GIFTED!” The Holy Spirit has given you the gift of faith. The Holy Spirit has given you these marvelous gifts for serving others. In this week's epistle lesson, St. Paul continues to deal with a series of specific questions the Corinthian church has posed to him. Previous questions concerned marriage (7:1), the married state versus that of singleness (7:27), and the issue of meat offered to idols (8:1). Having addressed those, St. Paul moves on to the topic of manifestations of the Spirit in this Christian community. The question concerning the operation of the spirit appears to be rooted in a lack of knowledge on the part of the Corinthians. “I don't know how to use this gift. Nobody ever told me.”

The new Christians in Corinth had gifts from the Spirit. But they were uninformed about what the Spirit intended them to do with the gifts they had been given (v. 1). So they relied on their past experiences with idols to interpret their present experience with the Holy Spirit. However, their former idols could not speak (v. 2). Those idols could not inform them about how to appropriately respond to the Spirit's gifts.

Consequently, the Corinthians' self-concern guided them (“self-concern” being the opposite of the “common good” in v. 7) and eventually it, like their idols, enticed and led them astray (v. 2)

So, St. Paul set out to lead the Corinthians out of their ignorance into a better understanding of spiritual gifts. They would learn that they were gifted people. The Holy Spirit had given them the gift of faith and the Holy Spirit had given them gifts for serving others.

Beloved in Christ, those same truths apply to us as well. The Lord of the Church is still speaking through these inspired words saying to each of us, “You are gifted! You too have been given the gift of faith. And you too have been given gifts to serve others.” Perhaps I am stating the obvious when I say that any intellectual, artistic, musical, or athletic abilities that a child has are gifts. No child prodigy decided to be born a genius, an artist, or an athletic superstar. Yes, it is true that people like Mozart and Picasso had parents that helped them develop their gifts but clearly they were gifted at birth with abilities above and beyond those of the average person.

It works the same way for spiritual gifts. None of us can take credit for being gifted in the area of spiritual things. It was the Holy Spirit that first of all gave us the gift of faith in Christ. Through the Means of Grace, the Word, and the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit has brought to each of us the gifts of forgiveness, spiritual life, and salvation. And it is also the Holy Spirit that has given each of us gifts to use for serving others.

Before talking about the spiritual gifts that the Corinthians had received, the Apostle reminded them that first of all they had been given the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. “You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”

Like other people born after the Fall into sin, the Corinthian Christians had been born dead in sin, blind to spiritual truth, and enemies of God. Before the Holy Spirit gave them the gift of faith they worshipped idols and lived contrary to God’s Word. However, through the Gospel in Word and Sacraments, the Corinthians were led to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Their faith in Jesus was evidence that the Holy Spirit lived in them and that they were gifted people.

Just as gifted children receive their gifts from the Creator so too the gift of faith comes to us without any actions or qualifications on our part. St. Paul stated this truth in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast.”

Why is it important to begin a discussion of spiritual gifts with the gift of faith as their foundation? Because spiritual gifts grow out of faith in Christ. The fact that you and I claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior is proof that we have been given the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. Remember that we describe the work of the Holy Spirit with three words full of meaning: regeneration, illumination, and conversion.

Regeneration is the word that describes the rebirth that the Holy Spirit gave us to make us alive spiritually.

Illumination is the word we use to summarize how the Holy Spirit has turned on the lights for us regarding spiritual truth.

Finally, the word conversion reminds us that the Holy Spirit has “turned us around” from unbelief to faith.

St. Paul continued making his point to the Corinthians about the source of spiritual gifts. “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.” Just as faith in Christ is a gift worked in a person by the Holy Spirit so too does a person’s spiritual gifts come from Spirit’s working in them.

How do you know if you are gifted spiritually? No series of tests is required. You and I don’t need to even wonder if we are gifted, because we believe in Jesus as our Savior we have been given the gift of faith. Because the Holy Spirit has created faith in our hearts we have also been given spiritual gifts for serving others.

After making the point that the Corinthian Christians were gifted because the Holy Spirit had given them the gift of faith, St. Paul went on to remind them that they also had been given gifts for serving others. “Now to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

There was not a single believer at the Church in Corinth that could say he or she had no spiritual gift to use in service to God and others. Each of them had at least one gift to be used for serving others for the “common good” of all.

So are things any different for us? No. The same truth applies to each and every one of us. You and I are gifted. The Holy Spirit has given us at least one gift to use in service to others. 1 Peter 4:10 reminds us of this truth, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”

In Romans 12:6 St. Paul declared, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” Yes, the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to believers will vary from person to person. Some may be given numerous gifts but everyone is given some ability that can be used in service to others.

For St. Paul, there is an innate connection between charismata and diakonia- Spirit and service–the fact that both are equal and parallel means of expressing God's love and power to the community of faith. There is also no cause for some elite sense of a super-spiritual class of faithful as the Corinthian church seems inclined to believe. St. Paul democratizes the gifts of the Spirit in verse 7, claiming that to each and every believer a specific manifestation of the Spirit is given.

To be a Christian is to be Spirit-filled. While that Spirit will necessarily take on a distinct or unique shape within each individual, it is nonetheless present within all.

When St. Paul reminded the Corinthians of the power of Christ crucified and risen in their lives, they realized they no longer needed to vie for status by comparing spiritual gifts. Instead, they were freed to use their gifts for the common good (12.7). The same is true for us. Because our faith in Christ establishes our status before God, we can acknowledge that our individual spiritual gifts aren't necessary to gain divine favor, nor are they a sign of who has more favor (12.11).

We are free to use our gifts to serve each other. How wonderful that is! How wonderful it is when we need healing, someone has that gift; and that, when we need knowledge, someone can share it with us. When we need faith, there is someone near us who can give us faith by speaking Christ to us. All these gifts are from the same Spirit who speaks Christ to us so that we in turn might have a good Word to speak to the world!

Yes, beloved in Christ, you are gifted particularly in that the Holy Spirit has given you the gift of faith. Since he has given you the gift of faith you can be certain the Holy Spirit has also given you gifts for serving others. As gifted people may we now use our gifts. Amen.

Sermon-Sunday of the Feast of the Transfiguration-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

...and when they were awake, they saw his glory.

-St. Luke 9:32

This morning we commemorate the Feast of the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration, the Lord took chosen witnesses and, in their presence, revealed His glory directly. It is a moment when the Apostles might be strengthened by Jesus’ personal transformation to a “dazzling” white so bright it “flashed like lightning.” As St. Leo puts it, this transfiguration in light promised them, and the whole Church, a promise of a share in God’s glory.

St. Luke’s startling imagery for some reason set me thinking about what was one of our daughter’s prized possessions as a child-a flashlight with a number of fiber optic strands that can be waived about. Adding to its allure, the rays of light emanate from the head of Minnie Mouse. As an actual flashlight, Minnie does not exactly give you a perfect view of what is coming your way in the dark. However, the joy for a child is that she can take it anywhere and have a measure of light. It is portable, personal, and able to pierce the darkness with a warm, if not terribly illuminating, glow. It is sort of a perfect go-anywhere, go-everywhere night light.

The comfort of night-lights is something we cherish as children, but tend to forget as adults. The world really can be a dark and scary place. By the time we reach adulthood, both our eyes and our hearts have often become so accustomed to the dark that we forget the warmth and radiance that light can bring to our souls.

Our theological ancestors remind us that one of the primary ways God has made the divine presence known on Earth has been through revealing glimpses of the divine light. Moses begged for a glimpse of God. Once he was honored with a peek at His back. Moses found his face forever emblazoned with God’s radiance which he had so briefly glimpsed. As we hear in Exodus 34, “And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.” This is from the time of the Law.
. The prophet Habakkuk describes God with beams of radiance shooting out from the Creator's creative hand (Habakkuk 3:3-4). Today’s Transfiguration Gospel text introduces the miraculous mountaintop epiphany with the presence of what St Luke calls “dazzling light.” God is always present in creation and humanity. However, when God wants to bring special illumination to an event, a messenger, or a message, God does not hesitate to turn on a light.

The reaction of the three disciples to the remarkable scene of the Transfiguration is very interesting, and so very human. Rather than face the enormity of the presence of God, the three disciples wanted to build three temples of light at the top of the mountain. A transfiguration “booth” would serve as a light at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of light beckoning those squinting from dim tunnel vision or those stuck at the wrong end of long, dark tunnels.

Think about this. Here is the radiant Jesus Christ standing between Moses representing the Law, and Elias representing all the prophets. Here is the visible image of the fulfillment of the law and prophecy-a brilliant, a shining turning point in the history of our restoration to God. The disciples, though, are focused on an earthly effort.

Jesus rebuked their “light-at-the-end-of-a-tunnel” understanding of discipleship and challenged them to embrace tunnel-at-the-end-of-the-light discipleship. The church is not called to invite people out of the darkness into the light so much as to bring the light into the darkness.

We spend so much time building our booths, our own safe “temples of light”, our little safe corners of the world. We fail to spend anywhere near that much time bringing that light into the dark tunnels. I am reminded of that folksy commercial for a hotel chain. Remember old Tom Bodette saying, “We’ll leave a light on for ya’!” Come on folks!

The Transfiguration does not call us to be “a light at the end of the tunnel,” waiting for people lost in the dark to blunder their way toward us. The church is to take the light of truth, the gospel, and the glory of Christ, boldly into the tunnel. Beloved in Christ, there is always a tunnel lurking right outside our ring of light. Will we move forward and further into that tunnel with the light of the gospel?

If we are to enter the tunnel at the end of the light; if we are to make new windows, not drill tiny peepholes, into the darkness of the world; if we are to live our lives in the light and lead others toward Christ, then we need to build three new kinds of windows in that tunnel.

First, we need Windows That Face Outward. Ever notice which way the beautiful stained-glass windows of some churches are directed? Most stained-glass windows only tell our stories to those already safely inside the illumined interior of the church community. To those trapped outside in the tunnel, those beautiful windows are nothing but hazy, multicolored blurs, a visual cacophony of confusion incapable of casting meaningful, penetrating light on anything.

This highlights a barrier to the work of Christ’s church in the world. The church seems to be a closed community. An invisible “For Members Only” sign is found in too many churches. In fact, it is a sign that is etched in bigger letters on our church doors than on many exclusive and even animal club doors (Eagles, Elks, Moose, Lions, etc.).

It is time to turn the stained-glass windows outward, to tell Christ’s story to the world. A word of warning though: once we turn them around, it must be light enough inside for people to see outside. Unless the community inside is on fire for God, there will not be enough light to illuminate the windows so the world can see them from the outside.

What about Windows That Let in the Light of the Outside? Some churches have forgone stained-glass windows. They have instead erected great panes of frosted, glazed-over, or intentionally crackled glass. My second parish was of such a design. On a winter afternoon or in the early morning, the church was suffused in a wonderful white light. It was a haven for prayer. However, with due apologies to the architect, those windows obscured any view of what lies outside the walls of the sanctuary.

I am reminded a bit of the early 18th century when the imperial English attempted to settle the wild Welsh. Proper English travelers who ventured from England to Wales used to close the curtains of their carriage to shut out the “horrid scenery.” They did not want to be disturbed by the horrors of the outside world.

Beloved in Christ, we are blessed to have beautiful views of God’s creation from the windows of our parish. We must have care not to use our beautiful scenery always to distract our view of the outside world as it is, rather than as though it is a picture postcard. We must come to terms with the fact that it is a different world out there. How people see themselves, see life, see the world, and see the church has changed and is changing.

What realities are we hiding from behind our own frosted-glass windows? How can we offer light to the world when our view of what that world is like is filtered through rose-tinted glasses?

The third new window for this world out there is a new stained-glass window, the stained-glass window for the 21st century is the computer screen. This new world is not getting its inspiration the Gutenberg Way. We Anglicans have had a love affair with the bound book even before we were a separate church, ever since typesetting was invented in mid-15th century Mainz. The mission to put a Bible in every hand, in every home pushed the church and Christ’s gospel message out into the darkest places in the 19th and early 20th centuries, To the great dismay of many in the church bureaucratic, faithful Anglo-catholic slum priests taught many to read using the Word.

Today, however, the way people carry on the fastest communication and obtain their most important information is no longer from the pages of a book. Instead, our postmodern culture has turned toward a new kind of stained-glass window as one of its sources of light. There is a very good chance that each of us looks at that “window” at some point, or many points, every day.

Christianity is now undergoing a visual metamorphosis. Potential Christians of the 21st century will be hypermediated people, who look to experience God in a variety of ways, including a sensory web made possible through powerful new technologies. There is a clutter, an overload that can just as easily distract and lead these brothers and sisters, as bolster their faith. We also know that the content of the information flow can itself constitute darkness.

Our task is to open the window, to let the true light of Christ shine forth-a light that outstrips the pallid glare of the computer, mobile phone, or television screen.

Our Lord’s light, the light that shines forth in the Sacraments and the Gospel, is that which transforms. It is that which only can transform. It is the light that always shines through the darkness, in love, mercy, and righteousness. We must look for ways to open the window and bring that light to those who sit in darkness.

For we have heard the voice speak from the cloud. We have heard the “voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” Shall we hear, or shall we build a tent and hide in it? Shall we hide behind windows that do not permit us to see, or others to see Christ at work in the world? Or, perhaps we can simply hide behind the comfortable images of electronic screens?

Beloved, the mountain-top experience of Jesus came at a critical point in His earthly life. His Galilean ministry was completed and, outwardly it looked like it had failed. The people who had received Him gladly were disappointed because they expected Him to be a temporal, nationalistic Messiah, and the authorities had begun plots to get rid of Him. Only the Twelve held fast as He turned His face toward Jerusalem for the final appeal of His mission. The transfiguration is the acceptance of perfect Sonship, the readiness of our Lord to fulfill the promise of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elias) for the redemption of mankind, whatever the sacrifice and the cost.

Unless we go forth, unless we turn toward Jerusalem and not inward, we will not open the window. We will not be able to shine forth the light of Christ in a darkened world. Unless we are willing to live in the spirit of sacrifice, the Way of the Cross, we will not be transformed, and we will not help to transform others.

Our call, then, is to say with the Psalmist, “Thy face, LORD, will I seek.” (Ps. 27:8). For the veil has been torn away-it was torn away on that day when the temple curtain was torn. Mankind has beheld his glory, that of the only-begotten son full of grace and truth.

Beloved, let us fling open any windows may hide behind, and tear down the tents. It is to us to proclaim the light of Christ. It is to us to proclaim it in transfigured lives, changed forever because of Christ Jesus. It is our mission to proclaim it in the faith once delivered to the saints so that others may say, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. Let us go forth this day and every day to proclaim Christ as bright as the lightning on the mountain, more luminous than the sun, leading us into the mystery of the future. Amen.

      SERMON FOR THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2023

           (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

                                              --St. Matthew 7:17-18

This morning we have a potent Gospel lesson. Our Lord tells us to  Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Certainly, there is now, even as in Apostolic times, an abundance of false prophets. At the same time, there are plenty of Aitching ears waiting to receive their messages.

However, as St. Jerome points out, this Scripture passage is not limited to those false teachers out there.  What is here spoken of false prophets we may apply to all whose dress and speech promise one thing, and their actions exhibit another. But it is especially to be understood of [those], who by observing temperance, chastity, and fasting, surround themselves as it were with a garment of sanctity, but inasmuch as their hearts within them are poisoned, they deceive the souls of the more simple brethren. No matter how much sanctity we put on, if our hearts are poisoned, we are in danger, and worse, we put into danger those around us who are new Christians or new to the community.

We must persevere until death. St. Paul tells us that we have to be firm and steadfast in the service of God, paying attention to the state of our souls every day of our lives. (Heb. 3:15-13).

A virtuous person does not waiver. He or she is like a rock beaten by a storm in the midst of the sea. We must be constant as His love is constant, and His promise of salvation is enduring. (Ps. 119:41) We should be resigned to the will of God and zealous in faith “in all times and at all places”. That is how saints act. That is how the martyrs stand in unspeakable torment while growing closer to God. Let everything come from a heart that is indebted to God and centered on Jesus. Neglect nothing in His service, and grow and increase in the knowledge and love of God.

Then we can look in the mirror and face ourselves. Then we will bear good fruit. Then we can look at others and speak of Christ in truth. Then, one day, we can look at our Lord and face Him. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF ST. MARYMAGDALEN (Trinity VII)-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

"Charity shall cover the multitude of sins."
-I Peter 4:8

Today, while it is the seventh Sunday in Trinity, we transfer yesterday’s magnificent feast of St. Mary Magdalene, “The Penitent.” She was given the name “Magdalene” because though a Jewish girl, she lived in a Gentile town called Magdale in northern Galilee on the banks of Lake Genesareth (Galilee), between the cities of Capernaum and Tiberias.

The Gospel tells us nothing of Mary's younger years. We know that the Lord expelled seven devils from Mary (Luke. 8:2). From the moment of her healing Mary led a new life and became a true disciple of the Savior. The Gospel relates that Mary followed after the Lord when through the cities and villages of Judea and Galilee preaching about the Kingdom of God. Together with the pious women Joanna, wife of Choza (steward of Herod), Susanna, and others, she served Him from her own possessions (Luke 8:1-3).

St. Luke records that she was present at Our Lord's Crucifixion, and with other women, was present at Jesus’ empty tomb three days later. She was the first to whom Jesus revealed himself after his resurrection from the dead. The reason this was so is because Jesus' death and resurrection were all about the forgiveness of sin! It was only fitting that one formerly possessed was the first to receive the grace of his presence after his spiritually life-saving death and resurrection.

St. Luke has her in view together with the other women, stating that at the moment of the Procession of Christ onto Golgotha, when after the Scourging He collapsed under the weight of the heavy Cross. The women followed after Him weeping and wailing, but He consoled them. The Gospel relates that Mary Magdalene was present in Golgotha at the moment of the Lord's Crucifixion. While all the disciples of the Savior ran away, she remained fearlessly at the Cross together with the Mother of God, the Apostle John, and Mary Cleopas. She stood out from all the women who gathered around the Lord.

What qualified her for this however was not just that she was a redeemed soul, but rather because Jesus read her heart beforehand. He knew her, especially from the event just preceding his death when she washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. The truly penitent heart stands in a right and merciful relationship with God who lavishes his forgiveness, healing, and blessings upon it abundantly.

Here, beloved in Christ, is the lesson of true faith. Mary Magdalene was faithful to Him not only in the days of His Glory but also at the moment of His extreme humiliation and insult. As St. Matthew relates, she was present at the Burial of the Lord. Before her eyes, Joseph and Nicodemus went out to the tomb with His lifeless Body. She watched as they covered over the entrance to the cave with a large stone, entombing the Source of Life.
Mary together with the other women spent the following day at rest because it was the great day of the Passover Sabbath. Yet, all the rest of the peaceful day the women gathered spices to go to the Grave of the Lord at dawn on Sunday and anoint His Body according to the custom of the Jews.

The women came to the grave at dawn, or early before the rising of the sun. Obviously, she had waited for the end of the night. She ran alone to the place where the Lord's Body lay. Seeing the stone pushed away from the cave, she ran away in fear to tell the close Apostles of Christ, Peter, and John. Hearing the strange message that the Lord was gone from the tomb, both Apostles ran to the tomb and, seeing the shroud and winding cloths, they were amazed. The Apostles went and said nothing to anyone, but Mary stood about the entrance to the tomb and wept. Here in this dark tomb so recently lay her lifeless Lord.
Wanting proof that the tomb really was empty, she went down to it and saw a strange sight. She saw two angels in white garments, one sitting at the head, the other at the foot, where the Body of Jesus had been placed. They asked her, “Woman, why weepest thou?” She answered them with the words which she had said to the Apostles, “They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” At that moment, she turned around and saw the Risen Jesus standing near the grave, but she did not recognize Him. He asked Mary, "Woman, why weepest thou? Whom dost thou seek?" She answered thinking that she was seeing the gardener, “Sir, if thou hast taken him, tell where thou hast put Him, and I will take Him away.”
Then she recognized the Lord's voice. This was the voice she heard in those days and years when she followed the Lord through all the cities and places where He preached. He spoke her name, and she gave a joyful shout, “Rabbi” (Teacher).
Respect and love, fondness and deep veneration, a feeling of thankfulness and recognition at His Splendor, all came together in this single outcry. She was able to say nothing more and she threw herself down at the feet of her Teacher to wash them with tears of joy. However, the Lord said to her: “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and tell them: ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father; to My God and to your God.’”
She came to herself and again ran to the Apostles, to do the will of Him sending her to preach. She ran into the house, where the Apostles still remained in dismay, and proclaimed to them the joyous message, “I have seen the Lord!” This was the first preaching in the world about the Resurrection. The Apostles proclaimed the Glad Tidings to the world, but she proclaimed it to the Apostles themselves.
Holy Scripture does not tell us about the life of Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection of Christ. I think it impossible to doubt that if in the terrifying minutes of Christ’s Crucifixion, she was at the foot of His Cross with His Mother and St John, she remained faithful. Indeed, in the Acts of the Apostles St Luke writes that all the Apostles with one mind stayed in prayer and supplication, with certain women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and His brethren.

Holy Tradition testifies that when the Apostles departed from Jerusalem to preach to all the ends of the earth, Mary Magdalene also went with them. A daring woman, whose heart was full of reminiscence of the Resurrection, she went beyond her native borders and went to witness in pagan Rome. When many did not believe that Christ is risen, she repeated to them what she had said to the Apostles on the radiant morning of the Resurrection: “I have seen the Lord!” With this message, the tradition says that she went all over Italy.

There also is a wonderful story that in Italy Mary Magdalene visited Emperor Tiberias (14-37 A.D.) and proclaimed to him Christ's Resurrection. Again, according to tradition, she brought him a red egg as a symbol of the Resurrection, a symbol of new life with the words: “Christ is Risen!” Then she told the emperor that in his Province of Judea, the unjustly condemned Jesus the Galilean, a holy man, a miracle worker, powerful before God and all mankind, had been executed at the instigation of the Jewish High Priests, and the sentence confirmed by the procurator appointed by Tiberias, Pontius Pilate. So, thanks to Mary Magdalene the custom to give each other paschal eggs on the day of the Radiant Resurrection of Christ spread among Christians over all the world.
The message for today, though, is about a deep and persistent search for Jesus as our One, True, Love. The story of Mary is about the deep longing that she and any soul has (wittingly or unwittingly) to be in the presence of the One who is love itself. God sent his love in the form of a human person (Jesus) so that the object of our longing could be found. Mary's desire and ours as well, is to cling to Jesus once we recognize him as Risen Lord, Beloved Savior, and True Teacher of the Way to Eternal Life.

The way he desires, however, rather than clinging to him, is to by means of the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaim his life, his words, his deeds and demonstrate the effectiveness of them by a life dedicated to Christ. The more we do this, the more Jesus and the Spirit fill us and empower us to do the Father's Holy Will, proclaim the Gospel, and give it credibility by the way we “love one another, from the heart.”
St. Mary Magdalene is a witness to the triumph of love. Yet, what is this love which brings new life, and this charity which covers the multitude of sins? We can hardly mention the word “Charity” without recalling St. Paul's great hymn of charity in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, one of the best-known and most loved passages of scripture.

I think we use the word “charity” in a much narrower sense than St. Paul has in mind. For us, it usually means gifts to the poor, contributions to tax-exempt organizations, or perhaps a generous attitude towards somebody’s foibles. Modern versions of the scriptures generally translate the word as “love”. Yet, this really does not go very far toward clarifying the meaning of the passage. If the meaning of “Charity” has become too narrow, the meaning of “love” has become too broad. We use the word “love” to refer mostly to feelings and sentiments, to natural affections and preferences. That is not really what St. Paul is talking about at all. He is talking about a will, focused upon the eternal good, that is upon God and attending to the eternal good of one another. This is not a matter of affections or sentiments. It is a matter of perceiving clearly and steadfastly willing the eternal good.

Our natural affections and preferences are not charity, though they may sometimes be accessories to it. Sometimes they help and support charity, and that is a good thing. However, sometimes they obstruct and distort it. Sometimes charity requires that our affections and desires be crucified; because, far from seeking the eternal good, they are subjective and self-seeking.

Even in the resurrection garden, Mary Magdalene is tempted to cling to the earthly body of Jesus. “Touch me not”, he tells her, “do not cling to me. For I am not yet ascended to my Father. “ True charity is to know and will the eternal good, to see beyond this or that particular earthly thing. Without charity, says St. Paul, all our gifts are worthless. Worthless, because none of these gifts is finally of any use if we miss the end of all-knowing and doing the eternal good.

All our knowings and doings are parts. “We know in part, and we prophesy in part.’” The parts make no sense without the pattern of the whole. They are like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle-useless except for their place in the whole puzzle.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child.” “I understood and thought as a child” But when I became a man, says St. Paul, “I put away my childish things.”. It is the essence of childishness to hold to a part, a fragment, as though it were the whole. In childhood, the immediate, particular object or objective is the whole world. To possess this or that, to taste this or that, to touch this or that, seems infinitely desirable, an end in itself.

To grow up, just like Mary Magdalene grew in Christ is to see these things in perspective, to relate them to a perfection that is far, far beyond this moment. She would have clung childishly to his particular earthly form. He would have her espouse the absolute, eternal good which is God.

You see, beloved in Christ, Charity requires the clearest possible discernment and discrimination of the good in every situation and the most steadfast will in pursuing that good. Beyond faith and hope, charity is the ultimate mark of the maturity of the saint.

There is no doubt we are still children, just like Mary in the garden. “We know in part, and we prophesy in part.” Our discernment is “through a glass darkly”, vague and shadowy images of the good. We must pray and work for a clearer vision and more steadfast will that the new life of Jesus' resurrection may be perfected in us so that we may be witnesses of that resurrection. Just like Mary the Penitent.

It is interesting that Saint Mary Magdalene in the Resurrection garden mistook Jesus for the gardener. Indeed, he is the gardener, who will cultivate in our barren soil the gifts and graces of his kingdom. He will raise in us that best gift of “charity which shall cover the multitude of sins.” Then we shall see him as he is, and know even as we are known.

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God. Like Mary Magdalene, we have waited for him so that he might save us. This is the Lord. we have waited for him and we have served Him. We have proclaimed His Resurrection. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Amen. +

SERMON FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Jesus said to His disciples, ‘I tell you, unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees

, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.’” 

-St. Matthew 5:20

The words from our Gospel reading this morning are taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Did you ever wonder why Jesus went up on a mountain to teach His disciples? It was not only that He would have a natural amphitheater so they could hear better. There was something more, something symbolic about it.

Remember it was God who gave the law to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. Moses went up on the mountain and received the tablets of the law from God. Now it is Jesus the Lord, the new lawgiver, who is giving the new law from the mount.

What is it that He is teaching? It is something so simple that it is easily misunderstood or even taken for granted. There is a difference, Jesus is saying, between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. He begins by saying, “It was said to you in ancient days, thou shalt not kill. But I say to you. . .”

He then goes on to talk about anger toward one’s brother. There is a great deal of difference between the fiend who goes down the street randomly murdering people and the spirit of the law that involves our dealings with one another. You and I are not prone to the kind of violence that would be murder. However, we should not feel that we are quite good and quite justified simply because we are keeping literally and narrowly the Ten Commandments.

So we haven’t killed anybody this week. We haven’t stolen. We haven’t robbed any banks. We have not committed adultery. Wonderful. That’s great. That is the letter of the law.

Jesus is saying, though, that in the new kingdom that He comes to establish, there is to be much more than a narrow attitude toward the law. There is so much more to Christ's life than simply punching a ticket or checking off the boxes. We are now under a call to holiness.

Our Lord says, “Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.”

In their day, the scribes and Pharisees kept the law literally, exactly, no more, no less. Jesus is saying, “There is more to it than that; much more than that.” So, Jesus speaks about attitudes that you and I might have that offend God and commit sin. This is not necessarily through an act, but even by the thought and the desire to act. This of itself can and should be seen as sinful.

Our Lord addresses this in the context of anger and quarreling. “. . .What I say to you is everyone who grows angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. Any man who uses abusive language toward his brother shall be answerable to the Sanhedrin and he who holds him in contempt, he risks the fires of Gehenna.”

That’s from a modern translation and I think it lacks something. I prefer what we just read in the Gospel reading from the King James version: “Anyone who says to his brother ‘Raca’ will be liable to the Sanhedrin.”

Well, what is ‘raca’? Have you called anybody ‘raca’ lately? Have you heard anyone shout out of their car window in traffic “Raca”? What does it mean?

In ancient Hebrew, it literally means “empty-headed.” That’s the best translation that I could find. “You are an empty head!” Thoughtless. Heedless, particularly of others. Jesus was saying, “That kind of an attitude is beyond ‘thou shalt not kill’, but it is also something that should not be a part of a Christian’s life.”

Then there is “You fool!” Well, we are quite capable of calling people foolish. However, there is a very narrow meaning for the word ‘fool’ in the Scriptures. A fool is an unbeliever. As the Psalmist says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.” (Ps.53:l)

Particularly at the time, if called someone an unbeliever, that is about the worst thing that you can say about him. Indeed, if you think of the consequences of unbelief, this is a curse even today. You are really…what is the word…trashing…you are really trashing him or her.

Jesus is saying, “You trash him with those words, and, in turn, you can end up as trash.” That is the whole meaning of “risking the fires of Gehenna.” Gehenna is a valley on the southeast corner of the city of Jerusalem. The valley was the city dump where they threw all of their trash. Like most city dumps, it was smoldering all the time. It was constantly burning. So Jesus is saying, “This is not the way that a Christian will behave toward another in this new kingdom according to this new law.” Otherwise, you risk being cast out.

So, there is quite a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Throughout Scripture, we can see that distinction made over and over again. St. John, in his first letter, writes that if you speak ill of your neighbor you are guilty of murder (1Jn 3:15). That’s strong language, but it is truth.

If you speak ill of your neighbor, something is involved and it is simply this. You and I have a right to a good reputation. If you slander an individual’s good name, that is not only a sin against charity; it also is a sin against justice because you slander that person’s very right to his good name. When you think of the fact that we live in a small town, we well know how fast such slander spreads and the incredible damage it does.

Beloved in Christ, we are, you and I, quite prone to excusing ourselves and the sins we commit. We do this almost offhandedly. We say, “Well, that is my temperament. That is just the way I am. I can excuse my faults and my flaws because I’ve always been that way.” Human beings are so willing to wink at their own faults and then condemn them in others.

Remember that Gospel reading of a couple of weeks ago about a man who had a beam in his eye and he was going to take a speck out of his neighbor’s eye? That is not the spirit of the law. According to the spirit of that law, we do not excuse ourselves but rather acknowledge the fact that we can and do sin.

The focus of the Gospel is that often sin in the words that we use. I learned the hard way a long time ago when I was a lawyer that if I did not say some things, I did not have to retract them later. It was a good lesson to learn!

Jesus has an even stronger message for us. He says we should not do to our brother are all things that are done with that one little part of us that can get us into so much trouble: our tongues. Our tongues are the source of more sin than any other part of ourselves. We can really get into trouble with what we say.

St. James, in his letter, writes very strongly about the power of the tongue of ours. All of us fall short in many respects. If a person is without fault in speech, he is a man or woman in the fullest sense because they can control their entire body. When we put bits in the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide the rest of their bodies. It is the same with ships, however large they are and despite the fact they are driven by fierce winds. They are directed by very small rudders on whatever course the helmsman’s impulse may select.

The tongue is something like that. It is a small member, yet it makes great pretensions. See how tiny the spark is that sets a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is such a flame. It exists among our members as a whole universe of malice. The tongue defiles the entire body. Its flames encircle our course from birth and its fire is kindled by hell” (James 3:2-6).

That passage in the Third Chapter of James’ Epistle really is a commentary on the Gospel this morning. “If you say these things about your brother,” Jesus is saying, “you are not living according to the spirit of the law. It is relatively easy live according to the letter. To live according to the spirit is quite a different thing.

So, beloved in Christ, each of us needs to examine ourselves regularly, particularly about the power this tongue of ours has. We should try, to the best of our ability, to do no evil with that tongue. Let us set no forest aflame with our words, particularly involving the reputation, the good name of another.

Today as we offer this Eucharist and we offer ourselves, souls and bodies, to God our Father, through and with Christ, let us remember that one part of our body, that is, our tongue. Let us offer our tongues to God, that they will be used only in praise of him. Amen. 

                   SERMON FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2023

                          (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.”

-1 St. Peter iii:14-15

Today, it is useful for us to begin with a bit of a recap. So far in this first epistle, St. Peter has defined the Christian's duties in various relationships. He has talked about our duty in relation to those of the world (2:11-12); our duty in relation to governmental authorities (13-17); our duty in a servant-master relationship (2:18-25) and our duty in wife-husband relationships. (3:1-7).

Now in verse 8 of the third chapter, St. Peter defines our duty to each other as brethren in Christ. He will provide motivation to fulfill our duties to one another in verses 10-12, but let's first consider what these duties are.

First, there are our duties to each other in the body of Christ. We are to be of “one mind”. This can be translated as “harmonious”, that is, to be united by the same purpose, and the same goal. As we hear in the Gospel of John, Jesus prayed for this kind of unity in (John 17:20-21). As an example, a church that demonstrated this “oneness of mind" is that of Jerusalem (Acts 4:32).

This raises the question, how can you and I have this “oneness of mind”? It is attainable only to the extent that we all submit to the will of God. We need to make God's Will our will, His Divine Purpose our purpose, even as Christ did while on earth. As we hear in the Gospel of St. John, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (5:30)

We are to have “compassion for one another”. This means that we are to have pity, a feeling of distress toward the ills of others. It is that disposition that is moved by the problems of others (like sickness, hardships, etc.). Certainly, this is Christlike behavior. This is the attitude manifested by Jesus in his earthly and heavenly ministry. (Mt 9:35-36; He 4:15). Beloved in Christ, such compassion can only come from a tender, loving heart.

This may be the reason that St. Peter goes on to say that we need to love as brothers. Literally, this means to be authentic lovers of our brothers and sisters. This attribute is essential if we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is essential if we are to convince the world that we are truly disciples of Jesus.

This is a straightforward proposition. If we do not love our brother, then we are not lovers of God either. Indeed, as we hear in the First Epistle of St. John, if we do not love our brother we do not even know God! (I Jn 4:7-8)

Here is one way to know if you are off track. Ask yourself this question, “Do I even know my brother?” If you don't, then it is an occasion for deep prayer, and reflection leading to penance and a real amendment of life.

Next, St. Peter calls us to be tenderhearted. It is this kind of heart that is compassionate, open, and fully capable of loving our brethren. Of course, the opposite is to would be “cold-hearted”, where we are insensitive to the needs and feelings of others. In this egocentric world, how many fit this description? Yet, there is good news. Even if we start out as “cold-hearted”, in Christ Jesus we can undergo a transformation, in which we develop a “tender heart”.

So, another question on this Sunday in Trinitytide is have you considered what kind of heart you have? This requires honesty and humility. There is no room for self-deception here.

We then are called to be courteous. This goes to something far deeper than social convention or having a “practice civility” bumper sticker on the car. Literally, it is to be “friendly of mind, kind” at a level that requires true humility of spirit.

You see, an arrogant or proud spirit does not bother to be courteous. In fact, it is impossible. Christians are to imitate their Lord and Savior, and not think so highly of themselves that they cannot be kind and courteous to others. It is as simple as the rich man and the publican.

Now, here is a tough one. We are to return blessings for evil, and not through clenched teeth or with fingers crossed. When someone does us evil, we are to respond with a blessing! I will warrant you that this may tend to go against “human nature”. After all, anger is a very powerful and seductive emotion.

This, perhaps is why St. Peter gives two reasons why we are to react in this way. First, we are called to follow the example of Christ. Secondly, we bless so that we ourselves might receive a blessing from God, (Luke 6:35)

So, these are six duties that we have. They are part of what constitutes the Christ-like character that we are to develop as His disciples.

Salvation, as wonderful as that is, is not the end of God's plan for us; He would have us become like His Son (cf. Ro 8:29). To motivate us in fulfilling these duties and growing in the image and likeness of Christ, St. Peter quotes from the 34th Psalm.

The Psalmist says that the Father would have us love life and see good days. Certainly, almost everyone wishes to enjoy life as they experience it from day to day. However, all too often, many make their own lives miserable by their own self-seeking, self-destructive attitudes constantly complaining, contentious, and retaliating to evil with evil. They only aggravate the situation.

However, the psalm gives the secret to loving life and seeing good days. It is a roadmap. We are to refrain the tongue from evil, and lips from speaking guile. This means not engaging in slander, backbiting, complaining, lying, murmuring, and grumbling. None of these, absolutely not a single one, solves difficulties but only makes them worse.

So, in the words of the Epistle, do good, seek peace, and pursue it. Practice the very kind of things mentioned by St. Peter in verses 8-9. Only then will our lives be pleasant. Indeed, the qualities described by St. Peter have a two-fold effect. They make the best out of our difficult situations. They make good situations even better! That is a “win-win” approach to life

Beloved, we are assured that the Lord will be open to us if we but seek to do His will. Only then can we ensure that His gracious eyes will watch over us and His ears will be open to our prayers.

On the other hand, the Lord's face is against those who do evil, and will not He will not hear their prayers. Indeed, consider the list of abominations found in Proverbs 6:16-19 and notice how many are the direct opposite of how we are to be.

We are to be humble, compassionate, and tender-hearted. We are to return good for evil are to be of one mind. If we want Him to hear our prayers, let us be sure to fulfill these our duties to each other. In so doing, we will enjoy life to its fullest, and see many good days during our pilgrimage here on earth! Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Brethren: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

--Epistle to the Romans 8:18

I love the internet there are so many resources for Bible study, church history, patristics, and theology. There also are so many ways to waste time, particularly in the many tidbits brother clergy know in their hearts that colleagues positively, absolutely need to know about. The sun can literally rise and set some days just catching up on all of this must-have information. Either that or the lettering wears out on the delete key.

However, this week was different. This week I found myself re-reading an article sent to me entitled, “Taking The Drudgery Out of Sermon Preparation.” It was penned by a fellow named Pastor Dave Redick. He helpfully pointed out that, “Besides the Scripture, good illustrations are the bread and butter of sermon preparation.”

Pastor Dave then goes on to give tips on how to get those illustrations organized on the computer for presentation on the big screen during the sermon. The big screen! Wow! I had to sit for a minute and imagine the church where Pastor Dave must preach. Then I thought about the Scripture lessons for this morning. What could we say about the words of today’s Epistle without PowerPoint and loud musical accompaniment?

The afternoon turned into evening Friday when my reverie over high-tech preaching was interrupted by a telephone call from an old lawyer friend. He had rung very late in the evening to talk about the “direction of Anglicanism” and of the “church” and what might be in store and what I thought God had in mind. (I didn’t venture out on that one!)

In the course of the talk, it came out that, after wandering about for a while, he and his wife had tried out a mega-church in suburban Los Angeles. It sounded pretty much the kind of place in which I had envisioned Pastor Dave putting up those great illustrations up on the big board. They had all the amenities, a fitness center, comfy theatre seating with cup holders, and even a coffee bar on the premises.

After several hours, my caller allowed that something was missing, that there was something not there. This giant church had great people, committed and praying for people. It sure had comfy if not great surroundings. Yet, there was a piece or two out of the puzzle. In the end, the problem was two-fold: the lack of a sacramental life, and the absence of real community.

I thought about this fellow’s comments in the context of the desperate need for Christ in this world, a world with a crying need for the living Jesus. I awoke yesterday pondering the same question: why does the world seem to get farther afield from the Incarnate Christ each passing day? I was back at the old computer with my coffee when that ubiquitous chime from my detestable cell phone signaled another message in the inbox.

This was not just a joke or a cute cat picture or even an ordinary article. It touched on the talk that I had had with that man looking for that lost piece of his faith. It reached the problems of the “church” in this entertainment-saturated world. It called to mind the propers appointed for today and the struggles we have in our witness as traditional Anglicans.

The piece is a part of a book by Marc Galli entitled, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God. In the interest of full disclosure, I have taken a part of what I have to say this morning from this piece, from that late-night telephone call, and from the lessons appointed for the daily office today.

Galli recounts a Sunday when, while on the way to visit a mega church, he stopped into a small congregation. The service, which included maybe 35 people, did not really measure up to professional, “seeker-sensitive” standards. Communion was introduced abruptly which was a bit of a scandal to Galli’s higher Anglican sensibilities. The priest took prayer requests, and petitions were made for illnesses, depression, and a safe journey for visitors.

It was during announcement time that the visitor began to suspect he was in the midst of the people of God. The priest sought more donations for the food closet, at which time he noted a new milestone: The church had served 22,000 people with groceries in ten years. Everyone applauded, then settled in to hear a clear and truthful sermon about God’s love for us despite our sins.

There was nothing slick. No study attempts to be authentic or relevant or cool. Just a small bunch of sinners, looking to God for guidance and reaching out to the community in love. Now here is the telling part, Galli allowed that he would have felt “good” if he had attended the big church, “But it was a more godly experience to go to that little fellowship because I believe that for all the good mega-churches do, this little fellowship manifested the presence of Jesus in a way that is unique and absolutely necessary in our age.”

St. Paul stated the problem directly in the Epistle to the Romans,

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Here is the struggle and the project of our life in the body of Christ. We are part of a creation that is yearning for restoration to God. We groan with it-in the words of the hymnist, the cry goes up “How long?” However, we do not get the answer to that. We must live in the hope that the restoration of the world, and our own restoration is coming. We must live into the fullness of that faith once delivered to honor the promise declared unto us by Christ Jesus.

Beloved in Christ, we are commanded to live in word and sacrament. We also are to tell out that wondrous work and that part is not easy. The work of this is not done in padded seats or comfortable pews. It is done in the church militant and willing to suffer for witness. It requires all of us each and every one of us here today to work in concert for Christ, and not merely to be part of entertainment or coffee-hour religion.

You may say, “We are few” or “Some of us are of an age.” What that means is that we have to concentrate on the qualities of what we do as Christians and not quantity. We all are to have an active part in the project.

From the beginning, Christians have been tempted to confuse success with faith. St. Peter was the first one to give in to this confusion. When Jesus told the disciples he would be killed, St. Peter was scandalized (Mark 8:31-33). I guess that he had imagined that Jesus was moving from success to success. Jesus had started with a small band of 12, and lately, he’d had up to 5,000 attending. Now, that’s an average Sunday attendance for you, and without the big screen!

Jesus had challenged the authorities of the day, but given his popularity, they had been unable to lay a hand on him. St. Peter likely imagined that when Jesus spoke about the coming kingdom, he was talking about politics, and Peter and the disciples would someday be cabinet members in his future administration. Power! Glory! Success!

Beloved, our lord Jesus knew very well that craving success and respectability was a temptation to his disciples, and he spent his whole ministry trying to disabuse them of it. He told those whom he healed not to tell anyone—not great “outreach”, not great church “marketing”. He warned bickering disciples that they should worry less about who would have authority in the coming kingdom and more about serving one another. He explained that his ministry, as “successful” as it appeared, would culminate in his death.

St. Peter would hear no such thing and rebuked Jesus, which provoked Jesus to “rebuke” him in turn. As is fitting, Jesus had the last word: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” He called St. Peter the incarnation of evil and then told him (in verse 35 about saving and losing a life) to stop measuring success by human standards.

Today, we know all too well that the kingdom of God is not a political entity (though many are sorely tempted to think otherwise). We still, like St Peter, thirst for glory and power. We make much ado about Christian superstars, bestselling authors, platinum-selling musicians, and powerful preachers who draw people in by the tens of thousands. We too easily imagine that growing numbers are an infallible sign of faithfulness. We confuse righteousness with arithmetic.

Conservative churches, for example, often point out gloatingly how liberal churches are shrinking and conservative churches are growing. The usually unspoken assumption is that such growth signals God’s blessing.

In many quarters, church growth is often nothing more than the product of social science. These days when someone wants to start a church, the first thing they do is study the people they are trying to reach-the demographic-and then craft worship and ministry to meet the needs of that target audience. Church founders do their best to appear acceptable and relevant to that target demographic. It essentially can be reduced to a formula that may work for a while.

Allegedly, to minister to college-educated, upwardly mobile 20- and 30-somethings—the target of a lot of new ministries these days (whatever happened to preaching to the poor and the prisoners?). You forbid hymns and organs, and preach-no, make that "share"-sans pulpit, while wearing business casual in muted earth tones.

Donald Miller, a 30-something himself, talks about this in his book Blue Like Jazz. He has a pastor friend who started a new church. It was going to be different from the old church, Miller was assured: It would be relevant to the culture and the human struggle. Miller notes, “If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing.”

It is not an accident that Miller, like Jesus, uses the S-word to react to what is threatened here. To long for relevance, success, effectiveness, and glory—this is not just a slight misunderstanding of the Gospel, but its very betrayal. It is not an error. It is, according to Jesus, satanic.

Søren Kierkegaard made a similar point when he talked about Matthew 23, where Jesus speaks his harshest judgment on the religion of his day:

Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commandingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something that is supposed to be Christianity! Woe to the person who makes miracles reasonable. Woe to the person who betrays and breaks the mystery of faith, and distorts it into public wisdom because he takes away the possibility of offense! … Oh the time wasted in this enormous work of making Christianity so reasonable, and in trying to make it so relevant!

Fortunately, embedded in the argument between St. Peter and Jesus is just the mercy we need. Jesus’ rebuke to St. Peter is the most gracious thing he could have done. Sometimes, Jesus’ rebuke comes to us in words, but most of the time it comes in day-to-day Christian living.

The reality of a real community-the Christians really there, acting as they usually do-is a shocking disappointment to the dreamer, particularly when we teach truth, a truth that is tough and to which modern ears are hardened. Yet it is this church, not our dream church, that Christ identifies with. He has put his very name on it, calling it his body. He endorses it and tells us to draw people into it if they are to come to know him. Along the way, Jesus works ever so hard to snap us out of our illusions.

You see God is not a God of the emotions, but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces reality with all its unhappy and ugly aspects begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

What it should be in God’s sight is not glorious, powerful, and successful by our standards. It should be faithful. This means the church, and every member in it, must die to dreams of relevance and success. We have to let all that be crucified. We have to give of ourselves sacrificially against the backdrop of the Cross if we want the church to go forward.

In every era, God raises up the faithful within the small bands of the faithful, the remnants struggling to hold on to the truth. “Relevance” “power” and “success” are finally a mystery, not something that can be manipulated by church growth science, but something to pray for in humility and faith. “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:26)

Jesus loves us so much, he sometimes slaps our vague idealism in the face with a healthy dose of reality. This shocks us, and we find ourselves speechless and blushing with either anger or shame. Jesus rebukes us with reality and tells us to stop betraying his cause by worshipping the devil.

Like St. Peter, we have to die to our notions of relevance and success, and let God-through a crucified Savior, through a dedicated church, through His Sacraments-raise up his people when he will and how he will, with power and glory we can hardly fathom. Amen.

            SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2023

              (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”

–I St. Peter 5:8-9

This morning’s Epistle includes a “sobering” verse, in fact, an admonition to be sober. This isn’t just an admonition to moderate one’s beverages of choice. No, to be sober also means to be “serious”. To be serious and vigilant because there is a deadly opponent on the field who is “seeking whom he may devour.”

This is a tough message, particularly here on a summer Sunday, with school out, vacations looming, and the pleasures of a warm season stretching out before us. It is hard to be serious when that last bell has just rung letting us out into our summer of fun.

This last part is key. I say it frequently, and I say it again. Pray, pray into all the parts of your day no matter how small. St. John Cassian noted that throughout his day in Egypt, the prayer from Psalm 70 was on everyone’s lips–“Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord.” Or even the simple words of the Jesus prayer fill into all of those small corners of our day. Persevering prayer helps us to stand in the face of the enemy. (Col. 4:2-4; Eph. 6:10-11)

If we do so–if we exercise this level of vigilance–then God will give us secure foundations, and internally renew our strength. Then we shall be safe from our enemy. It is God who will bring it to pass. For God’s is the battle, and God’s is the cause.

Were it not for Him, life’s battle would not be winnable. However, since it is his campaign, anything can be endured. Through Christ, we are enabled for all things (Phil. 4:13) and in all times and places until the very end of time. “Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty” (I Chronicles 29:11) forever and ever. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2023                    

( Amherst, Virginia)

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him.”

-I St. John 3:22-24

Antichrists. False teachers. Those who would seduce Christians from the truth. They are ever loose in the community and working vigorously against Jesus in several areas.

They attack Faith, denying that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (2:22-23).

They try to negate the importance of Jesus by not confessing him as the Christ

come in the flesh (4:3), and they claim that the historical career of Jesus had no

salvific importance. In particular, they reject the atoning bloody death of Jesus.

(1:7; 2:2; 4:10; 5:6).

Morals? These folks boast of being in communion with God and knowing

God while walking in darkness and not keeping the commandments (1:6; 2:4).

Indeed, they claim not to have sinned (1:8, 10; 3:4-6) or that there is no sin. This

moral stance may be related to the understanding of who Christ is. Having denied

the importance of what Jesus did in the flesh after the incarnation, they deny the

importance of what they themselves do in the.

What of Spirit? Seemingly these leaders claim to be teachers and even

prophets, led by the Spirit, but theirs is a “developing spirit” that leads to

“evolutionary” and “multiple who are these folks, these false teachers, these

anti-Christs? Well, the news,

particularly news from purported Christians in the last week might tempt us to

point in certain directions. However, anti-Christs have been with us from the

beginning. They are the reason for the Epistles of St. John, particularly this First

Epistle. Adversaries of the Gospel and heretics have plagued the church from the

very first days.

In the Second Epistle of St. John, (II John 9-10), he instructs the community

(the Elect Lady and her children) not to let such false teachers into “the house”

(the term for the church where the community met).

There were the docetists attacked by Ig­natius of Antioch (ca. 110) who

denied that Christ was truly human. Or how about Cerinthus (described by

Irenaeus as an opponent of John) who held that Christ, a spiritual being,

descended upon Jesus, a normal man, after baptism and withdrew from him

before the crucifixion. Then there were the second-century gnostics who regarded

the world and flesh as a deception. This allowed them all manner of leeway.

After all, if the truth is not real, the sky is the limit. You can see that they are

well-represented to this day.

So it is then that First John is not so much a letter or epistle, but an

exhortation, interpreting the main themes of the Fourth Gospel in light of

propaganda which had a certain plausibility and continued to attract followers.

John warns against false prophets, “Do not believe every spirit but test the spirits

to see whether they are of God (4:1).”

There is a Spirit of Deceit that leads the antichrists, and a Spirit of Truth that leads

the author and his ad­herents (4:5-6). This is a timely warning for us all in times

where apostasy seems to be the currency of post-modern religion, and calls to

reject Christ come from every corner.

What of the Commandments that we hear about in the Epistle? These are rules given by God. They are religious and moral imperatives. These certainly do not seem to be in vogue right now.

This week we have heard about traditional Christians needing to “exercise

restraint”, but not about keeping commandments and repentance for breaking them.

We learned in the major media reporting on several “mainstream” denominations

about “living into developing truth” with vague themes of peace, justice, and the

dignity of all persons. There are even new “experimental” and “alternative”

names for the Trinity. We have heard that “literalistic” interpretation of the word

of God in Scripture is oppressive, and even parental assertion of their role in

raising children constitutes child abuse if it is not “gender affirming.”

However, we have not heard echoed the words of the psalmist,

“The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the

LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.” (19:8). We most certainly have not heard

from an increasing relativist national culture that:

The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. (19:9-10)

Beloved in Christ, why should we be any different from those in St. John’s community-those faithful gathered in “the house”, the Church under assault by the lies of our enemy? Why should we even in our little corner of Christendom have to bear up under this assault? Why should we marvel that the world hates us and brands the Word itself hateful?

We dwell in a world that has received and continues to receive the invitation to a banquet, a banquet at the table of God. Like the guests in this morning’s Gospel, many reject the invitation. In fact, they reject the invitation which comes with admission requirements, even while claiming that they have accepted it. Psychology calls it rationalizing. Milton borrowed a phrase from Aristophanes and described Satan as having a tongue that Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason, is to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.

   The ancient enemy stands by to put words in the mouths of the false teachers of

this world, words calculated to play into our own nature. Everyone is prone to set

a screen of lies between himself and reality. Life is a process of removing the

screens so that in God’s “light shall we see light” (Ps. 36:9). The tragedy is that the

stories these folks weave about diversity, inclusivity, peace, justice, and love sound

reasonable in themselves. They are the same as the excuses for missing

wedding guests. Yet, all of these without the honor that comes from God, the truth

of Jesus Christ, are cisterns without water.

So, what is our response to be? How are we to deal with those who have emptied themselves of truth and feasted on lies?

In the Epistle, we hear the Angelia (message, gospel), now in terms of love

(instead of light). Hatred is the mark of the evil one's children (like Cain) and of

his domain, the world. Love (14-15) is the great sign of having passed out of the

kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of death. We cannot give in to hate for the anti-

Christ of our time. Hatred is a form of murder and is marked with death.

St. Augustine, dealing with heresies as persistent (and probably the same!) as

those we must face, preached on this same passage. Speaking of the

commandment, he says this: “This is His commandment, that we should believe

in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He commanded us.”

“And he that doeth His commandment abideth in Him, and He in him. In this we

know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us. If in truth thou

find that thou hast charity, thou hast the Spirit of God in order to understand: for

a very necessary thing it is.”

The command we should love one another is grounded in the message which is from the beginning. Love is a requirement which God’s universe itself imposes upon us. Ethical love is not an option, nor an invention of priests or moralists, nor an evolutionary sport. Love confronts Christians as an imperative from the heart of Reality, a reality that many refuse to accept...

The real redeeming truth is this: The character of the love that brings us into life has been once and for all definitely revealed in Christ-not anyone or anything else. There are no multiple paths or personalized truths.

Before Christ men and women had known love such as Jacob's, David's, the patriot's, the martyr's, and the prophet's. However, until Jesus laid down His life for us, the fullness of love was wanting. Do the anti-Christs of today understand that Jesus' love is absolute? You know the answer.

The modern mind, it has been said, comprehends the love of Plato or Freud better than the love of Christ. The love of Jesus is absolute because it is indistinguishably one with the eternal love of God and is of the nature of eternal Reality (cf. John 10:11-18; 13:1-5; 15:13-14). At the same time, it is manifest and visible in concrete action on the plane of history (John 19:12-16). The essence of absolute love is self-denial to the point of death for others (vs. 16a).

The Cross was the inevitable issue of the kind of life Jesus lived. Jesus denied himself, however, not for a principle or a cause, but for us, for people.

There are moral constraints put upon us by this kind of love. Such love means an inescapable obligation. It means doing what we ought, and not merely what we want.

Christian hymnody joyfully exalts the love of Christ, but mingled with joy and gratitude is always obligation:  Love is so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

We do not simply contemplate or receive the love of Christ. We are conscripted by it. Such love also means imitation: He laid down his life, and we ought to lay down our lives. Every life ought to be an “imitation of Christ.” Only by living in such love as Jesus' love can we know from the inside the new life he brings.

On certain occasions, self-denying love for people may mean literal martyrdom or death. Yet, life is not always tragic, and what counts is the principle of steadily being willing and ready to deny oneself. This kind of love-selfless and obedient-stands in counterpoint to the self-gratification and gross self-indulgence that passes for love among the false teachers of this world.

You may ask what do we do about the false teachers of our time? If you are engaging in selfless love, you are doing something. In the words of Psalm 15,

1: LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2: He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth

in his heart.
3: He that back teeth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor

taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.
4: In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the

LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
5: He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the

innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

At the end of the day, beloved in Christ, we have a pattern of living that is set

before us. It is predicated on keeping the commandments of Christ-loving God

with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Walking uprightly, working righteousness, and speaking the truth from the outward

action of obedience to these commandments.

And sin? Sin should be defined in the plain and concrete terms of lawlessness.

We should never be afraid to see it as it is and call it what it is, for it is the outward

expression of inward evil.

Sin is embraced by many as good. Do you think they will want to hear that it is deadly? That is where the imperative to love sacrificially comes in. Our constancy in obeying His commandments to believe and to love are imperatives to evangelism even in the face of persecution.

So we work, we teach and we pray, following the commandments of God. If we do so then our hearts can be easy. Keeping the commandments is the supreme source of our confident calling on God, and the summation of the commandments is to be­lieve in Jesus and to love one another. That is our calling, our high calling in Christ Jesus. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

-I St. John 4:14

There is a little book entitled Preaching the Hard Sayings of Jesus. Our Gospel lesson this morning certainly fits this title. It stands in stark contrast to the passage in the Epistle of St. John on the nature of love.

The Gospel is a vivid story. We cannot be casual with it, for its symbols are the shadows of realities. It tells us that injustices on Earth are redressed in Heaven. Lowliness (St. Jerome notes that Lazarus means AGod helps@) is rewarded hereafter, and self-indulgent pride is rebuked. We all see that selfishness makes hell on earth. Why should we doubt that it brings hell hereafter?

The story tells us of a great gulf. If a man chooses a cheap heaven here, he can hardly expect to have a real heaven beyond death, for he has lost both taste and aptitude for a real heaven. If a man lives without compassion if he lives without love, he digs a chasm between himself and his fellow men. By the same token he separates himself from God, for God is love.

The story tells us that life here fashions an eternal destiny. Why should we call any day commonplace? Every time the rich man walked past Lazarus, every time he listened to time-serving speeches in which greedy men find comfort, he was building hell. Every time Lazarus refused to be embittered by his condition, he was building a home in heaven. Every step is destiny. Beloved in Christ, the very reading of this story is destiny.

At first blush, this is a story of indifference or indifferentism. The rich man does not seem intentionally cruel. The likelihood is that he not only gave Lazarus scraps from his table, like another rich man in Scripture, but he may also have contributed generously to the temple. However, he just did not see Lazarus. He did not say, “This man is lonely. This man has pains of conscience and flashes of glory and longs for God. This man wakes at night and asks ‘Why, and whither?’”

He just did not see. He was too much absorbed in himself to be able to see. He was a man of large affairs, and there were problems galore connected with his house and estate, problems of the world and material goods. Soon the rich man was so close to himself that he could not see Lazarus, even though the beggar was as near as the doorstep.

Is the great gulf that chasm separating the rich man from God--forever fixed? Our Lord's compassion abides, and we believe it will not be in vain, but humans will abide. It can become hard and set. We know that here and now the rich man need not remain the rich man. Even the indifferent can turn and may live the Christ life. In doing so ourselves, in living the Christ life, we may fearlessly, confidently live into God’s promises truly dwelling in God and He in us. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE PENTECOST (WHITSUNDAY)-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
-St. John 14:23

Today is a day of gifts. (Indeed, we have had a Baptism this morning with its gift of Grace.) The Lesson for the Epistle (Acts 2:1-11) coves an account of what happened on the Day of Pentecost. On this Day, the Holy Ghost, a remarkable gift sent by the Father and the Son, came down upon the assembled disciples and apostles with all kinds of remarkable signs and consequences.

We have many gifts in the Church, and we like to celebrate them in glorious festivals–festivals of gifts, even some very tough gifts. We have come from Advent and Christmas when we rejoiced that the Redeemer had come down from heaven to deliver us from sin and eternal damnation. We walked with Jesus and the Disciples through Lent, to the gift of the Crucifixion, His life for ours. And then we had the joyful Feast of the Resurrection. We sang with the risen Savior joyful alleluias because His bitter passion was done for us and our redemption was accomplished.

Finally, just a few days ago, we saw our Savior return to His heavenly Father, going up with a merry noise. He ascended to take possession of His throne of glory for all eternity and to prepare a place for us to share in life eternal. What incredible gifts!

However, as the announcer used to say, “But wait! There is more.” Our Lord, who in this world had done so many such unutterably great things for us-the Christ Jesus who kept His word about our salvation-He now keeps that word which He had spoken to His Apostles and also to us. “I will send you another comforter, another deliverer, the Holy Ghost.”

This Holy Spirit will not only rule over Christ’s church but also, He will enter into every soul and enlighten and guide them in the way to salvation. In Him, we shall live, walk, and work for heaven. What a gift!

Actually, beloved in Christ, what gifts! For, you see, the Comforter brings to each of us the seven-fold gifts, sealed at our Confirmation. Do you remember them? Do you recall those gifts of the Holy Spirit? Wisdom - Understanding – Counsel-Fortitude - Knowledge - Piety-Fear of the Lord

These gifts sustain our moral lives and perfect our virtues, both the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) and the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance). The idea here is that these gifts help each person to share in the very life and nature of God, now in this life and for eternity.

Does everyone who has received the Holy Ghost and these gifts cooperate with Him for heaven? Are they all true children of the Holy Ghost? Sadly, many people, although they have received the Holy Ghost, are not children of God, but children of the world.

We hear in the Gospel, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” (14:27) Far too many people have an insane idea that the road to contentedness and peace runs through self-indulgence and satisfying their passions and desires. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” The ugly facts of his own shameful life are a sufficient and damning answer.

Even saints, perhaps particularly the saints, have struggled against the worldly spirit. St. Augustine had tried all ways of it—a virtual alphabet of sin from avarice to theft. Yet, he was restless, unfilled, and unfulfilled. Here is a breadth of human experience packed into that famous prayer of hiss, “Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”

Who are restless? Or, perhaps as St. John Vianney posed the question, “Who is a child of the Holy Ghost, and who is a child of the world?”

There is a basic level. Without a doubt, a Christian is a child of the Holy Ghost who avoids grave sins. Let’s be blunt--the Holy Ghost can only dwell in a soul which is not given over to grave sin. We hear St. Paul say, “Grieve not,” by sin, “the Holy Spirit of God.” (Eph. iv. so.) Sin opens our mind and body, the abode of the Holy Ghost, to the possibility that it will become the abode of Satan.

In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, “The sinner’s heart is the devil’s workshop, but not the dwelling of the Holy Ghost.” It is especially the case if we give ourselves to impurity in our thoughts, our words, or our works.

The stuff of the world, the sludge of the world, the literal and virtual poison of the world pours into our homes and families through the media and the internet. It drives the Holy Ghost out of our souls and hearts, and closes the entrance against the Third Person of the Trinity One who willfully and unrepentantly embraces an unwholesome life, “cannot receive the grace of the Holy Ghost.” St. John Chrysostom. The good news is that our sins do not have to separate us from the Holy Spirit. They do not have to be fatal. “Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” said St. Peter. (Acts ii. 38.)

Over the years, we also seem to have misplaced that wonderful spiritual exercise–examination of conscience. On the tract racks in every parish narthex, we used to hand out little “how to” books showing us how to reflect upon what we lose through sin, namely, that we are no longer a child of the Holy Ghost. So, let us practice penance, that we may obtain the heavenly treasure again. As we ask in the Collect “Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things.”

In addition to forswearing vice, a Christian is a child of the Holy Ghost if his or her heart is centered on virtues. Just as the oil keeps the light burning, and the flame is extinguished when the oil is all used, just so is the Holy Ghost—the light and fire of the soul—preserved within us when we live in virtue. Again, St. Augustine, in a sermon on the feast of Pentecost, tells his listeners, “The promises of our Redeemer have been fulfilled; our Lord Jesus Christ is ascended into heaven, and the Holy Ghost has come down from heaven; there remains for us…to preserve within us by a virtuous life the Holy Ghost who has descended, and by leading such life to follow Jesus Christ who has ascended.”

This virtuous life of ours should consist in firm faith, in the hope of God’s mercy, in the love of God and our neighbor, in humility, in being at peace with our neighbors, and in piety and the fear of God, especially in the purity of heart and chastity. Where these virtues are found in the souls of Christians, there we find the true children of the Holy Ghost.

Finally, a sure mark of a child of the Holy Ghost is borne by that one who is a child of prayer, especially when they often pray for the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Our Savior demands such a prayer from us when He says: “If you, then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke Xl. 13.) The Apostles give us an example that the heavenly Father grants the Holy Ghost and His gifts to those who ask Him.

Christ Jesus promised the Holy Ghost to the Apostles and to us with these words: “And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever.”(John xiv. i)

When the Apostles returned to Jerusalem after the ascension, they adjourned to an upper room and they all united together in prayer. And Assembled there in prayer on the feast of Pentecost, suddenly there came a Sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming. It filled the house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire. It sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. (Acts ii. I, 2.)

Should we pray less than the Apostles did for the Holy Ghost and gifts? Our Church imitates the Apostles in invoking God the Holy Spirit. Throughout the entire Whitsun week, we hear the wonderful hymn, Veni Creator, “Come, Holy Ghost, and visit souls of Thy servants.” We sing that beautiful hymn that He may descend the souls of the faithful and enlighten them by the word of God.

The children of the world do not get it. They are those to whom the world is everything, to whom the world and all that it offers means more than heaven. The world is their God. These are people who are attached with their whole hearts to transitory things.

Scripture says, “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them.” (Ps. lxi. ii.) Can a man who has sold his heart wholly and entirely to the world and its treasures and possessions say of himself that his exertions are holy and directed to heaven?

Let the Holy Ghost reign in our hearts, that he may turn them toward God and heaven where are true riches and treasures. “Seek first,” that is to say, more than all earthly things, “the kingdom of God.”

Let’s be clear. We need to know that we are not somehow forbidden from enjoying all of the good things God has given us. St. Paul says: “Rejoice with them that rejoice.” (Rom. xii. i5.) However, it is a question of what comes first in our lives and in our souls. God did not create us that we should enjoy or seek solely the pleasures of the world. “Seek first the kingdom of God.”

Let’s look around though. How often during the week do people even think about God, much less the incredible gifts of the Holy Spirit. In our rush, we “do lunch”, rush to “events” take in entertainment and ignore the heavenly. Schools routinely schedule sports and events on Sundays, even Sunday mornings and holy days, the great days of the church year that point us toward heaven. Entertainment upon entertainment, enjoyment on enjoyment. These are what so many people are to be striving for today. Even if passing things like this do not enmesh us in sin, they at least tend to bury virtue.

There can be no half-measures. I also say to you this morning that the children of this world are those people who lead a tepid life, forgetful of God. What can we say then about lukewarm Christians? What can we say of the lukewarm Christian who does not fear God, who does not direct their life toward Him, who neglects their prayer life? “He is a child of the world, he lives only for the world, he feels no desire to do good for heaven.” Those are the children of the world and not the Holy Ghost. They speak the language of the world and not the language of the Holy Ghost. You all have heard that language. In ordinary conversations, you can hear the kinds of things that would have provoked outrage from other folks just 30 years ago. And Christians? You can hear slander and anger–even among those who lay claim to the faith. The children of the world.

What language does the Holy Ghost speak? We see this in the Apostles, in the Martyrs, and in the uncounted faithful people of God. They speak fearlessly for the faith. They preach virtue. They exhort to charity and peace, to mercy and justice, to chastity, and to a holy Christian life.

I challenge us this morning to do a real examination of conscience this morning (before we make a general confession.) If your heart is so fixed that it only strives for the pleasures and joys of the world; if your heart is cold or lukewarm in the service of God; if your tongue does not speak the language of the Holy Ghost, be concerned for your soul. Be concerned that you are pushing the Holy Spirit out of your heart, that you are rejecting this unbelievable gift, and that you may not be acting as a child of God.

On this day of Pentecost, let’s make that critical, that vital examination of conscience, and pray fervently for our souls. Today, this Whitsunday this Feast of the Pentecost, let us savor anew the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Let us join our hearts and souls with St. Augustine in those beautiful words: “Breathe perpetually O Holy Ghost, Thy holy work within me, that I may think upon it;

move me, that I may do it;

persuade me, that I may love thee;

strengthen me, that I may hold Thee fast;

keep me, that I may not lose Thee!”

Let us pray,

O God, who hast enlightened the hearts of Thy faithful through the Holy Ghost, grant that henceforth we shall speak only in this same spirit of heavenly things, that we may pray and work only for that which is heavenly, so that we may be found worthy one day to reach there where Thou with Holy Ghost rules on the throne of heaven for all eternity. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord.” Amen.

SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY AFTER THE ASCENSION-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

-St. John 17:24

Today, on the Sunday after the Ascension of our Lord, we focus more intentionally on the Ascension of Jesus Christ. What of our lessons for this Sunday-this Sunday after Christ has “gone up with a merry noise” to sit at the right hand of the Father? Even the wonderful hymns-celebratory hymns seem to stand in contrast with the tone of our upcoming national observance of Memorial Day.

The answer is that there is a transcendent message for us today. It is one of joy and assurance, a promise that goes beyond the affairs of men and of nations. The Ascension message is one of place, “place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before in Heaven prepared for us by the Son of God”. It is a place safe from warfare-physical and spiritual.

Hear the promise set forth in the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. (17-21)

We shall see the king in his beauty. We will behold the far-off land and make our home in that place where no man of war will again harm the people of God.

In the words of our Lord, we are promised that we, “all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, …” (John 17:21-22) That is a promise! That is the promise of Christ Jesus, crucified, risen, and ascended in glory to our heavenly home.

When do we go there? When is there an end to the tumult and battles of man and of our ancient enemy? The end of all things is at hand. To be sure, there are thousands of ministers and would-be seers out there claiming the prophetic, claiming to answer the “when” question. However, the hour is not for us to know. It belongs to God.

What we need to understand at the outset, beloved in Christ, is that the road home, the King’s Highway, the way to the Father is not without peril or pain. Our Lord knew this. That is part of the promise when we hear, “the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.”

Don’t we know this? Examples abound. Just a few days ago, Federal agents tipped up at the childhood home of a pro-life activist and told the woman’s mother that they wanted to speak with her. The aim? The subject of the visit believes that the FBI’s true motive behind their visit to her parent’s home was to intimidate her for her activities on behalf of the pre-born. Meanwhile, over in the capitol of the Commonwealth, the Richmond, FBI field office directed surveillance of so-called “radical traditionalist Catholics” (RTCs). Simply holding traditional Christian views. Who would have thought it? These are just mild manifestations.

At least 420 acts of hostility against churches occurred in the United States over the past five years, steadily increasing over the period. Here in the U.S. churches and religious schools have faced vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, and bomb threats.

In Canada this week, Josh Alexander, 16, was handcuffed for allegedly causing a disturbance and provoking violence because he approached transgender activists to hand out Bibles. He was handcuffed, put in a paddy wagon, and ultimately expelled from his Catholic school for the additional crime of claiming that there are two genders. for offering students bibles on a public sidewalk in Calgary,” Alexander said in a tweet, “I continued handing out bibles,” he added. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.”

Maxime Bernier, a Canadian political leader said, “If you burn a church in this country, the police won’t devote any resources to catching you,” Bernier said. “If you hand out bibles on the sidewalk however-or hold a rally to defend fundamental rights in a time of hysteria-you will be arrested and fined immediately. We’re a sick society.”

This should not, though, come as a surprise.

These “things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them.” We have witnessed in the lives of the persecuted that the promise is true, and we can be walking a hard way in an instant. perhaps just attending or working in a Christian school.

The proper question, the real question for us is, “What are the directions to this place-this harbor where the Lamb sits upon His throne?” The First Epistle of St. Peter delivers an answer in an almost staccato form.

Watch unto prayer. We hear the words of our Lord in the Gospel of John, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.” So we are to pray, to pray in the imitation of Christ who is praying for us. Pray without ceasing, we hear in Scripture. Like oxygen on a climb to the top of a tall mountain, prayer must be breathed in and out along our journey heavenward.

Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. To paraphrase St. Augustine, “Restoration comes from God’s grace, and Divine grace is shown us in divine charity, and the human response is a response of charity.” As St. Augustine said echoing the Epistle “Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity…”

Part of that charity, that part that begins among us, is to “use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so, minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” This is a message that is in sharp contrast with the wisdom of the world. However, the glory given by the Father to the Son is given to us in the words of Scripture “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them.” No strings, no grudging-the hospitality of Heaven offered to us freely. Again, the words of the hymn, a succinct summary of true hospitality,

Since from His bounty, I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
Lord, they should all be Thine,
Lord, they should all be Thine.

Shouldn’t we do likewise in the imitation of Christ Jesus? Can we do anything less?

As to doctrine, “If any man speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God…” The news is filled with news of a marked rise in witchcraft in the United States-we could spend a sermon on that, but it is sufficient to say, same old evil, bright new package.

These are the things that have assaulted the truth of Christ from apostolic times. Our Lord asked that we be sanctified through God’s word: “Thy word is truth.” We are called to read, and meditate on the truth-the Word-make that a hallmark of each day in claiming the promise of the Crucified, Risen, and Ascended Lord.
Finally, work to glorify God in all things, no matter how small, through Jesus Christ. Make every part of your lives a vocation—a work dedicated to the glory of God, offering praise and thanksgiving at all times.

This is the message of Ascensiontide, and it is the strong promise for those we will mourn and remember on this Memorial Day. These are the driving directions home that you cannot get from a GPS, or Google or even from the AAA. They are the directions for traveling the King’s Highway-the road that leads to that place that transcends the things of this world, a place apart from time and war, battle and tumult in all its forms. It is the path the Ascended Lord has laid for us, “who tread where He hath trod,….the Son of Man; Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast.”

As for the promise, the promise of the end of the road, the path “To Heav’n, the place of His abode, he brings our weary feet?” It is the promise of a beginning, a beginning where He shall show us the glories of our God, and make our joys complete. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”

-St. James 1:19-20

In our Epistle lesson, St. James seems, perhaps, at first, to be dealing with clichés or platitudes. He makes several points that may seem perfectly obvious and may tend to be taken for granted.

St. James tells us that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” Really, is there anything very novel in that thought? Surely, that is a truth which wise men and women, at all times, and in all places, have always recognized. There is nothing novel, and certainly nothing peculiarly Christian about that idea.

God is the source of life and every blessing. St. Paul, in Acts 17, was able to quote the pagan Greek poets on the subject, “In God we live, and move, and have our being; as some of your own writers have said, ‘we are all his children’.” Or, as one of our well-known hymns, Hymn 301, expresses it:

To all life thou givest, to both great and small.

In all life thou livest, the true life of all.

God is “the Father of lights,” says St. James, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”. God is the source of life and every blessing. Behind all the changes and vicissitudes of nature and human history, his purpose abides, sure and steadfast, eternally just, eternally good. Again, from Hymn 301,

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,

Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;

Thy justice like mountains high soaring above,

Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.

“Every good gift is from above.” Perhaps it even seems to be a platitude. Certainly, it is something which the poets and philosophers, and the wise men and women of all times and places have always known. Again, there is nothing very novel about it, and nothing peculiarly Christian; but it is, nevertheless, a universal truth that Christians in our own time would do well to keep firmly in mind.

God’s justice is eternal and unchanging and unchanged by our passing whims and fancies. It is steadfast through all of our perversities and aberrations. In the end, beloved in Christ, God’s will is done. The truth of God’s eternal providence is a fundamental truth, and we forget it at very great peril.

However, St. James has something more specific than that in mind. So he continues: “Of his own will he brought us to birth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of all creation.”

The “good and perfect gift” of God includes, more specifically, God’s saving work in Christ, the Incarnate Word, “the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Indeed, our Gospel lesson this morning speaks of our receiving that “good and perfect gift”-“the implanted word”-in the power of the Holy Spirit, “the Comforter”, “the Spirit of Truth.” It is a most precious gift from the Risen and Ascended Lord.

By the “perfect gift” of the divine Spirit, we are “a kind of first fruits of all creation.” God’s creation has a spiritual purpose, and a spiritual end, of which we are “a kind of first-fruits”. We are the beginning of God’s spiritual harvest.

As we are born again by the gift of God’s Spirit, as we share consciously and lovingly in God’s eternal purpose, His will for His creation becomes manifest in us. In us, dumb nature finds the voice of praise. In and through the worship of Almighty God, all of creation, the whole of creation begins to find its destiny. In that sense, we who are born of the Spirit are “the first fruits of all his creation”.

At the crux of this re-creation, God is in the process of making you into one of His very best creatures. If want to pass the tests of life and come out on the other side a better person, then look to the unchanging God who gives good gifts and new life to those who depend on Him. However, do not stop by just looking to the unchanging God.

Listen to what God has to say. Pay attention to His Word, or to put it more bluntly, let us open our ears, shut our mouths, and hold our tempers. This is as explicit as it gets.

These verses are actually a summary of the whole book of James. The rest of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 describe what it means to trust God’s Word. Chapter 3 talks about controlling the tongue, and being slow to speak, and Chapter 4, along with the first 12 verses of Chapter 5, describe how to control our anger. That is the message of the book of James. Right now, let us take a brief look at each.

First. be quick to hear. Open your ears to what God has to say and really listen to His Word.

Years ago, Broadway producer Jed Harris became convinced that he was losing his hearing, so he visited an audiologist. The audiologist pulled out an old-fashioned, ticking, gold watch and asked, “Can you hear this ticking?”

“Of course,” Harris replied.

The audiologist walked to the door and asked the question again. Harris concentrated and said, “Yes, I can hear it clearly.” Then the doctor walked into the next room and repeated the question a third time. A third time, Harris said he could hear the ticking. Mr. Harris,” said the audiologist, “there is nothing wrong with your hearing. You just don’t listen.”

“Ye know this, my beloved brethren,” says St. James, “and so let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” Such virtues as humility, patience, and meekness, are perhaps not the most popular virtues for the modern Christian.

We are perhaps rather swift to speak and swift to wrath. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this divisive and frankly crazy political season. One can get quite self-righteous about it. After all, there is so much that seems to obviously be wrong and so much to be done, how can we afford patience and meekness? Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth; but do we really trust in that promise?

“Be swift to hear,” says St. James, and his point is well taken. “Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls.” So it is that in Proverbs 13:3 we hear, “Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives; those who open wide their lips come to ruin”; and again, in Proverbs 29:20, “Do you see someone who is hasty in speech? There is more hope for a fool than for anyone like that”; and Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.”

God’s eternal will, and the salvation of mankind, will not be served by frantic speech, sound bites, and wrathful deeds. As well, we become so busy and distracted by what seems to us obvious goods, we become inattentive to God’s word-slow to hear, swift to speak, swift to wrath. We become distracted in the pursuit of a myriad of apparently excellent gifts and fail in our perception of that “good and perfect gift” which is ours for listening. “Be swift to hear.”

So it is that today’s Collect would have us pray for patient attentiveness to God’s word. Only God alone can order our unruly wills and affections.

We pray that we may love his commandments. We pray that we might desire what he promises so that our wills may be steadfast in accord with the eternal and invariable righteousness of God. We pray that amid “the sundry and manifold changes of the world”, amid all the distractions of swift speech and swift wrath, “our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.”

In this short passage of the Epistle, we are spoken of as not our own; but as begotten by His Word. We receive His Word engrafted into us as a new life, as looking up to Heaven for the only good and perfect gift.

Beloved in Christ, the message of the whole of the Easter season and the lessons of this Sunday are simple. Yet, they are so vitally important. The perfect gift of God, the seed of new spiritual life, the word of God, the seed of resurrection, has been implanted in our minds and hearts.

The temple of his body must be raised up in us, and the House of God must be rebuilt in us and among us. We do not do this not in frantic speech and wrathful deeds. We do this in attentiveness to God’s word. We do this in the steady, constant discipline of prayer. We do this inpatient and long-suffering labor of mind and heart and hands, waiting upon the Spirit’s strengthening. We do this in the sure and certain confidence that though we are in sorrow for a season, the good and perfect gifts of God our Father never, ever fail.

What an extraordinary liberating message we have in our Scriptures this morning. Be quiet in prayer and in hearing the word. Consider carefully the power of words before you use them. Put aside anger. When we follow these simple instructions, fear not. It is your Father’s pleasure to give you a kingdom. And he will surely do it. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

DEARLY beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles; that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 

-I St. Peter 2:11-12

We American Christians have been living in a kind of make-believe world. For much of our nation’s history, Christian values have closely approximated the values held by our culture and vice versa. Quickly those days are coming to an end, thanks in part to various social engineers, influencers, and similar folk. Christian views and values are no longer tolerated as the “high road of morality”, but scoffed at as backward and bigoted. Christians are beginning to be viewed by many as those our society would be better off without.

Such a response would not have taken the apostle Peter by surprise. In fact, he would have expected it. In our text, St. Peter tells us we should expect some to react negatively to godly living. While we are obligated to live exemplary lives as we dwell among ungodly people, we should not expect to be praised for it. Indeed, we should not even expect praise in this life. Holiness is a matter of obedience and hope. In our text, St. Peter tells us why godly living should be our goal, even when we must pay a price for it in this life.

In verse 11, St. Peter speaks of the spiritual life in terms of our personal piety. In verse 12, he capsulizes the essence of our spirituality in terms of our public piety. If we would walk worthy of our calling, we must pay careful attention to these words written under the influence of the Holy Spirit about the things St. Peter has learned, which each of us must learn as well.

Christians must look upon the world as strangers and sojourners in it.  The concept was a familiar one to St. Peter and other New Testament writers. It is introduced early in the Old Testament where Abraham was a sojourner in the promised land, a land he never owned in his lifetime (Genesis 12:10; 17:8; 20:1; 21:23, 34; 23:4). So it was also with Isaac (Genesis 26:3) and his son Jacob (Genesis 28:4; 32:4). The nation Israel sojourned in Egypt (Genesis 47:7; Deuteronomy 26:5). Even when God delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian bondage and brought them into the land of promise, they were still “sojourners” on God’s land (Leviticus 25:23; 1 Chronicle 29:15). In the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul describes all the Old Testament saints as aliens or sojourners.

So as strangers and sojourners, we must regard the world from the outside.  We can not imagine for a moment that whatever is done there can be entirely good and right. We are also pilgrims or sojourners whose position is temporary, for we “have no continuing city, but seek one to come" (cf. Heb. xi. 13-16). 

As pilgrims, we are called to cultivate a life of detachment from much of its business and pleasure, at least in our hearts.  Especially we must “abstain from fleshly lusts.”  These are directly contrary to the Christian life, for they “war against the soul.” 

I think it is helpful to understand what St. Peter means by “fleshly lusts.” The term “lusts” is similar to the New Testament term “tempt” in that both terms have two very different meanings indicated only by the context. The root word which underlies “lusts” often is used for “desire” in a very broad range of meanings. On one hand, it is used to depict our Lord’s “desire” to observe Passover with His disciples (Luke 22:15) and the “desire” (longing) of the angels to look into God’s earthly redemption of man (1 Peter 1:12). It also is used of Lazarus’ desire (appetite) to eat the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table (Luke 16:21) and the prodigal’s desire to fill his empty belly with the food the swine would eat (Luke 15:16). On the other hand, the term is used with the negative connotation of an illicit or sinful desire. In such instances, the word is rendered “lust,” “covet,” or “crave” (Romans 7:7; 1 Corinthians 10:6; James 4:2).

So the concern here is with those appetites or desires we have by virtue of our fallen human nature. In themselves, they are not sinful acts, but the desire to perform acts which are for self-gratification rather than for the glory of God. Carried out, however, these “lusts” result in sin (see 1 Peter 4:3). The “lusts” of which St. Peter speaks are “former lusts” which characterized his readers as unbelievers in a state of ignorance. They are also “lusts” which have an ongoing appeal. When submitted to, these lusts shape or conform us to them (1 Peter 1:14).

How should we then deal with fleshly lusts? We are not left without help. St. Peter gives a very concise word of advice on how we should deal with fleshly lust. We are to avoid them. Other texts of Scripture shed light on how we avoid them. We are told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to [its] lust.

Unfortunately, Christians are often characterized by the word “Don’t.” The worldly think of us in terms of what we don’t do rather than what we actually do. When our hope is fixed on heaven, our desires begin to shift from earthly, material things to things eternal. We begin to “use” our desires and material things for God and His glory rather than give ourselves to them as slaves. A heart full of desire for Christ and His kingdom has less place for fleshly lusts. In this way we are in the world, but not of it.

What then of the external, our duty before the world in which we live? Having spoken of our inner piety in verse 11, St. Peter moves on to our outward, public piety in verse 12. Several assumptions underlie his command to “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles” (emphasis mine). First, St. Peter assumes we will not be physically separated from unbelievers, but we will live among them. Second, our conduct as Christians, and our daily manner of life, should set us apart from the world. Third, St. Peter expects Christians to believe and behave in a way significantly different from unbelievers, who are only of this world.

How often have I heard this said, “My religious beliefs are a very personal thing.” Translated, this means, “I don’t want to talk about religion.” Jesus never allowed us the option of having a strictly personal faith.

Indeed, Jesus did not oppose demonstrating righteousness before men. He opposed the hypocritical public display of religious rituals (prayer, fasting, almsgiving) rather than godly conduct in our relations with men. Jesus rebuked acts of Pharisaical self-righteousness performed to gain the praise of men and not the praise of God. The Pharisees were seeking the praise of men now, rather than awaiting divine reward in heaven.

Jesus calls for His disciples to live out His righteousness in their daily conduct. He lets them know this may result not in man’s praise but in persecution. They should nevertheless persist in their newly-found righteousness rejoicing that their reward is their future hope. In short, separation from the world must not be the separation of pride and contempt, which is no less un-Christian than worldliness. So, in public life, the Christian is to remember the duty of example through righteous living om obedience to God. 

Living a praiseworthy life does not mean we will be praised for it. It is true that living a life that is pleasing to God is the most peaceable path open to us. However, it is not true that piety will always result in peace. (Matthew 10:34-36).

Beloved in Christ, righteousness provokes a variety of responses. We see this in the response of men to our Lord and in the responses of men to our own Christian conduct. To be sure, St. Peter implies that living a godly life may result in the drawing of some to faith (1 Peter 3:15) and also may bring a favorable response (1 Peter 3:10-12). Nevertheless, St. Peter indicates ungodly men can be expected to unjustly accuse and attack the Christian because of his or her goodness. In the case of those who ignorantly accuse the righteous of wrongdoing, our conduct should be sufficient to silence their foolish and ignorant accusations (1 Peter 2:15).

Why should we be different from our forerunners? The ancient church was falsely accused of cannibalism (the Lord’s Supper), of immorality (the Agape or “love feast”, again, the Lord’s Supper), and of treason (Jesus is Lord). Of what will the righteous of our day be falsely accused? What forms of excellent behavior will the world find threatening and offensive? Consider these possibilities. First, the world finds the doctrine of judgment, life after death, and particularly the doctrine of hell offensive. After all, it is all so “judgmental”. The church has repeatedly seen reactions, false accusations, and even legislation and lawsuits for exercising church discipline. The world certainly objects to our views and practices concerning sexual morality. The list goes on and on.

Persecution plays a part in the proving of our faith. When we persist in doing good even though it results in persecution, we demonstrate our faith. When our faith is proven, God, the source and object of our faith, is praised. We do not behave excellently just because it is the pathway to present peace and prosperity, but because it is the way of faith that results in praise and glory to our Lord.

So it is that these two verses make clear that personal holiness is essential to survival and must precede any effort at public witness and evangelism. They also remind us of the blessing and necessity of obedience to God. Through our obedience, we are protected from the campaign against our souls, while at the same time displaying an invitation through the light of Christ which illumines us. Our personal lives matter. Our public lives matter. Our obedience matters. For our good and for God’s glory out there in the world. Amen.

                                Sermon for the Easter Vigil-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.”

-St. Matthew 28:1

Easter Even is a time for serious meditation, a time for earnest resolutions, a holy calm, and a short breathing spell between the agonizing sorrows of Good Friday and the tumultuous joy of Easter Day. Saint Joseph of Arimathea had tenderly laid the Body of Jesus in his own new tomb, and, having rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, had departed. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary remained sitting by the tomb, watching. What were their thoughts?

Perhaps that evening, with the chill of the desert night upon them, they were thinking about the past. A vision of marvelous loveliness, a Man of unspeakable goodness had crossed their lives. They had been privileged to come in contact with His life and work. What a life of beauty! What a work of mercy, particularly for Mary Magdalene!

How high their hopes had climbed, as splendid possibilities for sinning and lost humanity had seemed to unfold from His teaching. How bright the future had seemed with this incredible teacher. How their hearts had burned within them at His words!

Now it is all over. Their Sun had set in the tomb. One long day of incredible horror had just ended. They had followed Him from place to place. They were witnesses to the sudden change of popular feeling, and had heard the angry shouts, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!” They had beheld the way of the Cross, Calvary, the burial, and now they sat by the tomb and thought quietly of what they had experienced, trying to understand, perhaps recalling his warnings that this would happen.

Perhaps then they looked forward. What was there to live for now? Jesus was dead, and surely the world has lost all for them. But hadn’t He said that He would rise again. What did that resurrection He had spoken of mean? Would it be to come back to the old life, just the way He had been, or what would happen?

What was to be done in the present? They could do so little for their dead friend, their teacher, and their master. They could prepare spices, and go as early as the law allowed them when the Sabbath was passed. They could bring their offerings to the tomb. There is not much left to them. Perhaps there is only keeping the watch left.

For centuries the curious have always wanted to look into the dark depths of death, but the tomb has been sealed with secrecy. It has always stood as the “dead end” of all our efforts to peer beyond this life into the life to come. The tomb has always mocked us, as it mocked the two women that evening.

Isn’t this typical of Easter Eve? We have followed step by step through Lent what the women saw, and now it is all over. Some, like Joseph of Arimathea, having laid Jesus in the tomb, have departed, perhaps to necessary work. We are privileged, like the Marys, to sit by the tomb, to watch, and to think.

Beloved in Christ, shall we think tonight of the past? What has this Lent been to us? We began with so many holy desires, and so many good resolutions. How have we kept it? How much spiritual ground have we gained? It has been, hasn’t it, a Lent with walking with Jesus? Yet, He has called us to “go up higher”, to go up higher than He found us at the beginning of Lent. Have we tried to obey that call-what steps forward have we taken?

We began this Lent, too, didn’t we, with a purpose and definite battle to fight against some besetting sin? What has been the history of the campaign? How much have we conquered ourselves?

Perhaps, like the women at the tomb, we can then to look forward-Easter morning will soon be here. The Resurrection morning will dawn like thunder with its joys, its incredible spiritual joys, but the world will try to mix with them till the spiritual joy of the risen life has been nearly forgotten in the worldly amusements which claimed us. Tonight on this Vigil, how we should realize this, and guard against it by keeping up at least some rule of devotion. If we give up Lenten fasting and penitence, let us never give up our constant prayers, and meditations, and communion. Then the old sin will come back again to tempt (as it always has). Watch against the first inclination to yield.

Perhaps the enormity of the onrushing Resurrection just exhausts our capacity to imagine and pushes our reasoning ability to the breaking point. We do not have to explain the Resurrection. Rather it explains to us. It establishes who we are and why we are gathered together here this night watching. Beloved, because Easter happened, because the resurrection happened, the Church happened.

The angel tells the watching two women to lay aside their thoughts and to look inside the tomb, saying to them: “Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.”

Easter rolls the stone door of the tomb away for us so that we might penetrate the mystery of death. It makes the tomb a pathway - a pathway to the heart of the eternal and shows us that the holy heart of God is love and life. God rolls the door of the tomb away not to let Jesus out - but to let us in - to allow us to see that Christ's promises are true.

This indeed is what Jesus promised to us before he died, a promise that seemed to Mary and Mary Magdalene looking backward to be totally incredible, a matter, at best, of metaphor, and hyperbole, but which we now know to be a matter of fact and substance. The stone was rolled away from the tomb, not to let Jesus out, but to let us in, to show us that death is not the end - but rather a new beginning and a new future.

We have a future that proclaims the victory of life over death, and which allows us to turn our backs on the grave and face our future with faith and hope, confident that all of God's promises will indeed bear fruit

Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, having heard the angelic assurance, “He is risen”, turned their backs on the grave and ran “with great joy” to tell the disciples of the miraculous. Joy is the keyword here. Christ was buried, but he wouldn't stay dead. The tomb could not hold him - and because of him - the tomb cannot hold us either.

So, use well this Easter Even for anticipation of future difficulties, for solemn resolutions to be faithful, and then seal them tomorrow with the glorified Body of the Risen Lord, which is His Easter Gift to your soul. Amen. 

SERMON FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.”

-St. Luke 23:26

Once again it is time, as the old hymn has it, to hear and reflect upon “the old, old story—the story of Jesus’ glory.” Once again it is time to let the details—ever familiar and yet ever new—touch us, convict us, and exalt us. Once again it is time to do the Passion—not just to hear readings, not even just to take our part in a drama—but to enter into the depths of the greatest cosmic mystery ever, the Passover, the transition at once of the human race and of each and every one of us from death to life, from suffering to glory, from sin to redemption. One of the things that is most noticeable about the Passion of Christ is the role of crowds and mobs. If the individual is often capable of great flights of thought and inspiration, the crowd is not. It is susceptible to leadership—sometimes good and constructive, but more often evil and destructive. There is something about being in a crowd that brings out the worst in many people—perhaps you and me.

Judgment is suspended. We are less responsible. If the crowd becomes criminal or disorderly there is less chance that one particular individual will be arrested or otherwise get in trouble. We are likely to shout something or chant something when we are in a crowd.

Think about how many crowds became involved in Our Lord’s Passion. There was the crowd of soldiers who arrested him, the crowd of hangers-on at the High Priest’s house, the mob ringing the Praetorium as Pontius Pilate, the greatest moral coward in all of human history, debated whether to grant clemency to a terrorist or to the Son of God, the cruel soldiers, just doing guy stuff, just having good clean fun with Jesus and a crown of thorns and finally the real die-hard enemies of Christ, hanging out by his cross, waiting to see him die.

From their hearts and lips poured that hatred and venom and blood lust that always bubble to the surface when cold hatred is fanned into a mob’s white-hot rage.

Yes, there are crowds. However, there are also individuals who stand out from the crowd in the Passion narrative, the Divine Love Story, the chronicle of God’s love for you and for me. (That is what the “passion” of Christ really means.) Some of them represent the forces “that rebel against God” as our Baptismal Covenant has it, the would-be obstacles to the saving love of God in Christ. There was Judas who betrayed him. (We don’t need to waste a lot of time on the so-called “Gospel of Judas,” with its clumsy, heretical, Gnostic nonsense about Judas being the one to free Jesus from the disguise of his bodily humanity.) There was Pontius Pilate, committed to calculating every requirement of his own self-interest except history’s ultimate judgment on his character. There were the bit players, the man with the anesthetic-soaked sponge, for example, and the rare individual who could see the real significance of things when nobody else could, like the centurion who saw correctly in the condemned Christ the only Son of the Most High. Often it is by meditating on people such as these, and on their proximity to Christ, that we can gain a greater understanding of the meaning of the Passion.

One of these individuals who often escapes our notice is St. Simon of Cyrene. Like so many people in the gospels, we know very little about him. The little we can piece together from the gospels, far from clearing up the confusion, adds to it. His name strongly suggests that he came from Cyrene in North Africa, but whether or not he had migrated to Jerusalem or was a pilgrim who come there only for the feast, is uncertain. The fact that he was “coming in from the country” suggests the possibility of a residence somewhere rather than pilgrim’s lodgings, as does his paternity of Alexander and Rufus, about whom we know nothing, and whom scholars have accounted for as people with whom St. Mark’s original readers would have been acquainted.

In any event, Simon was not himself a native of the Holy Land, and we have no reason whatever to believe that he had had any previous contact with Our Lord.

Yet, what an important role this almost anonymous individual has in the greatest drama in the history of the world. I suspect that he had no knowledge of what was going on that fateful Good Friday until he happened upon the gruesome procession. He had probably come into the city on business, and I imagine he had a long list of things to accomplish. Perhaps he was distracted. Perhaps he was trying to find a way around the rabble accompanying the death march.

However sorry he might have felt for Jesus, if, in fact, he had ever known him or come into contact with him, I suspect the farthest thing from his mind was getting involved in this whole hideous mess. How human! How like you and me! You just don’t want to get involved in this sort of thing! Feel sorry if you must, and then escape, but do not get involved! You never know what will happen if you get involved with this Jesus fellow, especially with his cross.

We see in Simon's carrying the cross a picture of the work of the church throughout all generations. She is the cross-bearer after Jesus. Notice, beloved in Christ, that Jesus does not suffer so as to prevent your suffering. He bears a cross, not that you may escape it, but that you may endure it. Christ exempts you from sin, but not from sorrow. Remember that, and expect to suffer.

Let us comfort ourselves with this thought, that in our case, as in Simon's, it is not our cross but Christ's cross that we carry. When you are persecuted for your piety when your faith is the occasion of cruel jokes, then remember it is not your cross, it is Christ's cross. What a privilege it is to carry the cross of our Lord Jesus!

You carry the cross after Him. You have blessed company. Your path is marked with the footprints of your Lord. The mark of His blood-red shoulder is upon that heavy burden. It is His cross, and He goes before you as a shepherd goes before his sheep. Take up your cross daily, and follow Him.

Do not forget, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. It is the opinion of some that Simon only carried one end of the cross and not the whole of it. That is very possible. Christ may have carried the heavier part, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Certainly, that is the case with us. We only carry the light end of the cross. Christ bore the heavier end.

Remember, though Simon had to bear the cross for only a short while, it gave him lasting honor. Even so, the cross we carry is only for a little while, at most. Then we shall receive the crown, the glory. Surely we should love the cross and, instead of shrinking from it, count it very dear, for it works out for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Whatever way he came by it, St. Simon of Cyrene took up the cross of Jesus and followed him. We have no doubt that he followed him all the way to Calvary. The title of saint bestowed upon him by the Church assures us that Simon followed Our Lord to heavenly glory. That was his route, and that is ours this Holy Week, this Great Week, and throughout our lives. To Heaven via Calvary. That is the journey. May we take it, and find it the way of life and peace. Amen.

SERMON FOR PALM SUNDAY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Eagerly have I desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer.”

-St. Luke 22:14.

Why?” This can be a most frustrating and perplexing question. If you are a parent or a grandparent, how many times do you hear that question? Why? “Why can’t I go out and play?” “Why does she get to have dessert and I don’t?” “Why do I have to be home by 11?” If you face a constant barrage of “why” questions, they can become rather tiring but they do make us think.

Beloved in Christ, it is vital we ask the “why” of ourselves. “Why do you have the job you do?” “Why are you a parent?” “Why did I do that when I know I shouldn’t?” The answers we give to these questions reveal our motivations and shape our actions.

We should ask ourselves the same question as a parish as well. Why are we here as a church? If the answer is because we like to be here, or coffee hour, or we just like each other’s company, then all the things we do will focus on ourselves. If the answer is that Jesus has given us the task of working on holiness and on helping to bring non-believers to Him, we are on point and it adds a whole new urgency to what we are doing.

We might ask the same questions regarding Jesus. Why did Jesus He enter the world when and where he did it? There are two contrasting views that come to light in John’s version of the Triumphal Entry that we look at this morning. The people who thronged around Jesus on that day had one idea of why He had come. Jesus, on the other hand, had quite a different reason.

The Roman Empire had conquered the promised land, and the people deeply resented the fact that they were being ruled by pagan Romans. The rebellion was afoot, and the people were looking for a deliverer, a “savior-hero” who would lead them to.

The Jews had come together for the Passover. Since the Exodus, these were holy days of remembrance of the bondage in Egypt. The Passover helped them recall the marvelous way that God had rescued them from slavery and brought them to their own land. On the fourteenth day of the lunar month, the first-born son of each family, if he is over thirteen, fasts in memory of the deliverance of the firstborn of the Israelites. That evening the male members of the family, attired in their best, attend special services in the synagogue.

On their return home they find the house lit up and the  Paschal Table, prepared. The head of the family takes his place at the head of the table. The meal is called Seder by the Ashkenazy Jews, and Haggadah (because of the story of the deliverance recited during it) by the Sephardic Jews. All the members of the family, including servants, sit around the table.

In front of the head of the family is the Seder dish, which is of such a kind as to allow three unleavened cakes or matzoth, each wrapped in a napkin, to be placed on it one above the other. A shank bone of lamb (with a small portion of meat attached) which has been roasted on the coals is placed, together with an egg that has been roasted in hot ashes, on another dish above the three unleavened cakes. The roasted shank represents the Paschal lamb. Bitter herbs, such as parsley and horseradish, a kind of sop called charoset are arranged in different vessels, sometimes disposed of like candelabra above the leavened bread. The table is also furnished with wine, and cups or glasses for each person, an extra cup is always left for the prophet Elias, whom they expect as the precursor of the Messiah.

When all are seated around the table the first cup of wine is poured out for each. The head of the house rises and thanks God for the fruits of the vine and for the great day that they are about to celebrate. This celebration has always caused a great deal of anticipation. The people would be reminded that God had raised someone up to save them in the past. Maybe God will do this again now.

By the time of Christ, the people had begun to look at Jesus as that possible “Savior-Hero.” He had been making a tremendous impact on the people around Him. He had just raised Lazarus from the dead showing His great power, power even over death.

St. Matthew reports that Jesus attracted great crowds wherever He went. He was a natural leader that people loved to listen to and follow. Jesus was frequently talking about His kingdom which He would be bringing. When the Jews combined all this information, they saw Jesus as a prime candidate to be the King who could deliver them. So when He rode into Jerusalem, the people were convinced that this was it. Now, the “Savior-hero” is now coming to Jerusalem to take control and begin His rule. The situation was ready to explode. They surrounded Him in a grand procession and gave him a welcome fit for a king-a triumphal entry to the city amid cheering crowds. Picture the emotions of that day!

For Jesus’ followers, it seemed the high point in His career as a prophet and public figure. He is welcomed into the capital as its rightful ruler in the eyes of those who had heard of his teaching. The miraculous healing of the sick and feeding of the hungry attested to His validity. His words came to them as a sudden light in the darkness of a world that had little respect for their views and needs. “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The sacraments allow us to enter into the events of our Lord's life not in their historical uniqueness but in their abiding significance. Jesus himself had told the apostles at the last supper that they would be better able to understand his message and appreciate his person only after he left them through death. They, who had the opportunity of living his passion with him in the flesh, missed their unique chance. Yet, through their life in the Church and their participation in the sacramental dispensation Christ inaugurated they were given a second chance. They took full advantage of it, and they proved faithful to the end.

This week we find ourselves today in the same situation the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary lived out as followers by a firm faith in the risen Lord Jesus. They were aided by the gift of the Spirit who enabled them to remain in the presence of the Lord by sharing in the sacrament of the Eucharist, in the case of the apostles after repenting of their failure, and in the sacrament of the inspired word. They also supported one another in the new society of those who belong to the Lord and who live no longer for themselves but for all the Lord's members.

You and I share in one another's gifts of faith and love. We profit from the talents and dedication of each member of this community of believers. Such willingness to share with one another in this way builds up community and is one of the most fruitful effects of charity.

So, charity is the meaning of Holy Week. We obtain a greater measure of this love of God and of all who are His is one of the chief reasons for our participation in the mysteries of this week. It is the charity of the Father who so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten son, that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life (John 3:16). Though we are keenly aware of our weaknesses and failings, of our past sins and our present selfishness and timidity, we are also convinced that we belong to God. He has made that possible through the mystery of his son's passion and death and resurrection which continue to be offered to us in the sacraments and the prayer and faith of the Church. He remains with us in his word and in the Eucharist. We have offered to Him in return the obedience of our faith. In faith and the Sacrament, we belong not only to God but also to one another. May we return his love with gratitude and the resolve to love Him and all who are His, imitating as far as in us lies, the example of our Savior who loved us and gave himself for us. Amen.

The Rt. Rev. Charles H. Nalls, OblSB

SERMON FOR PASSION SUNDAY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Before Abraham was, I am.”

                                                          -St. John 8:58

The crucifix and images are veiled. We see, but only “in a glass darkly.” The veiled crosses of Passiontide remind us of a discomforting and yet profound truth. We know and yet do not know the full and real meaning of Christ’s crucifixion. Indeed, it is the struggle of our lives to come to understand more fully the significance of the Passion of Christ.

Everything in the ordered life of the Church, in the proclamation of the Gospel and in the sacramental liturgy, in the pattern of the church year and especially during Lent, points to a mystery that we see but do not yet fully comprehend. At the heart of it, all must be our willingness to enter into the mystery of Christ’s passion in the hope that at last “[we] shall know even as [we are] known.” Only through the intensity of the passion, only through the mystery of Christ being crucified the mystery of sin and salvation, and the mystery of human redemption can we know. “The Cross shines forth in the mystic glow”, and we are illumined in its shadows.

For it, too, shall be said of us, as Jesus says to the mother of James and John, that “ye know not what ye ask.” Such, after all, are the disorders of our desires. We do not really know what we want. Even more, it, too, shall be said of us what Jesus prays for on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Such are the consequences of the disorders of our desires – the agony of Christ’s crucifixion and the agonizing tenderness of the first word of the Crucified who prays for our forgiveness.

However, such things can only be said of us if we enter into the way of the passion, the way of the cross. We are precisely those who know not what we ask and know not what we do. The veiled crosses of Passiontide signal the dark ignorance of our minds and the dreadful darkness of our wills. We are the crucifiers; Christ is crucified. Yet what that means is only dimly seen. The cross is veiled; present, but not clearly seen, an image hidden in the dark purple of sin and repentance. It is an image concealed in the dark purple of the royal divine. The veiled crosses of Passiontide suggest the shadowland of sin and salvation, the shadowland of divine love and human redemption.

Yet the veiled crosses of Passiontide reveal as much as they conceal. They reveal the deeply conflicted and darkly contradictory nature of our humanity and they point to the heavenly king who reigns supreme from the tree. In the words of an old hymn,

O Tree of grace, the conquering sign,

Which dost in royal purple shine,

Gone is thy shame; for, lo, each bough

Proclaims the Prince of Glory now.

The late sixth-century bishop and poet, Venantius Fortunatus, has captured the meaning of this day in his memorable hymn Vexilla Regis. A profound meditation upon the Passion of Christ, it signals the paradox of glory-the Crucified is King. The shame is the glory. And “by that death did life procure” and “He reigns and triumphs from the Tree” whose “favored branches bore / the wealth that did the world restore, / The priceless treasure, freely spent, / To pay for man’s enfranchisement.” The language of restoration and restitution, the language of sacrifice and substitution all belong to the mystery of human redemption. In a way, by hymn and liturgy, all is revealed.

Yet, at the same time, all is veiled. We don’t get it and even when we think we know what we want. Surely we want what is best for ourselves and for one another, for our children and the children of the world, but, then we discover that we don’t really know what is best. How can what is best for our humanity be realized through the grim horrors of a tortured and bloodied man nailed to a cross of wood? How can dead wood become a living tree, “O Tree of grace”, that restores us to paradise and even more, to heaven?

Only through our awareness of the darkness of our unknowing and the destruction that our darkness causes. Such is part and parcel of the Passion. Such is part and parcel of the deep mystery of the Gospel itself.

Today’s reading from the 8th Chapter of The Gospel according to St. John is an ancient text in the Western lectionary. It tells the story of Christ’s encounter with those who accuse him of two things: first, not being a true Jew; and, secondly, having a demon. Jesus responds by proclaiming his identity with the Father, God the Father, that is to say, and by proclaiming that in him the promises to Abraham have their fulfillment. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” When pressed by his puzzled interlocutors, he makes the astounding statement, “Before Abraham was, I am.” It is the name of God. It is an outstanding proclamation of Christ’s essential divinity.

The reaction signals the necessity and the heart-rending poignancy of the Passion. “They took up stones to throw at him.” The passage actually appears between the two places in John’s Gospel where Jesus identifies himself as “the light of the world.” Their darkness is made visible in the face of the light of Christ. In each case there is a connection to the dust of the earth, the dust wherein Jesus writes with his finger on the ground and speaks words of forgiveness to the woman taken in adultery, the dust out of which Jesus makes a healing poultice and bestows sight upon a man who was born blind. Forgiveness and Glory.

In response, there is only the darkness of animosity and the desire to extinguish the light. Why? Because people do not understand or, rather, want to understand what is clearly stated. People will not open their hearts and their minds to see what God wills for our good. How, then, will we know more fully and more clearly? Only through the Passion of Christ makes visible our sin and who makes known God’s love. Such is the point of the Passion.

Beloved, we have to enter into it year after year. It is really what the Church in her liturgy and life constantly proclaims in each and every service of the Holy Eucharist, namely, our participation in the Passion of Christ. He suffers for us, to be sure, but to the end that we may know his love, the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that immense and incommensurable love that we can never exhaust and never fully comprehend. Only through the Passion in all of the grim horrors of our humanity in its ceaseless and endless disarray, it seems, can we even begin to contemplate “the breadth and length and depth and height” of that divine love which sets all loves in order.

In every service of the Holy Eucharist, we are reminded of the Passion of Christ and of the grace that is given that we may participate in the Son’s thanksgiving to the Father. For that redeems all our sins and makes us lovely even out of the unloveliness of our ignorance and the darkness of our sin. Such is the purpose of Passiontide: to reveal, as the hymn puts it, “the rule of heaven.”

“Before Abraham was, I am” is that rule and that reality. It points to the infinite mercy of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. He is “the perfect life”, the life that “was given.” It proclaims the mystery that we can only enter into with the prayer that we may grow in understanding. We go the way of the cross to behold the horror and the glory.

Somehow, beloved in Christ, the shadows of the purple-veiled crosses of Passiontide illuminate the darkness of sin and show us the light of redemption. The Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father wills to suffer for us; his passion, meaning his suffering, signals the divine love which wills our redemption. It is humbling. It is awe-inspiring. It is a mystery, perhaps the mystery. The mystery that saves. Amen. 

         SERMON FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“....for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

-St. Matthew 4:10

(Also Morning Prayer: Psalm 50; Isaiah 58; St. Matthew 6:1-18)

As part of the readings I have taken on to enter more deeply into Lent, I have been revisiting a little pamphlet now out of print entitled A Clean Heart Create in Me. It contains daily Lenten meditations from the writings of C.S. Lewis in keeping with our Sunday reading theme. If you are already a Lewis fan, you will enjoy the daily reflections. Lewis’ reflection for this First Sunday of Lent helps us understand the meaning of temptation:

Temptation did not end for Jesus in that wilderness. It came again with terrific power when the Cross neared and in Gethsemane. However, He had made His answer in the wilderness, and chosen his path: “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

This is all part of the inbuilt design C.S. Lewis is speaking about. Nothing else can satisfy us. Something of this world may look appetizing, but it can never truly sustain. An action may seem that it proves our faith and the power of our God, but if it is not God-driven–if it is egocentric and borne of pride-then it will prove nothing, convert no one, and change not one iota of the world. If it is based on the desire for our own power, no matter how exalted or how “right” it may seem, if that power is not the power of God, then the result is the power of this world which is no power at all.

Yet, whatever the temptation, “Whoever offers praise glorifies [God]; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.” (50:23) Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward. (58:8) Amen.

                      SERMON FOR SEXAGESIMA-2023

          (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“If I must need glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.”

-II Corinthians 11:30

(Additional morning prayer readings: Psalm 71; Isaiah 50:4-10; II Corinthians 12:1-12)

It is a bit unusual to begin a week with sarcasm, particularly bitter sarcasm. But the Epistle from II Corinthians does just that. “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.” (11:19) St. Paul is literally body-slamming the Corinthians with sarcasm. What’s happening here?

St. Paul is attempting to deal with a sophisticated group of Gentile Christians facing the temptations abounding in a pagan city like Corinth. He does not provide details, but the problems that he addresses in his first letter to the Corinthians are indications of enough lawsuits (6:1-11), idolatry (10:1-22), and drunkenness at the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34). He does give two examples in today’s Epistle that show his main concerns: Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (v. 29).

At the end of the day, St. Paul reminds us that God sees all and everything! To him all hearts are open and all desires known and from him, no secrets are hidden. He is watchful and persuades us by any means to trust only in him for he alone is the source of all life, power, knowledge, and wisdom. He knows firsthand our suffering and anxiousness and travails.

St. Paul also knows humility. Despite his own sufferings, St. Paul cannot mention the name of God without breaking into doxology. In this fact, there can be found the difference that Christ makes. The word “God” evokes different responses in different people according to our outlook and trust.

To some, the folks in the seventy-five percent, it brings only a sense of gloom or fear; or a sense of austere demand, accompanied by a vague feeling of guilt. However, the mission of Jesus is to cause us to hear and see and realize that God is Father so that his very name would awaken confidence and love. He has done his work with us, the seed has taken hold, only when that name thrills the soul with joy and gratitude. St. Paul is sure God knew that when he boasted of his weakness he was stating the truth. All he does is done in the knowledge that God is looking on. All he says is said in the knowledge that God is listening.

This understanding makes suffering bearable, persecution endurable, and full trust in God possible. Calling God to witness can become a mere formality. But to one who knows God as the God and Father of Jesus Christ, and whose heart at the very mention of his name fills with adoring gratitude, the thought that he is looking on and listening will work against the evil living and bring patience and endurance. This is a planting that will cause our lives to bear fruit for Christ.

So, let’s pray that we are defended, not to avoid but be defended--from all adversity, whether in the form of testing or temptations, pain or suffering, trial or tribulation, the desires of the flesh, or the wiles of the devil. Let’s pray to put pride aside and understand our own weaknesses. “When I am weak then I am strong,” said the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:10). This is the beginning of humility. Only as we know our own weakness and rest in God’s strength are we making progress toward Christian maturity. In order rightly to approach Lent and benefit from its disciplines, we need to learn this lesson, embrace it, and finally live it. Amen.

                SERMON FOR SEPTUAGESIMA-2023

          (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

THE kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard.

-St. Matthew 20:1

This morning’s Gospel has been given a number of labels-The Parable of the Eccentric Landowner, Sour Grapes, the Parable Nobody Liked. We really do not like it, do we? After all, why do those who worked the least receive equal pay to those who have put in the time and effort? Perhaps the passage should be titled as a question, “Why do slackers prosper?”

With this question in mind, I was listening to Christian radio the other day, and I heard a song with the verse God is God and I am not. It struck me enough to pull over to listen to the whole tune which, although a bit repetitive, brought home the first lesson of Spirituality 101. God is God...and we are not.

As we begin to approach Lent, it is a fitting thing to consider. In fact, one of the newsgroups, they have a question of the week. One internet cowboy asked How big is your God? One of the responses simply said, well, he is God. that is it. He is GodBand we are not. He is our Lord and king (there is a term we don't really like), but that is the way it is.

Those who believe in the sovereignty of self, who would be Gods of their own little world really chafe at this. It is a problem as old as our first parents in the garden the problem of yielding control of realizing that we belong to something higher than ourselves.

It is spiritually salutary to be reminded that we are creatures. Which is another way of saying that we are not God. Consider this passage from St. Augustines Confessions:

And what is this God? I asked the earth and it answered: AI am not He, and all the things that are on the earth confessed the same answer. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things with living souls, and they replied, We are not your God. Look above us. I asked the blowing breezes, and the universal air with all its inhabitants answered: I am not God. I asked the heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars, and No, and they said, Awe is not the God for whom you are looking. And I said to all those things which stand about the gates of my senses: Tell me something about my God, you who are not He. Tell me something about Him. And they cried out in a loud voice: He made us. He made us, and he is in charge.

The suggestion made clearer by the first-hired workers= outcry is that only lazy, shiftless, unconcerned individuals would show up searching for work at five o'clock in the afternoon. No wonder the first-hired are appalled that the landowner has made them equal with the hardworking, early-bird workers who showed up at dawn and worked through the Aburden of the day and the scorching heat (v.12).

The landowner's generosity is bestowed on these last-hired laborers for a reason known only to him. He does not explain or apologize for the accounting system that lavishes the same wage on everyone hired, regardless of the amount of time logged on the job. The only response the landowner has to the disgruntled first-hired workers is, Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?

Is God not allowed to do what He chooses with what belongs to Him? May he not do what His will is for us? After all, God is God, and we are not. When God exercises His own unique way of doing things--ways we do not agree with or even comprehend, don't we try to ignore it or rebel? The utter and unmitigated sovereignty of God is a reign we humans have never been wholly comfortable with. Many would prefer a more democratic system of rule. You know, this would be a rule in which we might vote for the outcome of events or the unfolding of history or a particular doctrine or theology that we control. The sovereign rule of God leaves too many unwelcome subjects in our midst: hate, war, cruelty, waste, envy, greed, despair, and evil works that we are responsible for, but that could be done away with by submission to God's will for us. So many look at the circumstances and not at God.

However, even in the face of all these situations, there is one mystery in God's reign that outstrips all the others. It is a mystery that lives on in full sight of all the ugliness and evil that lurk among the beauty of creation. The greatest imponderable of all, the ultimate mystery of God's sovereign rule, is the amazing grace of God. For God so loved the world.

I invite us to think on Cross this morning. Has there ever been anyone more underappreciated than Jesus? Has anyone ever been treated more unfairly? No, not by a long shot. Here was the Lord of life, God’s own Son, coming into the vineyard and outworking anyone who’s ever set foot there. Only had a few years in his public ministry, but, oh, the results! So many sick people are cured of their diseases. So many are demonized delivered from oppression or possession. Multitudes fed and taught. The preaching of repentance and forgiveness, of life eternal, both to the crowds and to troubled sinners one-on-one. Yet, what did Christ receive? Rejection, humiliation, abandonment. His reward was unjust suffering, cruel death on a cross, and hanging out to die. What kind of a reward is that for the king of kings?

However, this is precisely how Christ won the great reward that each one of us will receive in the end. That wage of Salvation and Lifereward, beloved in Christ, will be based, not on our works, but on his. It will not matter how long you have been a Christian. It will not matter how many years of dedicated service you are put in along the way. It will not matter whether you were confirmed fifty years ago or baptized yesterday. Christ Jesus’s generosity toward us, eternal salvation, is far, far better than we grumbling workers deserve.

Any reward that we receive at all comes to us only by way of the grace of God. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life. These are ours solely because of Christ’s death and resurrection, not because of our labors, which, even as Christians, are marred by sin and pride.

The most unimaginable action of God is the gift of all that grace and love brought down into this world in the person of Jesus, Christ. The most unfathomable sacrifice made by God is the redemptive death of that love and grace on a cross for our sake and for our salvation.

This is the radical, uncontrollable aspect of God=s grace, lifting us up, healing us, and saving us. Our acceptance of this grace, our putting God first and recognizing that He alone is in full control, frees us to live fully as men and women of God through Christ. So today and each day, let us thank God that God is God, and we are not.  Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”

-St. Matthew 8:13

This week I have been reading some essays on the faith by George MacDonald, a nineteenth-century author, poet, and Christian minister. C.S. Lewis said of MacDonald, “I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.” Lewis went on to say, “I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.” This is high praise, particularly from a theological master such as Lewis, and MacDonald does not disappoint although he is not a quick read.

In an anthology entitled Knowing the Heart of God: Where Obedience Is the One Path to Drawing Intuitively Close to Our Father, MacDonald marks obedience as the door to knowing God intimately, and as the quality of the mature or maturing Christian. In this challenging work, MacDonald insisted that discovering life's great truths could be done in a simple two-step process: first obeying realizing who God is, and then obeying him.

This morning’s Epistle and Gospel lessons are emblematic of this relationship of faith and obedience. The story of the faith of the centurion and the healing of his servant go to the heart of the fact that Scripture recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.

We can see the link clearly in the military imagery in today’s Gospel. Here is a man under authority, a soldier, a man used to obedience on his own part and from those under his command. Now, we see this military commander standing before Christ begging for the healing of another. He is not even asking for one of his own family but for a servant.

There is no demand from this officer who has a number of soldiers under him. It is remarkable: this is a man thoroughly familiar with ordering others around—“I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh;” and even his now ill servant, “Do this, and he doeth it.” However, instead of bullying or ordering, he comes in supplication; instead of grabbing Christ and forcing a miracle, the centurion simply believes--he just has faith and the servant is healed.

This is not the only time we read of military personnel presented in a favorable light. There are several Biblical examples of soldiers who were outstanding in their service to God. In our Scripture texts today, I believe we find why soldiers are often such notable examples of faith and service in Scripture. However, there is a larger point to the story.

Let’s face it, just about everyone has faith in something. Maybe it is faith in some religion, or, all too frequently, faith in one’s self. Maybe one has faith in fate, faith in evolution, and faith in secular mankind. Even the atheist has faith in his own reason. Yet, beloved in Christ, there is only one real faith that works for time and eternity. True faith is faith in the one true God-the God who made us, who will judge us, and who has paid the price to save us.

Saving faith is that voluntary turning from all hope and grounds based on self-merit. It assumes an attitude of expectancy and obedience toward God, trusting Him to do a perfect saving work based only on the merit of Christ. It is having the humility and full trust of the centurion who recognized Christ Jesus as Lord of all. It is a trust that knew that the miraculous would happen even when he could not even see the results.

Saint Augustine took it a step further, noting that when the Lord promised to go to the centurion’s house to heal his servant, the centurion answered with what we call the Centurion’s prayer, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” By viewing himself as unworthy, the centurion showed himself worthy for Christ to come not merely into his house but also into his heart. He would not have said this with such great faith and humility if he had not already welcomed in his heart the One who came into his house.

Saint Augustine goes on to say that it would have been no great joy for the Lord Jesus to enter his house and not to enter his heart. Faith that penetrates the heart, and a heart for obedience to Christ.

There is a story from the Second World War I like to tell from time to time. It brings the point of faith and obedience-the centurion’s story-home to us. During the terrible days of the Blitz, a father, holding his small son by the hand, ran from a bomb-struck building. In the front yard was a shell hole. Seeking shelter as quickly as possible, the father jumped into the hole and held up his arms for his son to follow.

Terrified, yet hearing his father’s voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, “I can’t see you!” The father, looking up against the sky tinted red by the burning buildings, called to the silhouette of his son, “But I can see you. Jump!” The boy jumped and was saved because he trusted his father.

Beloved, our Christian faith enables us to face life or meet death, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are seen; not because we know all the answers, but because we are known. Not because we parse out our call, but because we obey the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

What kind of faith is this? First, our faith is an understanding faith, for it is “through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3). Our faith is saving faith, “for by grace ye are saved through faith, “for by grace ye are saved through faith.” (Galatians 3:11) It is, therefore, a living faith, and a growing faith, “because that your faith groweth exceedingly” (II Thessalonians 1:3), and a working faith, because “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20).

There is more, though. There is so much more. True faith is a justifying faith (it makes us righteous in the sight of God) because, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1) It is a protecting faith, the centurion’s faith, because, with “the shield of faith...ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Ephesians 6:16). It is a stable faith, “for by faith ye stand” (II Corinthians 1:24).

Our faith is also a purifying faith. We are “purifying [our] hearts by faith” as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:9). Further, we have an “asking” faith that receives answers to its prayers like those of the centurion, because “in faith, [there is] nothing wavering.” (James 1:6)

A strong faith does not recoil. We do “not [attain to] the promise of God through unbelief; but...strong in faith, [it gives] glory to God” (Romans 4:20). We may have an office, we may have earthly authority, we may have those who go for us when we say go. However, the fullness of faith is turned always toward Christ, in trust and recognizing His authority.

Finally, true Christian faith is a triumphant faith. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (I John 5:4). This faith—even our faith—is an understanding, saving, living, growing, justifying, purifying, working, protecting, stable, asking, strong, triumphant faith!

There are important lessons are given when we look at this kind of “centurion faith” in contrast to unbelief, obedience, and disobedience. Disobedience is the root of unbelief. Unbelief is the mother of further disobedience.

Yet, faith involves voluntary submission within our own power. If we do not exercise faith, the true cause lies deeper than all intellectual reasons. It lies in disobedience--the moral aversion of human will and in the pride of independence, which says, “who is Lord over us? Why should we have to depend on Jesus Christ?”

As faith is obedience and submission, so faith breeds obedience, but unbelief leads to higher-handed rebellion. With dreadful results, the less one trusts, the more he disobeys; the more he disobeys, the less he trusts. On the other hand, in the words of Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, to live in obedience and to live by faith is to live joyfully, to live with assurance, untroubled by doubts and with complete confidence in all we have to do and suffer at each moment by the will of God.

We must realize that it is in order to stimulate and sustain this faith that God allows the soul to be buffeted and swept away by the raging torrent of so much distress, so many troubles, so much embarrassment, and weakness, and so many setbacks. It is essential to have faith to find God behind all this. (Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 1675-1751)

So, today, beloved in Christ, go your way in faith and hope, though it is in darkness, for in this darkness God protects the soul. Go your way, casting your care upon God for you are His and He will not forget you. (St. John of the Cross) Go your way and live in centurion faith, because you have been “for he hath clothed you with the garments of salvation and covered…with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” Live this kind of faith and obedience and the miraculous will unfold before you, and “your soul shall be joyful in God”. (Isaiah 61:10) Amen.

SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN EPIPHANY-2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“BE not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil.”

-Romans 16-17

Today, our Epistle is the third panel of a triptych-a three-word icon by St. Paul to guide us in transformation. You will remember that on the First Sunday after Epiphany, our Gospel lesson was the story of Jesus, the child, showing forth the wisdom of God in the midst of the Temple in Jerusalem.

That the corresponding Epistle lesson (from Romans 12) urged upon us the manifestation of that wisdom in our own life in the Church-that first lesson in transformation: “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We are to show forth the divine wisdom, manifest in Christ, in our own lives. This will be the new basis of our life, not only as individuals but also as members of one another in the body of Christ.

On the Second Sunday after the Epiphany last week, the Gospel recounted the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. These are signs-powerful signs. The heavens opened, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending and the voice from heaven proclaiming, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” In the corresponding Epistle Lesson last week, again from Romans 12, St. Paul speaks of a renewed life for individuals and communities, a new life in brotherly love—transformation, transformation as surely as the water changed to wine.

In this morning’s Gospel, we have even more signs as we hear the story of Jesus’ very first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana, in Galilee. We spoke of this miracle and miracles generally last week, but it certainly is worth a closer look.

“The beginning of signs,” as St. John says. Jesus’ miracles are always signs and symbolic acts, and in this case, even the occasion is a sign: the wedding feast is a sign of the mystical union between Christ and the Church. Jesus changes water into wine, a sign of the transforming power of God’s grace especially shown in the Eucharist. Once again, the Epistle Lesson yet again from Romans 12, spells out the implications: “Be not wise in your own conceits”; “avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath”; “Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.”

These lessons, beloved, are a cumulative argument, variations on a theme: the theme of manifestation and transformation. The wisdom of God, the mystery hidden from the foundation of the world is now manifest in Christ. The wisdom is ours to behold, to believe, and to understand, and to make our own, by “the renewing of our mind.” By faith beholding the glory, we are changed, “changed into the same image” changed by adoration.

Here and now the glory of God in Christ is manifest in word and sacrament, in wisdom and gracious power. It is by beholding, by the steady focus of intellect and will, by the habit of adoration, that we are changed. That is the meaning of Epiphany, and that must be the basis of our spiritual life in us.

The epistle this morning deals with maintaining the path of Christ-likeness and transformation even under difficult circumstances. It speaks of carrying out Christian duty under provocation and even injury. This is foundational to our lives in this parish and as Anglicans.

Over the years, far too many of us have brought with us some bad habits-habits of anger and vengefulness fostered perhaps what we think we may have lost. Lay it down St. Paul tells us. Some of us may bring with us the conceits and desire for payback fostered in a world that, at least in some quarters, seems to grow more mean-spirited and vengeful by the day. This appears especially true in these increasingly bitter political years. Even for those who have “won”, there may be a temptation to pile on. Lay it down says St. Paul.

Retaliation and revenge are positively forbidden. “If it is possible, as much as within you, live peaceably with all men.” This is a key principle for our guidance. Now note here, we are not told that we must live at peace with all men. History has proven that impossible. We are told only that we are to do so far as that which lies in us. This means that we are to see there is no cause for quarrels in ourselves and that we are not the ones seeking evil and vengeance.

St. Paul recognizes that even this may not always be possible. For example, my beloved in Christ, we cannot be at peace with those who are hostile to the Christian faith and morals. That is not possible. Whether they are unbelievers or, worse still, Christians whose words and deeds cause scandal, we cannot sit idly by. We are called to address such things.

However, we must never make personal provocations and excuse for our own anger. This is based on the seventh beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” The children of God must not make peace by a truce with evil, but by overcoming evil with good, particularly by winning sinners to Christ.

In the next two verses, St. Paul gives two rules for our conduct when we are injured-really injured. First, he tells us what we are not to do. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” Under no circumstances are we to take vengeance and exact retribution. Think about that example of our Lord himself or His first martyr St. Stephen. They die praying for those who have wronged them.

In the very next verse, St. Paul tells us what we are to do, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” Christ Jesus tells us a sermon on the Mount, “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

The epistle concludes with the general principle, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” All of the other rules depend on this. St. Paul reminds us to the great struggle that is going on around us between the forces of good and evil, and that we cannot stand apart from that struggle. We cannot be neutral.

We must either stand on the side of goodness and by it stand concretely against the evil around us and in our own nature. Otherwise, we shall find ourselves swept along by evil, and that evil will overwhelm the good that is within us.

It is been said of anger, not that it is the greatest sin, but it is a sin which causes the greatest amount of unhappiness in the world. If we would just follow St. Paul’s teaching in the epistle today, will help us to lessen this unhappiness or even anger in ourselves and live peaceably in the community.

This three-panel painting, this triptych, is intensely practical. In fact, this lesson today is a three-part practical counsel. Let us look at it just a little more closely.

First, there is the beginning phase of strife with other people. As Christians, we cannot let vengeance have a beginning. Beloved, you know really and truly that once you begin “to recompense evil for evil”, you just don’t know where you will stop. Since strife most usually begins in misunderstanding, we are “not to be wise in our own conceits,” lest the mistake should prove to be ours.

Should we somehow actually be in the right, we must make it clear that we are in the right only, “by providing things honest in the sight of all men.” Otherwise, it will be our fault that we have been misunderstood.

In any event, we are to do our best to live peaceably with all men, as much as lieth in us. We cannot answer for others, nor prevent a quarrel, but we can make it very difficult for one to start if we are truly following the lesson in today’s reading.

What about those times when we find ourselves in the midst of strife? We are “to give place unto wrath,” which may mean that we are to give our anger time to cool, or that we are rather to yield to the anger of others than be set on revenge. Take a walk, and be constant in prayer as we heard last week. Put our wrath in its place and give place to the wrath of God. The Christian is to stand aside and give God room to act.

The third point in dealing with strife is at the end of strife. This is a particular lesson for this week.

As Christians, we are to labor for this ending and bide our time. Someday the opposed will have need of us. He will be hungry or thirsty, and we can “heap coals of fire on his head” by treating him better than he expects. As Americans, citizens of a Christian nation, we have shown this time and again. Germany and Japan after the Second World War are shining examples of St. Paul’s epistle at work.

Let the lightning of our anger be short; the summer lightning of gentleness. To “overcome evil with good” is the true victory, for this way we conquer not our enemy, but his enmity.

“By revenge,” says Bacon, “we are even with our enemy; by mercy we are superior.” By mercy, we may not only win others to ourselves but, better still, win them to Christ. Amen. 

Sermon for the Circumcision of Our Lord-January 1, 2023

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

‘‘And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” -St. Luke 2:21

It does not seem possible, but today is New Year’s Day, the first day of the new secular calendar of 2023. However, the Church does not follow the secular calendar. Rather, it lives by its own calendar. According to church time, today is the feast of the Circumcision of the Holy Christ Child. Today, eight days after his birth, our Lord began His work of salvation on our behalf with His first official act. It is, at once, something old, and something new.

It is a favorite day for those who keep a journal, to wrap the tie around the last year’s events. I wanted to share that with you all this morning as I put the cord around this faithful companion of the last calendar year. While there will not be any dramatic reading today, I will say that the year of joys and sorrows, the ordinary and the remarkable has been grace-filled.

Now to the new. I unwrap this book with anticipation. Its pages are blank. It is a tabula rasa, a clean slate. I cannot even think of how it might be filled. That is key, though. How might each of our journals, written and unwritten, be filled?

It is perhaps our liturgical calendar, our Christian year, which most strikingly sets us off as a community, identifying us as the Church. Here we are as God's faithful people. For us, every seventh day is not just a “holiday”. It is rather a holy day-a day on which we recall what God has done for us in and through his Son. Our worship is not just "commemoration," a faithful recalling of some now very remote events. It is an "appropriation," the taking into ourselves God's holy words. We are partakers at God's holy banquet. We taste the bread and wine of God's generosity, and we perceive with the eye of faith an eternal banquet.

The remarkable Christian year itself: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Trinity Season. It is interspersed throughout with saints’ days and memorials of major events in the life of our Lord: Annunciation, Circumcision, Presentation in the temple, Baptism and Transfiguration. In all of this, we are not merely attempting to distance historical events. We try to align ourselves with Christ Jesus and with those saints. We are called to make Jesus’s life and the lives of His saints our life. We are to seek by God's grace to become one with Jesus, to walk in the steps that he trod, to suffer with him, and to rejoice with him. Our pilgrimage is to become Christ-like through God's help. As the banner on the corner says, it is to be Christians.

There is a tragedy for those who do not fill their pages this way. Think of the rich young man who went away sad because he focused on the narrow things of the world. What of the Prodigal Son? He emptied himself of his worldly inheritance and was so empty that he ate the empty husks of corn. Further, what of the person who does not fill their spiritual house? “...when he comes, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.”-Matthew 12:44

In the promise of the Magnificat, those who are hungry, He will fill with good things. Those who put their trust in the empty things of the world will be empty. The promises of the new in Christ are beyond abundant. Twelve baskets filled with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.” John 6:13 Water pots filled up to the brim and brimming with new wine.-John 2:7 Most importantly, Disciples filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.-Acts 13:53. Truly, these are the entries of a new calendar for a new Christian year.

Let me also say to you that the Church’s year is a great prayer. It is that prayer "without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17) that St. Paul demands of all the saints. The beauty of it is that when we stumble and fall and even if we may the Church continues in prayer and celebration calling us, and inviting us to share in its greatest gift and mystery. This is the possession of God's life, the unity we can have with Christ through the free gift of God's Holy Spirit. In each new sharing of the Word, in every Mass, we cease to be primarily the inhabitants of time and slip over into God's eternity. We see how the end and the beginning are indeed united in Christ Jesus. So, beloved in Christ, the Church’s New Year and the world’s New Year is properly celebrated on quite different days and in different ways because, in fact, they celebrate completely different truths.

Jesus, Himself the Truth, submitted to the law of Moses by allowing Himself to be circumcised according to Jewish custom under the Old Law. On this day, He officially received the name that the angel Gabriel had announced to the Virgin Mary. It is a day anticipated by the prophets of old, “The nations will see your righteousness, And all kings your glory, And you will be called by a new name Which the mouth of the LORD will designate.” Isaiah 62:2 Again, from the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19 "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. Isaiah 65:17

We have a new name and “a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh…” Hebrews 10:20. “To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” Hebrews 12:24

Beloved in Christ, it is a particularly fitting thing that we begin this year thinking of the strong name of Jesus Christ. What better text can we hear than St. Paul’s injunction in the Epistle to the Colossians, ‘‘Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all this in the name of the Lord Jesus.” It is a great and universal new year’s resolution with no exceptions-all our words, all our deeds sanctified this year in that Holy Name.

That gives us perspective for the coming year 2023 whenever we might contemplate breaking those resolutions and doing something we really ought not to.

The flip side of this passage is that we do things ‘‘for the sake of” Jesus. There was a saint who resolved to begin every work with the words, ‘‘Propter te, Domine,” ‘‘for Thy sake, O Lord”. In fact, we have a collection that embodies this desire, ‘‘Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with Thy most gracious favor, and further us with Thy continual help, that all our works begun, continued and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy Holy Name, and finally by Thy mercy obtain everlasting life.”

Beloved in Christ, what a prayer to keep on our lips this next year! What a way to fill the pages of our lives! It is old, eternal as is our Savior, yet as new as each new moment of this new year. We can say ‘‘for Thy sake, O Lord” as we go about our daily work. We can say ‘‘for Thy sake, O Lord” as we undertake those great events in our lives. We can, you and I, offer up all things saying ‘‘for Thy sake, O Lord” as we undertake those small things that we do in the course of the day.

How much richer will even the things we do not like to do or the problems we have to face be if we do them in His Name? I will experience far less anger and resentment, and far more joy and contentment if we keep that simple resolution made on this Feast of the Circumcision.

This day reminds us of another new event: this was the first occasion when our Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for us. It calls us to face the fact that Christ truly is incarnate-truly in the flash-not an image or a seeming God as early heretics thought and many post-modern theologians still claim. Christ Jesus was fully made man and capable of suffering our wounds and marks. This is something quite new, quite unique, quite amazing. As the great Anglican preacher and scholar A.G. Mortimer once noted, it did not seem absolutely necessary for Christ to be circumcised, it was painful and humbling. He endured this out of love for us, to show us that He knows and understands us in our humanity and our pain, and stands as an example of Divine humility.

In turn, Christ’s circumcision was a prophetic act, by which his later blood-shedding was prefigured-anticipated. Just as blood flowed from Him because of the piercing of the knife on this day, so would the blood flow from our Lord’s wounded side some thirty-three years later as a result of the piercing of a sword. On both of those days, the Lord’s blood was shed for us and for our salvation both mark a fulfillment of the law and the beginning of its perfection.

On this day the newborn Christ-child was already beginning the work that would fulfill His perfect manhood. The cradle was tinged with crimson, a token of Calvary. The Precious Blood was beginning its long pilgrimage. Christ obeyed old law, a law of which He Himself was the Author. It is a law that was to find its last application in Him. As of old, there had been sin in human blood, and now blood, the blood of a new covenant, was already being poured out to do away with sin. In the words of Fulton Sheen, ‘‘As the East catches at sunset the colors of the West, so does the Circumcision reflect Calvary.”

Now, just as we are redeemed from our sins by Christ’s blood on the cross, we have something new and wonderful. As the Apostle says further in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:11):

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

Our Baptism baptizes us into Christ’s death and makes us new men and new women. “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4 The old was done by wounding of the body; the new, by cleansing the soul. The old incorporated the child into the body of Israel; the new incorporates the child into the body of the Church.

We have the joy of keeping this day this Feast of the Circumcision-the old name of the day, the same name that the church has kept it in the millennia before us. It is a day consecrated by the blood of Christ that calls us into the new. It calls us to fill our days with the lessons of the Incarnation, lessons that all point to being made new.

As begin anew, let us be reminded that we must “put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” Colossians 3:10 Indeed, “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. As we begin this Year of Our Lord 2023, “be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Ephesians 4:23-24 Let us resolve to have all our beginnings, all our aims, and all our endings in Christ, and may His will rule over us in the coming year. May our prayer always be, ‘‘Lord, not as I will, but as thou willest!” With these words, we can truly share in a New Year filled with His blessings for us and a step on the ladder of Heaven toward God who makes us new. Amen.

CHRISTMAS DAY SERMON-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may lead me: and bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling. And that I may go unto the altar of God.”

-Psalm 43:3, 4.

On this glorious morning, I do not have a long message for you. How can one bring better news than “Christ s born! God is with us!”? I owe thanks to the late and truly great Anglo-Catholic priest Fr. Alfred Mortimer for giving me some of the words and the inspiration for my message to you on this Feast of the Nativity.

Following our Advent meditations, meditations on the enormity of the Four Last Things, it is a good time to think about prayer. In fact, I think Christmas is the most appropriate time to carry the theme of prayer forward into and throughout the Church year.

“O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may lead me: and bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling. And that I may go unto the altar of God.” These verses from the 43^rd Psalm are the prayer of the man after God's own heart--David, the prophet King of Israel. If we read the Book of Judges and the earlier chapters of Samuel, we will understand David’s cry for light and guidance. For the world then was full of darkness, and what light existed was but fitful and dim.

As for truth, we read that “in those days there was no open vision.” (I Sam. 3:1) David and the Church of the Old Testament did well to pray for light and truth, pray to be led to God's holy hill and dwelling and altar.

The prayer was answered on Christmas Day, when He Who said, “I am the Light of the world,” “I am the Way and the Truth,” (St. John 8:12) came to give light to all that are in darkness, to reveal the truth to all who seek it.

This should be our prayer now. For it seems that the world is again full of darkness, and many would prefer to bask in the fitful and dim light of the things of the world. People really seem to struggle to get their arms around the Christmas message.

Certainly, St. Augustine sums up the thoughts of many preachers who approach the Gospel passage for Christmas Day when he said, AI am in great difficulty how, as the Lord shall grant, I may be able to express, or in my small measure to explain, what has been read from the Gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;’ for this, the natural man does not perceive.”

When, more than on Christmas Day, should we pray that the light sent forth may lead us? It is little use to believe that the light has been sent forth if it does not lead us. It will be of little benefit to us to have knowledge even of revealed truth if we do not make it our guide.

As well, beloved in Christ, where do we ask that this light and truth shall lead and guide us? “To Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling.”

“To Thy holy hill.” This is Calvary. This is where we learn the mystery of suffering and of love. Here is where we learn that we cannot be Christ's disciples unless we bear our cross.

“And to Thy dwelling.” Where does God dwell but in heaven? Calvary first, then heaven. “For if we die with Him, we shall also live with Him: if we endure, we shall also reign with Him.”

“And that I may go unto the altar of God.” Today we will join together there, to offer ourselves anew as a living sacrifice, together with that great sacrifice that He offered for us on Calvary, and which we plead in every Eucharist. Even more still, we have received into our hearts Him who is the Light and the Truth, and He will lead us and guide us throughout our life. He will lead us first in the way of sorrows by the narrow path which finally leads to God’s dwelling, to Heaven itself.

On this day, however, suddenly, we behold Him. We find that we are not alone. We find that there is someone right beside us and that someone is God.

He is in the world, at the sore heart of it; touched by our infirmities, afflicted with our afflictions, and always there. He is full of grace and truth that we can and will behold. When all our resources are gone, we can lean upon Him, draw upon Him, and bring our frail and foolish hearts to Him. He will bear it all because he knows us.

The psalmist says, “Blessed be the Lord who daily beareth our burden.” Blessed indeed! Here is the truth-the truth of Christ, the truth of Christmas.

So, this Christmas Day, let us be led by this truth. This Christmas Day let us pray David/s prayer, and in the New Year and throughout our life, strive to follow the guidance of Him Who is the Light and the Truth. Amen.

-The Rt. Rev. Charles H. Nalls, Rector, Church of the Epiphany

          Sermon Notes for Christmas Eve-2022

     (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

-St. Luke ii.10

I love the hymn of Silent Night. We sing it in hushed tones, usually in candle-lit churches as we will this evening. That first verse, “Silent night Holy night, All is calm all is bright” is the very picture of serenity.

It so sets the mood that we almost miss the message of the second stanza of the hymn, the message of St. Luke’s Gospel,

“Shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar, Heav’nly hosts sing Alleluia; Christ the Savior is born;”

It is a proclamation, a decree from heaven itself and there is nothing silent about it. First one angel, then heavens multitudes filling the skies praising God, singing His glory. No wonder the shepherds were quaking! There is certainly nothing silent about this night, at least on the hillsides around Bethlehem. The Good News of the Incarnation has arrived with a shout into a broken world and redemption has begun. We at last have the answer to our Advent question, “Who is this?

Yet, on this holiest of nights, you and I, have this problem of noise. This world, with its noisy and demanding clamor the crowd of common thoughts and common interests, has poured in upon us. It has taken possession of our time and our attention. Now, when Christ comes with God’s infinite gift for the saving of our souls, we may not even hear the shout of the Angels.

That is the way it always is. We never do know when the great possibilities of God are near to us unless we have kept our spirits vigilant–listening for the Savior. The mystery waiting to bring to us the birth of a redeeming Savior may be right at our doors, but we might miss the glad tidings. The video was up too loud. I was talking on the cell. I had my headphones on. I was surfing the internet.

No–no that is not the news proclaimed by the hosts of heaven, That is not the good news shouted to those willing to hear. The good, the great news, the unfathomable news is that by His Incarnation, we know that we are children of the Living God. We touch Communion and speak in prayer to the One to whom a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day. We can be a part of that true peace that passes all understanding–eternal yet born this night in Bethlehem.

Listen, my beloved in Christ. Hear this night in a busy world. Hear the cry of the Christ child from the Christmas creche. Hear the shout of heaven, “Glory to God–glory to God in the Highest! And on earth, peace goodwill toward men.” Christ the Savior is born! Amen, Alleluia!

-The Rt. Rev. Charles H. Nalls, Rector, Church of the Epiphany 

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in AdventB2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  Philippians 4:6-7

Today we come to the last of our Four Last things, death, judgment, heaven, and…hell. Hell is not a topic we care to think about, much less as we approach the joyous events of the Nativity of our Lord. Fr. Jonathan Robinson addresses modern thinking on this fourth last thing in his wonderful book Spiritual Combat Revisited.

In writing on the nature of the spiritual warfare that faces society generally and Christians specifically, Fr. Robinson states that many people no longer believe in heaven, and hell poses no threat. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Damnation has lost its appeal. Indeed. Some 70 percent of Roman Catholics now say that they do not believe in a literal hell.

Hell's fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. In a remarkable moment of candor for a metropolitan newspaper, as exorcist the late Fr. Gabriel Amorth has observed the rise of absolute individualism, the philosophy of existentialism and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.

In an apocryphal account, it is said that as the gates of hell are broken down, its ruler cried out, “what are you, who comes here without sin and who is small and yet of great power, lowly and exalted, the slave and the master, the soldier and the king, who has power over the dead and the living? You who were nailed on the cross, and placed in the tomb; and now you are free, and have destroyed all our power.”

Jesus Christ shatters Hell’s very paths by the tread of his feet, and He forever gives us the choice of another path.

What road will we take? That is the penultimate question posed by the Four Last Things. Will we take the easy and broad way-the way of self that ultimately wins only self? Or will we walk on the narrow road, the hard road-the road to Bethlehem on a cold desert night, the road to Egypt, the road through Galilee, and the road to Calvary? Will we walk the Damascus road, rejoicing in the Lord always in lives of prayer and supplication and thanksgiving? What road will we take?

The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

-St. Matthew 11:11

It does not seem possible, but we are just two weeks from the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord and three short weeks from the end of the calendar year. This morning we mark Rose Sunday, the Third Sunday in Advent which used to be called “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete is the Latin word that means “rejoice,” but with an ending that makes it a command. So we are really being commanded to rejoice. Why? Again, in the Anglican tradition today typically we offer a few words on Heaven and the Life Eternal. This is a “last” or ultimate thing.

However, many people have a fairly ambiguous attitude toward life after death. There is the story of a fellow talking with a woman whose close relative had only recently died. Trying to be sympathetic, the man asked this lady, “What do you suppose has become of her? The woman replied, Oh I’m sure she’s enjoying everlasting bliss – but I wish you wouldn’t talk about such unpleasant things!”

You know, beloved in Christ, you have to be sure you really want to go to heaven. People who have not much cared for God in this life – why should they want to be closer to him in the next?

Certainly, in heaven, there will be God and I am certain of the music of Bach. Even this will cause trouble because a lot of people will prefer Lady Ga Ga to Bach. If heaven means we all get rewarded with the things we love best, it looks as if heaven and hell will have to be in the same place: for one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

There are so many difficulties here as our adult class recently experienced with C.S. Lewis’ marvelous book The Great Divorce. It is not just a matter of imagery. It is just about impossible to form a picture of heaven because we are bound to think in terms of space and time. Heaven is not in time and it is not a place as we understand it from our temporal vantage point.

It is beyond time and space: eternal. When we think of our lives, and our being, we have to think of being somewhere and at a particular time. But truly when we die and leave this world, we leave space and time too. So being, life, and existence in heaven must differ from what they are down here.

Heaven will not be like going to church all the time. We will be beyond that. There is a lovely hymn in the English Book Hymns Ancient & Modern where it says: “So, Lord, at length when Sacraments shall cease.” Yes, even the Sacraments will come to an end.

As you know from your Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer (page 581), “A Sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. So when we are in that eternal state of spiritual grace, we shall not require the outward and visible sign.”

When we speak of heaven, we are attempting to speak about our spiritual state of being beyond time and space. So, all our language necessarily has to be metaphorical. We can’t express supernatural realities directly in natural language.

Even Scripture itself is limited to soaring metaphors and the difficulties of expression of the most Divine in human words. We get incredible pictures of beasts with hundreds of eyes, angels and archangels, the Tree of Life, and a stream flowing from the throne of God. The Bible is written in natural language, so not even the Bible can tell us completely what heaven is like and all of its glory.

There is another way of knowing. Think of this: if heaven is beyond time and space and infinite, then there is a sense – though our language here is close to breaking down – in which we are already there. Or, if I may so put it, a sense in which we have been there. If heaven is an eternal state, then to be there is to be there eternally.

We have intuitions of this truth-what the poet William Wordsworth called intimations of immortality:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere it's setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home

Trailing clouds of glory. Because God made this material world and because he was incarnate in it in his Son, we must expect the material world to contain something of the eternal world, heaven, God’s everlasting abode. This universe of ours is material, but it is not merely material. As poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins put it:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God... Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Remember Our Lord promised that the Holy Ghost would bring all things to your remembrance.

This experience is not just for poets. Beloved in Christ, let me ask you to reflect on the fact that you and I, each one of us, knows it in ourselves. Imagine you are on a weekend out in the countryside may be up on the ridgeline. You awake in the pale dawn light in a silent room. It is a high room with oak beams. You go downstairs and open the door. You feel the rush of the fragrant air and from as far as you can see into a mist just like we experienced a few mornings ago. The dampness clings to the fields, and there comes the calling of birdsong.

You can barely make out the watery colors of the landscape. The pale disc of the sun lies behind the racing clouds.

What do you feel? Doesn’t this give you an exquisite sensation-- something like joy, something like peace: but you can’t quite put it into words exactly. Coming at you out of the beauty of the scene, there is something like recollection. Such experiences I think are gifts of God sent for our encouragement; they are intimations of immortality. They are the natural presences that hide and reveal God's eternal presence.

Recently, after my eldest sister passed away, I was wandering around our house one afternoon, just after lunch. It was very quiet, and some family things were there in the library. I noticed the sunlight on a photograph of her with one of my brothers and one of my sisters. I had a warm, reassuring sense of presence again. As Fr. Gerard Manly Hopkins once said, it was the sense of deep down things, a reality beyond appearances.

Beloved in Christ, God leaves his footprints and fingerprints all over the place. Why do we know that music is not just melody, rhythm and harmony-but there is something hanging around in there that excites us, that thrills us, or even makes us cry? You know the feeling of these encounters. It is one like this: “Your hair standing up on end, shivers going down your spine, a lump coming into your throat, even tears running down your eyes.” It’s called an appoggiatura, from the Italian word “to lean.” While it is tough to define, it’s not unlike a grace note, a note in many forms of music that is ornamental yet produces beauty.

We may react like this to the Bach Double Violin Concerto. The slow movement of Schubert’s String Quintet in C – where Schubert almost stops the music altogether. The utterly sublime music of Purcell and the words from the 1662 Prayer Book that goes with it: Thou knowest Lord, the secrets of our hearts: shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer.

Human beings have a need to express what is beyond them. We are possessed of a deep sense of the mysterious. This is why we developed all the arts including poetry and music. Look at one of the most famous and earliest experiences of the divine mystery; Isaiah’s vision of God in the temple when he saw the Lord high and lifted up. Isaiah’s response is to utter a few words in a certain rhythm:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Out of this little utterance, the Church developed the most ecstatic prayer in the Mass:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth: pleni sunt coeli, et terra Gloria tua

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts: heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

These few words in a certain rhythm have captivated great composers for centuries.

Miraculously in such works, we find that what we thought inexpressible is expressed. We understand through being overwhelmed – exactly as Isaiah was overwhelmed in his original vision. You remember his response from the readings this last week:

Woe is me, for I am undone

We find these intimations of the eternal world everywhere. In just a line of music: sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Or, we may find it in the voice of the hidden waterfall or the laughter of children in the yard, or that feeling when you love really someone.

The presence of God is subtle. The reality of eternity is half hidden and half revealed. Remember the couple on their way to Emmaus on the first Easter Day? Their eyes were holden that they should not know him. Until later: He took bread and blessed it and brake and gave to them...and he was known of them in breaking of bread.

In all these ways, God seeks to reassure us and show us the reality of heaven, half hidden, half revealed in the things of this earth. As usual, St Augustine puts it better than anyone:

But, what do I love, when I love Thee? Not the prettiness of a body, not the graceful rhythm, not the brightness of light (that friend of these eyes), not the sweet melodies of songs in every style, not the fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs which can be grasped in fleshly embraces - these I do not love, when I love my God. Yet I do love something like a light, a voice, a fragrance, food, embrace of my inner man, wherein for my soul a light shines, and place does not encompass it, where there is a sound which time does not sweep away, where there is a fragrance which the breeze does not disperse, where there is a flavor which eating does not diminish, and where there is a clinging which satiety does not disentwine. This is what I love when I love my God.

Then we find ourselves in Heaven.

Let us pray (John Donne),

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.

The Rt. Rev. Charles H. Nalls

SERMON FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“And when he has come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, ‘Who is this?’”

- St. Matthew 21:10

Today we begin the Advent season. This is the real beginning of the Church year when we read and meditate and pray about the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ-when our Lord came to dwell among us. It is a challenging season that draws us toward and into the enormity of the event of Christ’s birth. It is the season to ask, “Who is this who comes among us?”

We hear in the Gospel lesson the cry, “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.” He came into his own city, and it seems they welcomed him enthusiastically. “A very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way”, all the while crying out “Hosanna to the Son of David.

They received him, it appears, with wondering gladness but without a sense of real recognition. For “when he has come into Jerusalem all the city was moved, saying, ‘Who is this?’”

On the other hand, how did he receive the city into which he came? With open arms of gladness and joy? No. With wrath and anger, and surely, too, that must inspire us to ask, “Who is this?” Who is this who casts out, with such fury and wrath, “them that sold and bought in the temple; and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves”? He was received with cries of hope and joy; he responds with judgment and with wrath.

I think that many people would prefer not to see this. We would rather have the spectacle of our welcoming Christ and not the sight of his fierce anger and disapproval of our ways. Our ways? Yes. Our ways, yours and mine.

It is not the case that Christ’s anger is only directed at some imaginary “them” as if somehow we can be in the crowd that welcomes him, and not in the same crowd busy with everything in the temple except what belongs to the purpose of the temple. For what has provoked his wrath and anger? Only ourselves in the busyness of our own ways, in the pursuit of our own self-interest and the material things, the things of this world. One need look no further than the appalling spectacle of the opening day of the Christmas shopping season, APTLY NAMED Black Friday, to see this at its worst. It may not be the case that we are in the brawl at the mall, but how many ways do we think of the things of earth and not of heaven?

Make no mistake. Between the church porch and the church pew, between the church pew and the altar rail, have you and I thought about so many things, none of which bear any connection to our being here in this Church and in this service. Are there not thoughts of Sunday dinner, of a football game, of Sunday afternoon talk shows, of the latest cleverness we expressed on social media, of getting back to our cell phones and that o-so-essential e-mail, and those are just a few things which captivate us in the house of God.

Oh, my! How dare that preacher! He doesn’t know what goes on inside me or inside each one of us! That’s certainly true enough. “We do not have windows into men’s souls”, as that wise theologian, Queen Elizabeth the First once said. That’s a good thing, too.

Yet, we can look, albeit in a glass darkly, into ourselves and if we are honest, see what is there that should convict and move us to find ourselves in this Gospel account. In the telling of this story and reading of this Scripture, you and I are compelled to look into ourselves and to recognize that which in ourselves is unworthy of God and unworthy of ourselves. I know that it is undoubtedly true of me. Might that be true of all of us?

However, the good news of this wonderful scene of Christ coming into Jerusalem and cleansing the temple is that it speaks to you and me. It speaks about the meaning of his coming into our lives, our hearts, and souls. It is the meaning of Christ’s Advent. Unless he cleanses our souls and makes straight his way within us, there can be no coming and no hope. There can be no Christmas joy, no delight in the wonder of the mysterium divinum, the wonder of the divine mystery, the wonder of God with us. His wrath and anger are really about our denials of his coming, and our Lord would shock us into receiving him in his truth.

None of this, Advent or Christmas or the Incarnation, makes any sense if we close our minds to the meaning and the real identity and the real truth of the one who comes. It matters altogether “who he is.” In a way, it is the Advent question.

For the coming of the king is not about the politics of power; it is about the power of truth. It is about the truth that at once transcends the political and the material and shapes our souls into the things of heaven. We neglect and deny that truth at our peril.

Beloved in Christ, Advent is our wake-up call, a wake-up call through the spectacle of the wrath of Christ over and against the sentimental emotionalism of the Christmas season, the saccharine sweet over-coat of the vulgar and grasping impulses that pull at our very nature. So many end up as thieves of God’s grace because we would take the things of God captive to ourselves, to our own ends and purposes, ends and purposes which are invariably about ourselves at the expense of God.

Advent begins as it has for centuries upon centuries with the spectacle of Christ’s royal entry into Jerusalem. Since the late sixteenth century, thanks to Archbishop Cranmer, we have been privileged to read the continuation of that story in Christ’s wrathful and violent cleansing of the temple.

Somehow you and I have to hold these moments together, the regal entrance and the joyous reception of the King coming to his city, on the one hand, and the scene of his wrath and anger at what he finds within the city, in the holy place of the holy city, the temple, on the other hand. We cannot help but ask, what will he find within us?

“He came unto his own and his own received him not”. That is part and parcel of the great mystery of Christmas, part and parcel of its essential meaning. We will not even begin to understand that mystery apart from the pageant of the Advent of Christ that begins here with joy and celebration and then turns to wrath and anger. You see, both moments have their truth in Christ. He is our joy, to be sure, but when we fail to perceive and know who he is, then there is the experience of his wrath and anger. Why is that?

Because Jesus comes to us with a purpose, he comes with the purpose of Revelation and Redemption. But how many we ignore all the signs and markers along the way, both the long way of prophecy and law in the witness of the Scriptures and the long, long way, too, of the folly and deceit of human experience?

In this season, we seem to have received him with gladness-everyone likes a parade, full of bands and floats and big balloons straight up Fifth Avenue. In truth, though we “receive him not”, receive him not in the truth and purpose of his coming. Jesus Christ comes at this time comes to restore and redeem. He comes to us in ways that challenge all our fondest hopes and aspirations, and all our assumptions and preconceptions. Perhaps only his wrath, might just might, get our attention.

Such is the Advent of Christ. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand”, now and always, as St. Paul reminds us. “Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness”, those works of hard thoughts and harsh words, of mean and selfish actions. Let us in this Holy season cast off any blindness and ignorance of the wonder that is before our eyes, the wonder of the love of God who wills to come unto his own.

You know, we really are his own despite our wandering ways. Jesus wants us to know that so that now we may repent and then be genuinely among them who received him, “to them that believe on his Name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It means to learn from the one who comes, to learn who he is and who he is for us. Such is the purpose of his Advent towards us.

We are bidden now. We are bidden to “come and see” that we may know “who this is” and follow him into the true joy only he can bring. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”

-Ephesians 6:10

In the epistle lesson this morning, we truly have a lesson for these times day-stand strong in the armor of God. Stand strong in the armor of the living God. Why? I don’t think I have to tell you that we are at war in America! It’s a dirty war. In many ways, it is worse than the one we have waged against terrorism. It is being fought on our soil as well as in many other nations, particularly in Europe. It’s a war for the minds and hearts of people–between the forces of good and evil, between God and Satan.

The stakes in this war are high because the price is heaven or hell, life or death, darkness or light, freedom or slavery, reward or punishment. One thing is certain. We cannot afford to be ignorant of this invisible war because it is waged right here and now! The enemy of our souls wants to gain control of our hearts and minds.

So it is that St. Paul exhorts those Christian converts in Ephesus to arm themselves against the wiles of the devil, against all the fiery darts of the evil one.  St. Paul reminds them that their profession as Christians will not be an easy matter. The evil day - the day of testing and temptation will come, and they will surely fail if they rely upon their own fragile resources.  They are vulnerable to the enemy and they can stand against him only if they are clad in the whole armor of God.  They must be watchful, alert, and prayerful.

But who is this enemy? Barna Research Group, Ltd., of Oxnard, California conducted a poll in which they discovered the following. Nearly two out of three American adults (62%) agreed that Satan is not a living being but a symbol of evil. Even more alarming is that among evangelical Christians, 52% deny Satan’s existence! 72% of Catholics say the devil is non-existent. Conclusion: One of the major battlefields is taking place within the Church, and we can’t even name the enemy!

Well, not flesh and blood, says our text: “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness.” He has many aliases: Satan, Lucifer, Devil, Serpent, Prince of this world, father of lies, tempter, even angel of light.

Scripture tells us of his powers, which though daunting, are not equal to the power of God. However, remember, our adversary is highly intelligent, as he is a fallen angel. He has power over the kingdoms of the world and the power to afflict. He even has the ability to sift even the saints. (Luke 22:31-32).

We certainly know his work. He tempts. He perverts the truth and opposes God’s purposes. He creates doubt, denial, and confusion. He assumes many, often quite pleasing. He blinds multitudes to the truth and makes sin attractive. He tries to break up families and attempts to give the world another gospel-secularism, humanism, and atheism. He seeks to discredit or destroy the Church.

So we are not in a fight against flesh and blood Not ordinary, obvious human difficulties, not just those weaknesses and frailties to which our flesh is the heir; but something more subtle, more deceptive, and more dangerous: “Principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places.”

What are these principalities and powers, these fiery darts of the devil, this spiritual wickedness which rules the darkness of this present age?  These are spiritual enemies which would destroy our faith through subtle and clever distortions of the truth. These are the enemies who would destroy our hope by injecting cynicism and destroy our love with perversions of desire. 

Against such enemies, our text warns us, ordinary defenses will not suffice.  We must take to ourselves the armor which only God provides, the armor of the Gospel.

That warning to Ephesus; is the most timely warning to us. The temptations which confront us as modern Christians are, above all, spiritual temptations: the temptation to conform to distortions and dilutions of the truth of the Gospel; the temptation to conform and adapt ourselves to this world’s standards of right and wrong; in short, the temptation to conform ourselves to the spiritual darkness which rules the present age. 

Against such temptations, we are poorly armed, unless we take upon ourselves the armor of God’s Word, prayerfully and watchfully holding fast to that Word, and helping one another to stand fast: “watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication for all saints.” Mere Sunday faith will not suffice. An hour or two given to God each week is not enough. Being half-hearted and lukewarm in the face of a determined enemy will lead to defeat.

Beloved, Christian faith and life are never easy. It was not easy in ancient Ephesus and certainly is not easy now.  However, I think that we are now facing a time of particularly acute spiritual temptation, as individuals and as a Church.  The temptation is to conform spiritually to the world around us, often in the name of relevance or keeping up to date or political correctness. We have news of public figures who openly speak of infiltrating the Church to have Christian orthodoxy replaced with the empty and poisonous standards of the secularist world. 

To weaken our resolve in the face of such attacks, to succumb to the temptation to go along to get along is to distort the Gospel. Finally, it is to lose faith altogether. 

We can only stand against such adversaries and temptations by watchfulness and prayerfulness. We can only resist by being ever more attentive to God’s Word and to our prayers. We can only carry Christ’s banner by being ever more obedient to his righteousness.  We must be alert and thoughtful about our religion and our Church, “redeeming the time,” as last Sunday’s Epistle said, “because the days are evil.”

“Above all, taking the shield of faith,” says today’s Epistle, and today’s Gospel lesson tells us something about the power of that shield.  It is an account of one of Jesus’ miracles: the restoration to the health of the nobleman’s dying son. 

Many tons of paper and countless gallons of ink have been expended upon explanations, or sometimes rationalizations of Jesus’ miracles, in an effort to make them seem more credible.  But all that concern about the mechanics of the miracles is really beside the point, and largely irrelevant. 

Jesus’ miracles are not magicians’ tricks, designed to puzzle and deceive; rather, they are symbolic acts.  They are signs of the power and wisdom of God in Christ.  Jesus cures the blind and the deaf, and thus fulfills messianic prophecy, but thereby he signifies the power of God to open dull minds to the truth which is in Christ. He feeds the hungry and signifies that he is the true bread and the true wine to nourish hungry souls.  He stills the stormy seas and shows God’s power to calm the tumults of our confusion and despairs.  In today’s Gospel story, he restores the nobleman’s dying son and signifies God’s power to raise us from our dying state to new and endless life in the Spirit.

Jesus heals the nobleman’s son in answer to that man’s faith. Beloved in Christ, is a sign for us. It is a sign that God, in Christ Jesus has the power to heal the afflictions of our spirits and to bring us through temptation, if we will only trust his Word. 

“Jesus saith [to the Nobleman], Go thy way, thy son liveth.  And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.”  God is faithful: let us believe his word and trust him. 

Here, today, let us take afresh to ourselves the shield of faith, and quench the devil’s fiery darts.  Here today, let us take afresh to ourselves the whole armor of God. Here today let us pray that his faithful soldiers we may be enabled to discern and to withstand the principalities and powers - the perverse and deceitful spiritual principles which govern the darkness of the present age.

Then, beloved in Christ, one day, one bright and glorious day long after this life is over, we will have realized, what we did with our lives for the Lord, was the only thing that mattered. At that time, let the Lord say of His soldier, “…well done, thou good and faithful servant!” Amen.

SERMON FOR CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.”

-St. John 18:37

Today we honor Christ our King and pledge Him our love and our obedience. Today we are invited to meditate on the theme of Christ as our King and our Lord. The very name of this Feast of Christ the King tells out that we are His subjects, His people, and His followers. That is a bold claim and it challenges us to ask if we really are doing our best to be followers of the King, His sons, and daughters. Let us hold on to that thought.

We do not like kings. Our nation exists out of a struggle to rid itself of a particularly difficult and arbitrary, and some would say barking mad, English king. We find kings at best quaint, figures of a bygone age. Maybe we look at them with nostalgia. I love this verse from Shakespeare,

“And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit on the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

Or perhaps we hold them a bit silly like that old comic strip entitled The Little King which told its stories using images and very few words as a mostly pantomime with a short, rotund bearded fellow as the king.

We sure do not keep them in much esteem here in America. As Mark Twain said, “All kings are mostly rapscallions.” Moreover, we have come a long way from James I of England, who said,

The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon the earth: for kings are not only God's Lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods.

Makes you want to get out your musket, doesn’t it?

So this morning we turn to our king—a king that does not fit any of our popular images, or even those in the history books. Let’s look at a picture of our King—the King of Kings.

In the grey light of a morning, the desert cold just beginning to recede, Jesus stood bruised, bound, and bleeding. After a night during which He had been arrested and dragged from one place to another, roughly questioned by authorities and now He stands before the agent of an emperor, the governor who represented the worldwide power of Rome. The governor asks the prisoner this most audacious question, “Are You a king?” On the surface, it looks ridiculous. Here is the dialogue of an earth-shattering moment:

Pilate: "Are you a king?"

Jesus: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world then my servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm."

Pilate: "So you ARE a king?"

Jesus: "You say I am a king. For this cause, I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."

Pilate: "What IS 'truth'?"

Jesus said to Pilate, and to the entire world, that He came into the world-- that He was born to reveal the truth. How does that remotely fit into any notion of kingship?

On this October morning, we are called to think about who our r-our real leader, our king, is. Close your eyes for a moment. Picture that scene of Jesus standing before Pilate in your mind's eye. What do you see?

If we use a worldly mindset, we see weakness standing before power. We see a victim standing before the representative of a dictator. We see a martyr standing before false and wicked injustice. We see one man with the power of life and death standing before another about to die.

However, beloved in Christ, with the eyes of faith we see, we see that, yes, weakness is standing before power-- but the power is not with Pilate. We see one Man with the life of the other in His command, but the one in danger of death is not the Man from Galilee. How can this be?

Jesus Christ told Pilate several things that morning. He said first, He IS king! He said that His kingdom is not derived from nor dependant upon earthly power either to establish or to maintain it. Third, Jesus said He is a kingdom of truth and He is the witness of truth.

What sort of king is this, our king? Listen to the epistle reading from Colossians 1:13-30:

For He [God the Father] delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And he is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created by him and for him.

And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; so that he himself might come to have first place in everything.

For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:1 -20)

Jesus’ majesty is veiled as He stands before Pilate. However, Jesus Christ is God: He is eternal! All that the Scriptures say of Him as true in eternity, in the future, and in the present were true that day.

Pontius Pilate, with all of the power of an emperor behind him, asked the wrong question that morning. He asked, “WHAT is truth?” He was looking at the truth, just as we are facing the truth! He should have asked, "WHO is Truth?"

However, to this day Christians--who have been baptized and catechized, confuse “truth” with our supposed knowledge of the facts and our interpretations or what we sophisticated modern folks want to plug in to make ourselves comfortable. Too often we fail to see that we cannot know the TRUTH apart from the PERSON who IS the truth and who REVEALS the truth.

Pontius Pilate, for his part, actually pronounced a true verdict ("I find NO fault in this Man!"). Then, he rendered an utterly false and unjust sentence ("You take Him away and crucify Him..."). So the Roman soldiers proceeded to play a game with this King.

The Roman garrison was adjacent to the Temple grounds. In recent years, the pavement (Gabbatha) has been uncovered to reveal something like a giant chess or checkerboard. On that checkerboard, the common soldiers played a cruel game with the condemned Christ, Christ the King.

They crowned Him with thorns and wrapped Him in an old robe and then they gave mocking bows along with all the abuse and resentment that they felt toward their own wicked masters. In their ignorance that day they mocked the One Person who is the "glue of the Universe," the One who holds all Creation together by the power of His Word! Jesus was on His way to "make peace through the blood of His cross," and so "to reconcile all things to Himself!" Those people did not have a clue!

This horrifies us. We would never treat the King that way! However, you know what? We do just that. Think about it: To do anything less than to acknowledge Jesus as truly Sovereign in our lives is to make a mockery of His kingdom. Unless we are submitted to Him in every part of our lives and living, then He is not truly the King of our lives.

There is a world of difference between the grace of faith and the arrogance of our human presumption. To say that we are Christian when we are not wholly submitted to the King is to take the place of Pilate and ask the question, "WHAT is truth?", when we know we should be saying to the One who is the Way and the Truth and the Life, "JESUS IS LORD!"

Beloved, Jesus is the chief cornerstone of life for all the Universe! He is the stone the builders rejected, but when we build on Him we "stand firm" and we "fit in" with all the truth of the Universe. When we reject Him, He will have to deal with that, for He is King.

We are coming again full circle in the church year, and we will shortly begin again with Advent. This Sunday of the year we call “Christ the King Sunday” is a reminder that one day the kingdoms of this world wholly will become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ is not coming to vindicate OUR way of life, nor OUR interpretation of the content of "truth”. When He returns it will be HIS life that is vindicated, and HIS glory that will be revealed!

We are called to discernment NOW! We are called to faith NOW! We stand with Pilate NOW-- where it LOOKS as though we have the power to decide, "What shall we do with Jesus?"

Some may keep looking for the spectacular, when instead Jesus stands before us in the everyday living of life, in all of our joys, and in all of our sorrows, it seems as if HE is on trial for HIS life! We keep making life and death decisions for ourselves, when we have the TRUTH Himself ready and waiting to be our own CHRIST THE KING of glory who gives nothing other than eternal life!

So this day let us emblazon in our hearts and minds the words of the psalmist, “Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.” Hail, Christ our King. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee”

-St. Matthew 9:2

Our lessons today focus on two intimately related themes: the forsaking of sins and the forgiveness of sins. Both involve a re-ordering, a re-establishing of the interior life of the soul: the first as directed to the soul’s activity, to what we must do; the second, to the soul itself, to who and what we are. We have an account of one of our Lord’s most striking miracles, together with a very clear statement in regard to Jesus, a most important doctrine of Christianity-the forgiveness of sin.

In the case of the paralytic, there seems to be a close connection between his disease and his sins. Disease in Scripture implies broken physical laws, the laws of health, but not infrequently an earlier cause of disease may well involve a broken moral law. Our Lord, who can read the man’s heart and knew his life suggests this by saying to him, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.”

The scribes and Pharisees seized on Jesus’ statement as blasphemy; for, who can forgive sins but God only? They did not express these thoughts in words. We are told that they reasoned it in their hearts. Well, their major premise was true, for only God can forgive sins, but they don’t see the larger picture. They shut their eyes to the possibility premise that Christ is God.

Our Lord then meets their objection with two demonstrations of divine power. First, He reads their thoughts. Second, He heals the paralytic. It seems like we hear a good deal about mind-reading and psychics in the present day. We must remember when we see these things that what is going on is not reading the thoughts in the mind of another, but projecting the mind reader’s thought into the mind of his subject. This is the fortune teller's conceit. Only of God can it be said that he actually reads the thoughts of men.

So, the Lord first reveals to his enemies their thoughts, saying to them, “Wherefore think he evil in your hearts?” And then he puts to them a question, “For whether is easier, to say, thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?” We must be careful to understand the point of Jesus’ question. It is not whether it is easier to forgive sins or to heal physical sickness. If that were the question, it certainly is easier to heal sickness as many physicians by God’s help are enabled to do.

No, the question is which is the easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, arise and walk. The answer is entirely different. It is quite easy to say thy sins be forgiven thee. Really, no physical manifestation needs to follow; there is no physical action that bystanders could take count of. But to say, arise and walk, was a very different thing because it demanded a visible miracle, a healing of the man. If you did not rise and walk, it would be proof that the words carried no power.

Our Lord, therefore proposes he will undertake this miracle explicitly as a test of his power. Jesus says, “that ye may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” Then he turns to the man sick of the palsy and says, “arise take up thy bed, and go thine house.” The paralytic obeyed this command, and the miracle prove Christ’s power to heal this man’s body. But, it goes further. Jesus offered this as a test of His power to heal the man's soul, to forgive his sins, the inference which the scribes and Pharisees ought to have drawn was that he was God, since only God alone can forgive sins.

The church, as our Lord’s representative, makes the same claim now to forgive sin. With him the power with inherent, because he was God; with the church, the power is delegated. Our Prayer Book makes this claim again and again. Twice every day priest are directed to proclaim that Almighty God “ has given power, and commandment, to his ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins.” In the exhortation of the holy Eucharist penitents who have made their confession is offered, “the benefit of absolution” and in the visitation of the sick there is a special form of absolution, in which the priest, as Christ’s representative, is directed to say, “by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all my sins.

The Church cannot resort directly as Christ did to the test of a miracle of physical healing. Such miracles occur in God’s own time and in his own way. The Church can show evidence of moral healing. She asks those who have been absolved to bear witness, first, of their own subjective feelings of freedom from the bondage of sin, of the experience of a new spiritual power, and happiness in the service of God never before realized. We can then point to the objective testimony of changed lives, which are in many cases a miracle of grace, as wonderful as any miraculous physical healing. That is part of the heart of our Christian witness in the world-a witness to transformation, forgiveness, healing.

The world rejects this as it really rejects all true forgiveness. Why? The heart of the modern secular diatribe against the claims of the Church to forgive sins is merely the opinion of those who have never put the doctrine of absolution to the test of experience. They are unwilling to repent or to admit they have anything to repent of. The evidence of millions who have used this grace is entirely on the church’s side. Nothing can be more illogical than relying on the testimony of those who know nothing about absolution and know nothing about the sacraments while rejecting the testimony offered by those who can bear witness to grace.

This meets with more opposition and arouses more prejudice than any other spiritual power that the church puts forth. I suppose it is natural and easily explained; for the ministration of absolution to a penitent sinner means the absolute overthrow of Satan’s kingdom in that person’s soul. So it is easy to understand why Satan stirs up such opposition to the use of a sacrament which destroys his own power over souls.

The forgiveness of sins is a divine act that means a restoration, a re-creation. The God who creates out of nothing restores man out of the nothingness of sins. He re-establishes man in righteousness. The vehicle of this restoration is the humanity of Christ. The restoration is accomplished in the Passion and Death of Christ.

Jesus, by his own death, is the forgiveness of sins. He is the resurrection and the life through his own resurrection. When we are thrown into the life-giving sepulchre of Christ, we touch the slain and living Christ, his body and his blood; our sins are forgiven us, and we live by him; we arise to walk in all those good works that he has prepared for us to walk in. (Austin Farrer, The Crown of the Year, Trinity XIX)

It cost the heartblood of the Son of God to obtain heaven for us. Forgiveness ultimately means to will the true good, the good that is God himself and the goal of man. Forgiveness is no superficial gesture. It must come from the heart, from the heart of God into our hearts. It concerns not simply the penalties or the consequences of sin but sin itself.

The Father sent Christ to forgive sins. He claims this power in today’s Gospel and says, “as my Father has sent me, even so, send I you.” Listen to His words, “as my Father has sent me, even so, send I you.” “Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained.” In short, our Lord came to do the work of the forgiveness of sin. He has sent his Church out to assist in that work of forgiveness, and He has laid a responsibility on us to join in that work in His body the Church, and as his children.

For all of us, beloved in Christ, “forgiveness” means the actual putting away of the obstacles which hinder the soul’s true motion towards the good, and towards God-it means the removal of sin. Forsaking means the actual turning away from sin to the active loving of the true and absolute good, God - it means the pursuit of righteousness. The forgiveness of sins enables the forsaking of sins, the following after righteousness through the restoration of righteousness in us.

All of this is bound up in what the world despises-repentance. Repentance, of all things in the world, makes the greatest change: it changes things in heaven and earth; for it changes the whole man from sin to grace, from vicious habits to holy customs.

Repentance makes the greatest change”. It means just that - a change, a change in outlook, a conversion in the sense of a turning around, a turning around because of having been turned around. Repentance means a change of heart and a conversion of mind.

“Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind”, writes St. Paul, exhorting the Ephesians to repentance, to the forsaking of sins, “put off the old manhood...put on the new manhood”, “put away....all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking...with all malice”, for “ye have not so learned Christ”. Repentance means a radical re-ordering of the soul’s activity. But how is this possible? How are our vicious habits to be transformed into holy customs?

“Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you”. God’s forgiveness must be active in our forgiveness. The forsaking of sins depends radically upon the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins is a divine act - a divine activity accomplished in the flesh of our humanity, in the very manhood of Christ. Our Collect today tells us that this motion of the soul is not something wholly our own doing, calling us to remember that the forsaking of sins and the forgiveness of sins is an essentially divine activity in us.

Finally, what is the act of forgiving in us? If you say, “I forgive you, but I can’t forget,” then you haven’t forgiven the sin. You have merely sent away or put away the penalty that you might have exacted, your pound of flesh. Look closely-the original wrong isn’t made right between you. It isn’t forgiven. Forgiveness cannot be mere words, or if you despise the one who has offended you so that you just want to have nothing further to do with him, then you haven’t forgiven him so much as tried to forget him, to erase him from your universe.

We are called by Christ to forgive from the heart. The forgiveness of sins from the heart is a deeper and more profound reality. It is an active love that seeks to restore and perfect. It is mirroring in us the Divine Love that has created us and restores us. Divine forgiveness takes away all our sins and offences by the transforming power of that active love which yielded itself to the hardwood of the Cross. Christ is our forgiveness who at the moment of his dying, prays “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”.

“Forgiveness is not loving merely, but love conveyed as love to the erring” - love to the unlovely – “so establishing peace with God, and forgiveness towards our neighbour”. (George MacDonald) Forgiveness is one of the great distinctive elements of the Christian faith. It means an openness to the transcendent love of God without which our lives are the prisoners of our passions. At the very least, we have to want that peace and reconciliation that ultimately comes from God and let it direct and rule our hearts. It is to be recalled to the ultimate dignity of our humanity which is found in the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. We come to him who has given himself for us. We come to this Eucharistic feast so that we might know that our sins are forgiven us. Amen.

-The Rev. Canon Charles H. Nalls 

SERMON FOR THE EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength,”

and

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

-St. Mark 12:30-32

I love a conversion story, and this week I have been pondering John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace had an amazing life—one marked by grace and redemption.

He converted to Christianity in 1748, while mastering a slave ship. His story is told in his own words in a book long out of print-but he tells of a man brought absolutely low, shipwrecked like St. Paul, and morally shipwrecked like so many who have been lifted up by Christ.

Following retirement from the sea, Newton became Surveyor of the Tides in Liverpool. He studied Greek, Hebrew, and Theology and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1764. Fr. Newton accepted the curacy of Olney, where he lived until 1780 when he became Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London. In addition to hymns, he wrote some important theological works, and he is remembered for his work in the anti-slavery movement, which occupied part of his later life. The slaver turned advocate for the free-a freewheeling, depraved sailor turned priest.

The teaching of the Church for these Sundays after Trinity seeks always to set before us the practical demands of our life as Christians. The series of scripture lessons, Sunday by Sunday, presents us over and over again with the question: How must we, as Christians, live our lives in this world? What must be our attitudes; what must be the character of our relationships with one another, within and outside the Church? What must be our hopes and expectations? What must our conduct be in this or that situation? Really, it is about the ongoing conversion of our lives to conformity with Christ's life.

The Scripture lessons answer such questions in the most profoundly practical way; but, of course, the answers are practical for us only in so far as we are willing to think seriously about the meaning of those lessons, and only in so far as we are willing to relate that meaning to the concrete circumstances of our own individual lives. No one else can really do it for us.

Thoughtful Bible study should help us do it; sermons and other kinds of instruction should help us, too; but finally, it comes down to this: these lessons will be meaningful- and relevant to us only in so far as we are ready to give them our own thoughtful and prayerful attention, only in so far as we are really willing to open our own minds and hearts to God's word for us, and let it be our guide.

The Gospel lesson for today offers us a kind of summary of the practical demands of Christian life: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God", says Jesus - that comes first - "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength," and, then, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." How familiar those words are! How simple they are; how straightforward and positive they seem to be! And yet, how difficult they seem to be in practice.

We have no trouble, really, in seeing what the words mean; they are perfectly simple, straightforward words, and they strike us as having a clear and obvious authority. That is not the problem. The problem is that they demand a transformation of our lives in every aspect - a transformation of our attitudes and standards, a transformation of our hopes and expectations, a transformation of the way we live our lives. They demand the practical conversion of our lives.

That conversion, as today's Collect reminds us, has two sides to it:

"Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Our Christian conversion has two sides: a turning away from temptations, and a turning towards God. So, first of all, there is a renunciation, a turning of our backs upon the world, the flesh, and the devil, for only so will we be able with pure hearts and minds to follow God. We cannot serve two masters.

In so far as we are followers of the world - in so far as we look to the world around us as the standard and measure of our lives - we cannot be followers of God. In so far as we are followers of the flesh - in so far as we measure our lives according to what is immediately pleasant and agreeable to us - we cannot be followers of God. In so far as we are followers of the devil - that is to say, in so far as we put ourselves in place of God as arbiters of good and evil - we cannot be followers of God.

There are choices here, practical choices, which must be made by each and every one of us, every day, in every circumstance. They are the choices made for us at Baptism, they are the choices we ourselves affirmed at Confirmation, and only in so far as we are prepared to live those choices day by day, in every aspect of our lives, is the word of God really practical for us. Only in so far as that conversion - that turning around - is the daily pattern of our lives are we able to follow God with pure (that is to say, unmixed) hearts and minds.

But can we do that? Is it really practical for us? Once again, today's Gospel lesson speaks to our question. The scribe in today's story knew the law of God, and he understood the meaning of the law. "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God”, Jesus tells him. "Not far from the kingdom of God." Not far, but something is lacking, and Jesus goes on to speak of that. Knowing the meaning of the law is not enough - there must be the doing of the law.

But the doing of God's law in our lives is really only possible when we genuinely acknowledge the divine Lordship of Jesus Christ in our hearts and minds. The authority of that law is not the authority of King David, nor of any other earthly institution. A greater than King David is here, whom David himself acknowledges as Lord.

Therefore, in our Collect, we pray that God himself, whose law it is, will give us grace, through Jesus Christ, to withstand temptation, and to follow him, with pure, unmixed hearts and minds. Only by the grace of God, can we do it.

Finally, St. Paul, in today's Epistle lesson, gives us a glimpse of the practical fulfillment of Christian life and gives thanks for the grace of God which has enabled the Christian converts in ancient Corinth to live in accordance with the word of God in Christ.

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance and in all knowledge; even as the witness of Christ was confirmed in you; so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you suppose that the same words could be said of us? By the grace of God, surely it could be so. And surely we must pray that it may be so. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Friend, go up higher…”

-St. Luke 14:10

I think we have all heard this short passage before and in a number of contexts. It is one of those great phrases in the Bible that can serve as an axiom, an ordering principle, for how we proceed with our lives. In this case, this phrase provides a biblical maxim that governs a proper understanding and approach to the pastoral and priestly ministry. For all of us, it is about “set[ting] love in order” and constantly raising the bar, challenging each of you as “friend[s]” in the Gospel of Christ to “go up higher”. You see, Jesus wants more for us; he wants the very best for us and he expects the very best from us. Against the easy complacency and acceptance of mediocrity in our world and day, and, especially, in our churches stands this challenging statement; “Friend, go up higher”.

You and I may not like to be challenged. We may not like the implication of such a call. It means accepting, after all, that things are not altogether excellent, right or good with us in our lives.

We may prefer instead to expect God to take us as we are, to leave us where we are and to make no demands of us. That is not the Christian religion. This is neither true mercy nor authentic charity. It is fundamentally false. It denies the transforming power of God’s grace in human lives.

If we are hostile to this teaching, then we are exactly like those before whom Jesus speaks and acts in the Gospel. Here we see a healing done on the Sabbath under the watchful eyes of hostility. This is a parable spoken in the face of resentful silence; a parable told to counter our arrogance and our hypocrisy, a parable that is given to challenge us.

Jesus speaks and acts. He teaches. At issue, then and now, is whether we will be teachable. Only so can we ever hope to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith [we] are called”.

Make no mistake, beloved in Christ, we are called. There is the inescapable and challenging fact of our common vocation. You and I, we have heard the Gospel. We may be in some doubt or uncertainty about how to understand certain things and how exactly to act in certain circumstances. For the most part, there is little ambiguity about the call to love and service in Jesus’ name, to the loving worship of God with the whole of our being.

Our uncertainties often mask something much more serious, namely, our willing unwillingness. In short, our despair, our denial and our disobedience. The problem really is not that we do not know better. The problem is whether we are willing to press on with the upward call of our faith.

We are called out of ourselves and we are called to God. We are called to the service of God in our life together with one another in the body of Christ. It is really the purpose of our being here today, a purpose which must extend into every aspect of our lives.

We cannot just be Sunday Christians, nor can we pretend that we are Christians in our weekday lives if we are not worshipping God in his Church on Sundays. The struggle is to be faithful to Christ in all aspects of our lives-at all times and in all places as we hear in each Communion.

What does that mean, exactly? It means the constant struggle to allow God’s grace to “set [our] love[s] in order”. It means the constant struggle to “go up higher”, to seek our perfection in the grace of Christ with humility and in charity. It means to “go up higher” without presuming ourselves to be better than others or, and, this is our contemporary problem in the churches especially, without yielding to the tyranny of mediocrity. We cannot say that the second-rate and the leftover is good enough, particularly for the church.

St. Paul reminds us to the qualities of that calling, that vocation. He reminds us about how we should seek to be, about how we should act-“with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”.

These qualities arise from the doctrine and the teaching which have been given to us and without which these qualities cannot live in us. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all”.

My beloved in Christ, this is a high calling, to be sure. It would be impossible except for this. The means whereby it is accomplished in us is the same as what has been shown to us. Jesus himself is the teaching. He is what he says. In other words, it is grace – what comes from God to us.

Grace goes before us and follows us, as the Collect puts it. “Prevent” in its older and fuller sense does not mean hinder but a “going” or a “coming before”. Our grace-ordered lives are about the teaching, the doctrine, of Christ living in us. Our being teachable is about whether we will allow the teaching to live in us. You see, it is given to be known and lived.

“Friend, go up higher” is not about our presumption but our calling. Christ has come to where we are but not to leave us there. He wants something better for us. He has come to us and we find our vocation in him, in what he says to us and in what he does for us. Our vocation is about the quality of our being with him.

You see, Jesus Christ is not simply the visitor who comes in and out of our lives. He is the Ultimate Other, or stranger who has become the intimate neighbor in our midst to communicate to us his abiding love for us. We live in that love.

This kind of love it is not something static and unmoving. It is dynamic and challenging. It calls us to something more. “Friend, go up higher,” signals the dynamic and transforming quality of the grace of Christ in our lives. We are on a journey, a pilgrimage in which there is to be a deepening of our understanding of the faith.

The comings and goings of Christ as he makes his way through the entire landscape of creation, having “set his face to go to Jerusalem”, does not mean that Jesus is merely passing through in our midst, here today and gone tomorrow. No, by his incarnate presence he encounters all and every place and aspect of our humanity to bring us into his abiding love, the love in which we find our highest good and the perfection of our being.

Last week’s story of the raising of the only son of the widow of Nain is an example. It shows us that God not only comes near but that he enters into the very fabric of our lives.

This is the nature of the Incarnation. Jesus is the Father’s Word and Son who has identified himself with us as “the Word made flesh”. He has come down to us to raise us up into higher understanding of God and ourselves. He has identified himself with us only to bring us into his essential identity as the Son of the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit, the communion of the Trinity. Such is his grace. We are raised up by the love of God and into the love of God. “Friend, go up higher”.

Jesus Christ, the eternal and ever living will not simply melt into the world to be taken captive by the culture, to become another casualty on the highway of life, another mediocrity in the triumph of mediocrity that threatens us all. This is not the meaning of the Incarnation.

No, a proper incarnational theology, a right theology for each of us seeks to be in the midst of the world’s confusions but with the clarity of Christ’s teaching and in the quiet confidence of the Gospel. Our constant struggle is to be teachable to let that teaching live in us.

It is not a question of our intellectual capacities. Those vary from one person to another, for there are varieties of gifts, including different gifts of understanding. No. What is at issue is always our willingness, our willingness to learn each “according to the capacity of the beholder to behold”. What stands in the way is our pride, our hostilities, our envyings and our resentments; in short, our wills. Indeed, even our claim to mediocrity, endlessly crying ‘the poor-me’s’ and ‘I can’t do that’ are but the protestations of pride.

The antidote, beloved in Christ, is humility. Humility is not about putting ourselves down which is not to say that it means putting ourselves up! Rather, it is about our being open to God’s raising us up. It is about our being open to the motions of God’s grace in our lives, to what, in fact, is proclaimed and set before us here in our liturgy and service.

The true and proper note of humility is sung by Mary; “be it unto me according to thy word”. Through her Christ comes to us who calls out to us, “Friend, go up higher”.

That call is present here in our liturgy in the Sursum Corda. “Lift up your hearts”, lift up your hearts so that the whole of your life can be lifted up into the presence of Christ. No doubt, we shall stumble and stutter but what we seek is always the triumph of his grace in our lives, the triumph of grace that lifts us up out of ourselves and into the vocation to which he has called us. In him we are lifted up, if we only we would be taught. Amen.   

SERMON FOR THE SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-                                                         2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.”

-St. Luke 7:12-13

In our Gospel lesson this morning, our Lord is confronted with a woman who has lost her only son. She has lost her husband, now her son. If there was no male heir to support her, the options were very limited. It is a tragedy that will shortly echo at the foot of Calvary as the widow Mary will weep over her own son.

Suffering and tragedy—replayed over and again through the ages. Sometimes it seems that we become almost immune to it, even on a mass scale, as we are saturated with media images and numbed through diversion and our modern inclination to whitewash suffering. Just this week, a breathless media has mined Hurricane Ian for its new images of devastation and loss, of death and misery. It is suffering that likely will continue for some time to come.

Once again, we see the nobility of many of our citizens, acts of charity without measure, sacrifice, and of faith. Once again, we see secular society trying to entice us away from the fact of suffering itself.

Here lies the crux of our message for this day and each day. When death and destruction visit us when we are overwhelmed, what is the cry that goes up from so many people? It is Job’s question. Where is God in all of this? Or, worse, yet, there are the voices from many directions that say that such things are “divine punishment” for some sin they believe has made God particularly angry at our nation or her people.

First, let’s say to this last group, it is particularly dangerous to claim to divine the mind of God. He acts in His own way and in His own time, and, He will make manifest His will in due season. His workings are not susceptible to our claims, particularly judgment. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Romans 12:19). In the meantime, we are to be concerned with loving Him with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. Isn’t that tough enough?

Job, in all of his trouble, found his answers. Unlike his three friends, he found his answer because he asked God. Job prayed. His friends only philosophized, they only talked about God, while Job talked to God.

St. Augustine does the same thing in his Confessions-it is really a large prayer. St. Augustine talks to God, not only about Him because he knows that God really is present. He asks God hundreds of questions and gets hundreds of answers. “Seek and ye shall find.” St. Augustine believed that therefore he sought, therefore he found. He prayed, and it was given to him.

Amidst suffering, let secular philosophers and pundits alone pray-let them reach down and pray for a change rather than pontificate- and we soon will see something beyond philosophy, beyond suffering, something transcending temporal pain and grief. We will see something to startle the world. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“Be not anxious.”

-St. Matthew 6:24.

Friday I did something radical. I took my own advice and spent the day fasting from the news, particularly from the cable news. I did not even look at the crossword lest I be tempted to look at the editorials.

I was surprised at how frequently I reached for the remote or was tempted to open one of the many news e-mails I get. I was certain that there were key events I was missing and vital news that was passing me by. After all, the domestic and international crises of the day demanded my attention lest I be caught unawares. I was anxious.

By Saturday’s retreat on the Church Fathers, I discovered that I had passed through withdrawal. Arguing with a jammed printer at midnight to disgorge my retreat noted helped. However, it caused me to reflect on how current events and those who traded on them had encroached on my spiritual life.

So, this morning, I would like to speak to you about what I like to think of this as “the anxiety gospel”. This Gospel seeks to counter and does counter so very effectively our anxieties. We hear in the Gospel three words in three phrases. “Behold, the fowls of the air”. “Consider the lilies of the field”. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”.

These are the strong words: behold, consider, seek. They provide, I think, a compelling antidote to our anxieties.

First, let us think about what Jesus is saying. He wants us to look at the world with new eyes. It will make a difference for us in our anxious lives. To behold what He wants us to behold, to consider what he wants us to consider, to seek what he wants us to seek counters the paralysis of our fears, the terror of our anxieties, and even anxiety about our anxieties. Behold, consider, seek.

Jesus says “be not anxious” more than once in this gospel. He knows how prone we are to being anxious, quite literally, about “a multitude of things.” This is what one writer called “The Martha Syndrome”. It is diagnosed by Jesus elsewhere and recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about a multitude of things” (Luke 10.41).

Beloved in Christ, we all have our fears and our worries. We all have our troubles and our concerns. We all have our heartaches and our despairs. We can worry ourselves, quite literally, to death about them.

What are we anxious about? What are our anxieties? Quite simply, they are our cares, the things which, quite literally, occupy our thoughts. Our anxieties are the cares that choke and oppress us, the cares which give us great anguish of soul, quite literally, angst.

Our problem, it seems, and the cause of our anxiety is that we are often too careful, quite literally, too full of care about the wrong things and/or in the wrong way. The cares of this world beset us but Jesus would have us view the world and its cares in a new way.

What is that new way? Is it simply this threefold “be not anxious” which Jesus keeps saying as if it were some sort of mantra? Is our Lord saying, in effect, “Don’t worry, be happy!”, or for the contemporary culture, the affectation of cynical indifference is represented in one of my least favorite words, “whatever”. Whatever!

In short, is the antidote to our being “full of cares” simply to be careless? Does “be not careful”, as the 16th century Prayer Books accurately put it, really mean be careless? No.

Yes, we have our cares, our worries, and our anxieties. We each have only to look at ourselves. We are anxious about “a multitude of things”. There are all of our anxieties about the deeply troubling and perplexing affairs of the larger world as we contemplate the seemingly endless parade of death and destruction by war, hurricanes,s and tempests, not to mention the horrifying spectacles of terrorism. These are just all this week. In fact, these all appeared in ½ hour of the 24-hour news cycle on any day this week.

There are pundits and politicos to fan all of our anxieties about the economy, jobs, about whose getting what from whom, health care, political life at every level of government, our families, our schools, our parishes, and so on and so on. Again, all of these are mentioned in the compressed air of the news cycle. Throw in even an off-term election which is scary enough in itself and stir vigorously. Is there any doubt that there are reasons why we have become remarkably anxious people, a people fearful and fretful about “a multitude of things?”

Anxiety seems to be a rumbling base chord in the symphony of life.

Let me ask this question to you today prompted by my own reaction to a small fast on the news. How many of you have spent more than an hour this week watching cable news? Two hours? Three or more each day. How much of the time given to you by God have you spent reading news feeds from the internet? How much time did you spend on Facebook on stuff that was not family or faith-related? How much e-mail did you share with your friends and family did you do about the state of the world or politics?

Did any this, any of this at all, make you joyful, and hopeful, or even make you feel even slightly better? I bet I can tell you the answer. To paraphrase President Abraham Lincoln, “We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety clouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.” At least Mr. Lincoln did not have to deal with each, heaven helps us, “tweet” we read. We like to obsess over them, and anxiety creeps in as a thin stream of fear trickles through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other's thoughts are drained.

The threefold “be not anxious” of the gospel, however, is not the antidote to “The Martha Syndrome”, though it offers a necessary check, a moment of pause, a counter-assertion, from which we might then be able to receive the real antidote.

What is the real antidote to anxiety? It does not come from what has become the anxiety industry often advertised on the very news feeds that make us anxious with noted side effects that are in themselves frightening. You cannot get it over the counter at the drugstore. You cannot get it by a doctor’s prescription. It is here in what Jesus says. “Behold”, “consider”, and “seek” are strong words that are all intertwined with Jesus’ repeated exhortation “be not anxious”.

The real antidote is nothing less than a new way of looking at the world. These strong words-behold, consider seek-are all verbs of perception and desire. They signal a new way of looking at the world. You see, that is the issue. It is all about how we see the world. God’s world or our world?

What about all of these birds of the air and flowers of the field stuff? Are we to go out bird watching and picking daisies? Well, maybe, it is surely better for the soul than cable news. However, the point is wonderfully captured in the third strong word our Lord says: “Seek.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”, which clues us to what is being said in the other two “behold” and “consider”.

You see, beloved in Christ, Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God is discerned in the seemingly little things. We are to see in the birds and the flowers the care of the heavenly Father for every living thing and, how much more, his care for us as his children. If God cares for the birds, making sure that the natural order of his creation supplies food for them, how much more will he care for us? People are far more valuable to him than the birds.

It is all about how we see the world. Is it God’s world or our world? Open your eyes! “Behold”, “consider” and, above all, “seek”. These strong verbs speak about us as spiritual creatures who see God’s will and purpose in the world and, ultimately, see the world in God.

This is the counter to our preoccupations, our carefulness, to our endless calculations about the use of things as if the things of this world only exist if we find and give a purpose to them.

As St. Ignatius of Antioch would tell us, these are the attitudes and tendencies which we have to crucify in ourselves. Indeed, this is just the prescription suggested in the epistle.

We have to crucify our desire to control and manipulate the world; otherwise, we end up being consumed by the use we make of things, consumed by our concerns and worries, serving worldly matters and not God.

What we need is a new way of looking at the world. It does not mean care-less–ness but a childlike care-freeness born out of a trust in God’s providence. You see, God wants something more and better for us, and that something more and better is signaled for us here in this place and in Holy Communion.

As children of God, we are inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not our native land; faith is. We are so made that worry and anxiety wear down our lives; faith is the oil. We live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt, and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, our being is gasping for breath--these are not our native air. However, in faith and confidence, we breathe freely. (Dr. E. Stanley Jones, Transformed by Thorns, p. 95)

In the final two verses, Jesus says “But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Beloved in Christ, the anxiety-free life calls us to settle the question of priorities and make the Kingdom of God our primary concern. To do that, we must consistently honor and represent the Kingdom. Let us perform all of our actions for the sake of it. That is Christian witness. Certainly, we cannot do this if the necessities of life aren’t attended to. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

These are the radical demands of Christianity. They are full of life and love. When we put God first and have faith in Him, our happiness is no longer dependent on the contents of our closets, our bookshelves, our computers, our televisions, our iPhones, or even some of the people who move in and out of our lives. When we put God first, our happiness flows from the experience of the presence of God's love in our lives.

Signed with the sign of the cross at the font in our baptisms we pass under the cross, to the altar where we are fed with nothing less than “the body and blood of Christ”, if “the world has been crucified unto [us], and [ourselves] unto the world”, so that we can live in the One who reveals the providence of God, come what may in the circumstances of our lives. Then, and only then, shall we “be not anxious.” Amen.

The Rev. Canon Charles H. Nalls

SERMON FOR THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity. Against such, there is no law.” 

-Galatians 5:22

This morning we hear the words of St. Paul in his stern rebuke to an erring and unhealthy church. The epistle should remind us that the western Church of which we are a branch is itself not particularly healthy. When I say this, I say it in anguish. You and I are fully aware of what is happening in so very many churches and in our society, and much of it is not very good. 

When St. Paul writes to a community like the Galatians, even in stern rebuke, he wants to instruct them and to build them up or rebuild them in this case. He wants the Galatians to become a true community of believers in order that they might live a normal Christian life. Unfortunately, many people in our contemporary society have not got a clue as to what is a normal Christian life. 

I have spoken about this before and beg your for clearance if a few of you have heard some of my remarks before. However, I think that it is vital for all of us to understand, “What is the normal Christian life?” 

Basically, there are five marks of a normal Christian life: first, to know Jesus personally and experientially and to give your whole life to Him; second, to live in conscious awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit; third, to live in communion-to live in community; fourth, to show forth our Christian life and the fruits of service particularly in filling of the Great Commission in the evangelization of the world; and, fifth, that communities of believers be related to each other in perfect unity.

Let us look at the first mark-to know Jesus personally and experientially and give your life to Him as Lord. This is a necessary truth to hear. To know Jesus is at the very root and the very foundation of our Christian lives. Jesus died and rose again and ascended to the Father. Then what? Then he does not communicate with us anymore? What nonsense!

To enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is to recognize Him as Lord; to go to Him; to know Him as a person; and perhaps, just perhaps, to listen to Him.  Hear these words from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)  To confess that Jesus is the Lord is the very foundation of our Christian life, our normal Christian life.

Beloved in Christ, many people do not understand this. Many people do not have a clue as to who is the Lord.

Back in the first century, before the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed, the very simplest creed in the Christian Church was “Jesus is Lord.” Before Baptism, a person was asked, “Why are you here?” The reply, “Because Jesus is Lord.” “Be baptized.” Later we expanded it, “I believe in God the Father. I believe in God the Son. I believe in God the Holy Spirit.” However, the simplest creedal statement at the very beginning of our Christian era was, “Jesus is the Lord.” To acknowledge this and to give ourselves wholly and completely to Him as Lord is the foundation of normal Christian living. Anything else is not normal for the Christian life.

You and I belong to a community of believers a Church. We are not here because we have subscribed to a set of dry dogmas. Why are we here at Epiphany this morning? There was a lot of energy that you had to muster to get out of bed, dress, jump in the car, and come here many from quite a distance. Why?

You are here because Jesus called you, and you heard and you responded. We are here because the Lord has called us together. We have answered His call.  You see, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not something that is taken for granted This relationship takes an entire lifetime. It is a process of growing in the Lord. We understand that as the Lord speaks to us and we respond to Him, we develop purity of heart as we grow in Him.

In the epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul lists all kinds of really horrible things that can damage the relationship and defend against it when we are a people that constantly acknowledges that Jesus is the Lord. That marks us out because “No one can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except in the Holy Spirit.” (I Cor.12:3)

The second characteristic of normal Christian life is to live in conscious awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit. When we were baptized, we were given His life. The Spirit of Christ was poured out into us in order to create in us the heart of Jesus. We have to have the heart of Jesus, and the very first thing that the Holy Spirit would teach us in normal Christian life is that we can call God Abba, that is, Father.

Earlier, in chapter four of Galatians, St. Paul writes, 

The proof that you are sons is the fact that God has sent forth into our hearts the Spirit of His Son which cries out, “Abba, Father.” You are no longer a slave, but a son, and the fact that you are a son makes you an heir by God's design. (Gal. 4:6-7) 

This is the way Jesus taught us to pray. When you pray, pray thus, “Abba, Father!” No one ever approached God up until the time of Jesus and call Him Abba. In fact, you did not even use the name of God out of respect and Jesus said, “Look, He's your Father. You can call Him Abba, Father.” Imagine it. This is normal! It is a normal Christian life that you and I have such a relationship with our Heavenly Father.

If we live in conscious awareness of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we understand that we live according to those good gifts that we have received from the Father. The gifts are given to the Church, not just to the ordained clergy. They are given to all of us for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ, That is normal. 

The trouble with a lot of what is happening in the Church today is that people are trying to build the Body of Christ, not with the gifts of the Spirit, but with human power. No wonder it is failing and unraveling in so many places. If we begin to focus on the spirit of this age and say, “This is what the Church is,” we have it wrong.

The Church is the Body of Christ animated by the Holy Spirit and empowered by the Holy Spirit that we might build up the Body of Christ. There are many charisms and gifts that St. Paul talks about in First Corinthians.  God has set up in the Church first apostles, second prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, assistants, administrators, and even those who speak in tongues (I Cor. 12:28). 

Are all apostles or prophets or teachers? No. However, each person is given the gifts that are necessary for the building up of the Church. You see this is not a manmade organization. Jesus made it and promised that His Church will survive and prevail. He will see to it that it thrives if we all begin to live a normal Christian life knowing that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

This is a great book, this Bible of mine. And yet, it is just a lot of ink on pieces of paper unless we understand that this Word has to be alive in its people. When we breathe the life of the Spirit into the Word of God, that is what we call Tradition. Living out of what is in here. the Tradition of the Church, that is normal. We know that within the Word of God is everything we need to live in this world and for our salvation. That is normal. 

How many times have I heard clergy, “Gee, I wish I had more time to study the Scriptures. I don't have much time to do it at all.” They are more interested in developing programs. You know, programs are nice, and we have to have some programs here and there. However, too many churches hide behind their programs.

Jesus did not have any programs. I mean, did He have a multi-session healing program with workbooks and PowerPoint? Did He have a teaching program? Did He have a dying and rising from the dead program? No! So many churches are loaded with programs, but does anybody know Jesus there? That is the question, isn't it? Because that is not the normal Christian life. 

To know Jesus, to be empowered by the Holy Spirit, and to live in community means that we have a network of committed relationships centered on Christ. You cannot live out a normal Christian life all by yourself unless you are called with a very special charism to be a hermit. Otherwise. we're called to committed relationships. Remember the words of the father to the older son in the story of the Prodigal? “Everything that I have is yours.” You know that our attachment is not to the things of this world, but our bond is with Christ our Lord. 

Unless we show our normal Christian lives and the fruits of service to God's people, we are not living normal life. Now, in 2022, we are supposed to be the Body of Christ of which He is the head. We are the members and are the ones to carry the message of salvation to those that need it. All of us.

If you think about it, look at all of the people that do not even identify with any religion, much less know who Jesus is. Well, if it is only up to clergy to get to these folks, we had better ordain a bunch of people straightway! No, this is what the Body of Christ is supposed to do. All of us. We have been equipped by the Holy Spirit to do this. That's normal. 

This fifth item is that these communities be related to each other in unity.  That all may be one as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee. That they also may be one in us. (John 17:21)  That was Jesus' prayer the night before He died. To Abba. That unity is still not there. That is not normal. Jesus has something better in store for us than all of the factions, divisions, and “one true church” we see in Anglicanism much less than the Church at large. To be sure, there are causes of this situation, but they can be overcome. That is for prayer.

The normal Christian life is not easy. We have come here because we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. We have been given the power to develop within us the heart of Jesus. We have been called to live a community life, a community of committed relationships with one another where we would respond to one another's needs. We know that the Body of Christ in a normal situation is here for the salvation of mankind and it is the work of all of us to evangelize the world. We know that it is the plan of Jesus that all be one in His time. All of these are characteristics of a normal Christian life. 

What are we going to do with this? What do we do with it? How are we going to get in touch with God's plan? 

All wisdom is not summed up in one person, except God, of course. It is in rather short supply among us human beings. What we have to do is pray about this, understand it the best we can, and do what we can to live out this normal Christian life. 

“By their fruits, you will know them,” said Jesus. St. Paul ticks off a list of fruits of the Holy Spirit that you can see. Love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity. 

If you see them in a community, there is Jesus. If somebody needs to know Him, you can say, “We got a little community. I think you will find Jesus there. Come and join us.” We each can do that.

May we live out these marks of the normal Christian life. Pray that people may say of us at Epiphany, “There's the Lord. That's where I want to be” Then, we can arise, for our faith will have made us whole.  Amen.

SERMON FOR THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-SEPTEMBER 11, 2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.@

ST. Luke 10:23-24

Tour guide Ann Van Hine is rewarded with tears, not tips, and frequently reduces visitors to an awed silence when she tells them how her husband, a firefighter, died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Younger visitors often chat freely with her before the tour, but afterward, they don’t know what to say to her.

As she is about to climb a steep flight of stairs to a walkway over the highway west of the site, Mrs. Van Hine invites visitors to imagine climbing stairs loaded up with firefighting equipment. “The firefighters got up to about the 70th floor, so it would have been like doing what we're doing 35 times.”

She and her husband, Richard Bruce Van Hine, had two daughters aged 14 and 17 at the time of the attacks that killed 2,992 people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. “Ten days after, I asked my girls where they thought Daddy was and they said they thought Daddy was in heaven,” she said.

She like many others visited Ground Zero just after the attacks. It looked like war, she said, “There were still fires burning, there was this gray dust everywhere. Some part of me I think expected to see a computer monitor or a desk or something. There was nothing.”

Now, these years after two hijacked planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the debris has been entirely removed, replacement buildings erected and there is a fitting memorial. At the Pentagon, the gaping tear long since has been repaired. In Pennsylvania, grass grows over a blackened field.

Recall where you were on that day. I was in my last year of seminary-beginning a class on, of all things, moral theology. On that day, Richard Bruce Van Hine and hundreds of firefighters, police, and EMS personnel were climbing stairs, encumbered with equipment, pressing on to save the lives of people they didn’t know. “Think too about the sounds that came from within the buildings and within the planes--the phone calls and messages left on answering machines, all the last things said to whoever was home and picked up the phone.”

Something terrible had happened. Life was reduced to its essentials. Time was short. People said what counted, what mattered. There is no record of anyone calling to say, “I never liked you,” or, “You hurt my feelings.” No one negotiated past grievances or said, “Vote for Smith or Jones. No one said anything unneeded, extraneous, or small.”

Capt. Walter Hynes of the New York Fire Department's Ladder 13 dialed home that morning as his truck left the firehouse at 85th Street and Lexington Avenue. His message? He was on his way downtown, and things were bad. “I don't know if we'll make it out. I want to tell you that I love you and I love the kids.”

As Peggy Noonan once wrote, “Firemen don't become firemen because they're pessimists. Imagine being a guy who feels in his gut he's going to his death, and he calls on the way to say goodbye and make things clear. His widow later told the Associated Press she’d played his message hundreds of times and made copies for their kids. “He was thinking about us in those final moments.” Capt. Hynes and Firefighter Van Hine and others were living the Gospel, running toward Calvary.

We hear in St. John's Gospel, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) In New York, at the Pentagon and in the sky over Pennsylvania, our brothers and sisters lived this passage in its fullest sense. However, there is something else, something expressed in the messages of the 11^th day of September. There was Tom Burnett’s famous call from United Flight 93. “We're all going to die, but three of us are going to do something,” he told his wife, Deena. “I love you, honey.” Todd Beamer of United 93 wound up praying on the phone with a woman he had never met before, a Verizon Airfone supervisor named Lisa Jefferson. She said later that his tone was calm. It seemed as if they were “old friends,” she later wrote. They said the Lord's Prayer together. Then he said, “Let's roll.”

These were people saying, In spite of my imminent death, my thoughts are on you, and on love and on doing one last thing for someone other than themselves. They passed on responsibilities “Tell Billy I never stopped loving him and forgave him long ago.” “Take care of Mom.” “Pray for me, Father. Pray for me, I haven't been very good.” They addressed what needs doing and they were giving to others. Theirs is and must remain, a lasting image in our minds-not just as Americans but as Christians.

Let's think, this morning, about those people who have made an ever-lasting impression on our lives. They are few, we can recall their names, and we can recall the reasons. These are the people who gave us not anything material but something more. Something to look up to and respect.

And here is the core of the Gospel lesson this morning, the lesson of the Good Samaritan. It appears, like several of the lessons, several times in the course of the year. You know, man is waylaid by robbers, the learned and rich pass by, Samaritan stops, helps him, takes him to an inn. We hear it so frequently that we tend to assume that we know all about it. Don't we tend to reduce these seven short verses of Scripture to a flat picture?

In our lives, we have been left by the side of the road by robbers not necessarily those of the kind who attacked the man on the road but the robbers that are sin, sickness, and death. Yet we have been attended to by the Savior lifted onto the mule, brought to the inn, and treated. Christ has borne our wounds. We have received the Sacrament of the only begotten Son as medicine. And we are being fed and nursed to health in the inn that is His church. This is the love that we want for ourselves.

You and I always have Someone to look up to, he’s up ahead of us forging the way through sorrow and hurt and death. We look up to Him who sent bread from heaven, able to content every man's delight, and agree to every taste. (Wisdom 16:20). We look up to Christ on the Cross, where He risked all, gave all, for all. We look up to Him who taught us that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We look up to our risen and ascended Christ who waits to welcome us with all of the riches of Heaven if we but do His will if we but love one another as He loved us. Amen.

                 SERMON FOR THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.”

-St. Mark 7:33-34

In ancient Greece, it was customary for peddlers who walked the streets with their wares to cry out, “What do you lack?” The idea was to get people to come out of their houses to see what that peddler was selling. It might be something they lacked and needed, and the cry was an invitation to come out.

  So it is with this healing miracle this morning, a miracle unique to St. Mark’s Gospel. The deaf man lacked hearing and had a speech impediment, probably due to the deafness. There is a lack of wholeness in him. This healing miracle invites us to look at what needs to be made whole in us. In the words of the peddler, what might we lack? Jesus’ call to wholeness compels us to take an honest inventory. Have you found contentment? Are you, in the words of collect today, ready to pray Lord who is always ready to hear? Are you suffering from deafness? Are you able to hear what God has to say to you, to be close enough to Him to receive guidance and strength? Christ can fulfill our deepest needs of heart, mind, and soul. Are we hearing when God speaks to these needs? Do we suffer hearing loss?

The deaf-mute lacked the physical ability to hear. However, too many lack the spiritual ability to hear. We suffer spiritual deafness. At one level, this involves not listening to people we ought to be listening to, those in need, those in want, and those who are calling out for our help. Don’t we so often suffer from physically listening to people, yet failing to comprehend, understand, and come to grips with what they are saying, particularly if it is a message we do not want to hear. How often do we simply nod in a feigned attitude of listening or even reply with a bored, “Whatever?” It is possible to listen to a person, yet fail to really hear them. To use a modern term, it is tone deafness.

Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered this from His own disciples. How many times did He speak, and they did not hear or want to hear. “Not I, Lord,” said St. Peter when faced with the news of his impending denial. Jesus suffers it now as we hear but do not listen to His word. Beloved in Christ, we can suffer deafness in the community, the body of Christ, when we fail to hear our brother or sister or selectively hear them. This kind of deafness is a plague upon the Church.

To be sure listening is a skill. We hear of active listening as a technique. However, we have to work at listening. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that one could have no greater impact upon the world then by closing the lips and opening the ears. What a difference that would make!

However, more pointedly, spiritual deafness, deafness to the Holy Spirit is deadly. You know, spiritual deafness is probably the most common of all the diseases of the soul. So let us look for our own healing in this miracle.

We were created so that we might find our highest happiness, our wholeness, in fellowship with God. Of course, we all think about this in terms of eternity, but it is true also of our life now. In the words of the Psalmist, “we are fearfully and wonderfully made,” our souls know it, and the thoughts of God should be precious to us. (Psalm 139: 14, 17). Alternatively, as St. John tells us, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”(I St. John i. 3). That is a “right-now” fellowship, a right-now wholeness.

As they collect drives home, this fellow­ship implies the capacity to seek God’s voice in prayer and to hear His response. Some have a greater capacity for this than others do. Their spiritual hearing is more acute or has been better trained.

It is much like physical hearing. A hunter or tracker in the forest detects the slightest sound, the snapping of a twig, the slight rustling of the underbrush, where we hear nothing. The poet may hear the passing breeze or the faraway call of a bird, and we are tone deaf.

Perhaps it is the result of modern civilization, with cell phones, and boom cars. In the media, there are so many loud sounds, and so much continual noise, so many awful noises, that we fail to notice the more delicate sounds and gradually lose the power of detecting them.

It may be what we can call “drift.” It is like listening to a radio station while we are driving. When we drive away from the radio tower, the signal gets weaker and weaker.  However, if we turn the car around and drive back into town, the signal becomes stronger and we can hear it again. 

  In the same way, we stop hearing God when we drift away from Him.  If we will turn around and come back to Him, we will hear His voice again. The closer we are to God, the clearer we can hear Him. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

However, spiritual deafness, whatever the cause, whether through the noise of the world, drift or willful lack of hearing, leaves us unable to hear God’s voice. God is always speaking to us and in many ways-through consciences, through revelation, through the teaching of His Church. How many there are who really hear His voice!

Contrast the thunders of Sinai for the Hebrews, and the noise of the trumpet exceeding loud, when the people said, “Let not God speak with us, lest we die,” with the still small voice of Horeb with which God addressed the trained ear of the prophet Elijah.

There are times when God speaks to the sinner with the voice of Sinai. Though, mostly, He speaks with the still small voice of Horeb. It needs a trained and attentive ear to catch the whispers of that voice.

There are some who live amid the beauties of nature, but never hear the voice of God in His creation. There are others who read the pages of revelation or hear the Word spoken but seldom feel that the words are spoken to them. Why is this? Why does this happen? Maybe because they are so accustomed to the clamor of the world that their spiritual sense is not acute enough to recognize God’s voice.

However, it is not just the things of the world that cause us to miss the still, small voice. If we are talking over Him, we will not hear. If we, like the Philippians, are engaging in murmuring, disputing, and anger, we will not hear.

We also should understand that it is not just spiritual deafness that affects our fellowship with God through not hearing His voice, but spiritual dumbness, which affects our power of prayer. Remember that the man at Decapolis was not only deaf, but he had an impediment in his speech. The Greek word suggests not that he was actually dumb, but that he could only speak with difficulty. Someone who is not able to hear any sounds at all comes to lose the power of distinct articulation.

How true this is in the sphere of spiritual experience! We pray with much difficulty because we have lost the power of hearing God’s voice. It is difficult, almost impossible, to carry on a conversation with one who may not utter words in reply to us. Yet that is very much the case for those who pray but do not listen to God’s voice. Prayer is the joyous communion of the soul with God if we hear God speaking in reply to us. However, we must learn to listen to His voice before we can realize the full joy of fellowship with Him in prayer.

Always remember that this dialogue with God, who does not speak as we do, differs from an ordinary conversation. St. John Damascene said of this conversation, “To pray is to offer one’s heart to God” conveying this attitude of the attentive and listening soul. To think of prayer as “dialoguing with God” (St. Augustine), “raising one’s heart to God” (Gregory of Nyssa), or “friendly conversation with God” (St. Teresa of Avila) is to have grasped the two-way aspect of prayer.

We also must remember that God may not answer our prayers as we would like him to, because “God’s ways are not our ways.” (Isaiah 55:8). He may also just give us the answer “No.” Part of listening to God is to hear the answer that we might not want to hear.

The way in which our Lord healed the deaf man may help us to find a remedy for our own spiritual disease. Our Lord looked up to heaven and groaned. This is the only place in the Gospels where this word is used. What was there in the condition of this man, which caused Him to groan?

Was it not, perhaps, that he represented that large class who are spiritually deaf, and who on this account shut themselves off from the fellowship with God, which would be their greatest happiness in this life? Our Lord, in His sympathy with us, groans at what we lose by our spiritual deafness.

How does He heal the man? First, He takes him aside from the multitude. As the noise of the world blunts hear­ing. If we are to regain it, we must seek solitude, and learn there to listen. For this reason, God in His providence sometimes sends us away from the multitude to open the ear of our souls to His voice. He may send a time of aloneness-of separation from things and people. He calls us to make time for listening-closeting ourselves that we may hear.

We should use all of these occasions as great opportunities for communion with God, for training the ear of our soul to hear what God has to say to us, that when we come back to our work in the world it may be with regained strength, not only of the body but of our spiritual nature.

Our Lord “put his fingers into his ears, and He spit, and touched his tongue.” The remedy for both deafness and dumbness is the touch of our Lord. How can we obtain this touch?

There is an easy answer to this question. Through the Sacraments, which are extensions of the Incarnation, the means by which the merits of Christ are applied to our souls—first in Baptism, then, if we have fallen into sin, in Absolution, and constantly in every Communion.

Haven’t the happiest moments of our spiritual lives been those when we felt very near to God, hearing His voice, and out of the fullness of our hearts speaking to Him in prayer? Is this, though, a rare experience, or is it our normal spiritual condition? We were created to have fellowship with God now in preparation for that fuller fellowship which we shall have with Him in heaven. We must seek our healing then in two ways: by going apart from the multitude and listening for the voice of God; and by such use of the Sacraments as may restore the health of our soul and with it our power of hearing God's voice. So, let us take to heart these practical lessons from the Gospel today, and ask for healing for hearing, healing to hear the voice of our Lord. Amen.

    SERMON FOR THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITY-2022

          (Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

- St. Luke 18:14

As often happens in our society, people who hold themselves out as larger than life are often the ones who suffer the greatest humiliation. There’s a very simple correlation between how far up you put yourself and how far down you come — simply as a result of being human; simply as a result of being a human being in a fallen world.

There is an old story that one day Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, visited a prison and talked with each of the inmates. There were endless tales of innocence, misunderstood motives, and of exploitation. Finally, the king stopped at the cell of a convict who remained silent. “Well,” remarked Frederick, “I suppose you are an innocent victim too?” “No, sir, I’m not,” replied the man. “I’m guilty and deserve my punishment.” Turning to the warden the king said, “Here, release this rascal before he corrupts all these fine, innocent people in here!” The biblical saying proves true, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Today’s Gospel reading teaches us many things. It teaches us about attitude to prayer — on how we should pray. It teaches us about self-righteousness, and not to be self-righteous.

We hear a lot about “self-acceptance” in popular psychology and in the “self-help” literature derived from it. “Accepting who we are” is often touted as the very first step towards mental health and general well-being. I suppose, up to a point, a Christian must surely agree. But self-acceptance has taken some very dark turns these last few years, and I am not sure that the term has any meaning. In fact, the gospel of self-acceptance has led to a wholesale flight from reality. Just this week it was reported that the New York City government recognized some 31 genders and, if you can’t get it right you can be fined up to $250,000 for a wrong answer that offends someone’s notion of self-acceptance. A flight from reality, beloved in Christ, is a flight from the truth and authentic honesty.

After all, being honest with ourselves about our strengths and our weaknesses, about what is good and bad in our character or habits, is an entirely reasonable beginning to our being honest about ourselves with God and with our neighbors. The old spiritual writers even had a name for this kind of honesty. They called it “an examination of conscience,” and they recommended it as a daily event, usually at the end of the day as part of our night prayers.

If nothing else, all this proves yet again that sin and faith solely in ourselves have never made any sense as a response to a great and good God so willing to give us all his love and grace. God’s love will be greater than any love we can give ourselves, and God will bring us to heaven to share his life, honor, and glory. Amen.

The Rev. Canon Charles H. Nalls

SERMON FOR THE TENTH SUNDAY IN TRINITYTIDE-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hidden from thine eyes.

-St. Luke xix.41

This morning with the start of a school year just ahead and the fall season around the corner, we speak of new beginnings. Our Gospel text this morning includes the dramatic account of our Lord’s cleansing of the temple. The passage, which is recounted in all four Gospels, tells of Christ driving out the sellers of doves and moneychangers from the temple. In the Gospel of John, the imagery is vivid–violent–Christ fashions a scourge–a whip of small cords–and uses it to flog those who defiled His Father's house out the door while tipping over their tables. It is a scene of controlled rage as the house of God is purified.

We might well ask how this relates to the theme of fresh starts and new beginnings. Well, in a very real sense, the account of the cleansing of the temple is a story of a new beginning. It is a story of purification, of washing iniquity out of the house of the Lord. It is a cleansing that then allows the restoration of teaching in God’s house. And Jesus does just that–he begins to teach daily in the temple.

In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was at the beginning with God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth

That is our beginning and our end, our Alpha and Omega–the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. Let us go forward from this beginning, always living new beginnings each day through the love, the forgiveness, and the mercy that can come only through a life in and with Jesus Christ. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE 9^th SUNDAY IN TRINITY 2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

AI will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee....@

How many times have you heard itBAYou did WHAT? You spent it ALL?@ It=s a scene replayed the world over between parents and children. The son or daughter comes home from college and the spending money to last the semester is gone in the first month and the credit card is tapped out. The how following along after protestations and many Aaww dads... or AGee moms.... will out. AI went on a weekend with some guys from the dorm and....well we pretty well can fill out the rest of the story in its many unpleasant details. There is a moment of parental outrage and a lecture on the order of “it does not sound like something you would do; or did you take leave of yourself.”

The parable of the Prodigal Son brings us to our knees. It is the gospel in a nutshell. For we are all prodigal sons, stumbling back when we come to ourselves, stumbling back to make an honest confession, stumbling back into the arms of our Father, who comes running joyfully to meet us. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”

--St. Matthew 7:17-18

This morning we have a potent and very timely Gospel lesson. Our Lord tells us to “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Certainly, there is now, even as in Apostolic times, an abundance of false prophets. As well, there are plenty of “itching ears” waiting to receive their messages.

However, as St. Jerome points out, this Scripture does not just point to those false teachers “out there” in the secular world. “What is here spoken of false prophets we may apply to all whose dress and speech promise one thing, and their actions exhibit another. But it is especially to be understood of [those], who … surround themselves as it were with a garment of sanctity, but inasmuch as their hearts within them are poisoned, they deceive the souls of the more simple brethren.”

No matter how much sanctity we put on, if our hearts are poisoned, we are in danger, and worse, we put into danger those around us who are new Christians or new to the community.

We have to persevere until death. St. Paul tells us that we have to be firm and steadfast in the service of God, paying attention to the state of our souls every day of our lives. (Heb. 3:15-13).

A virtuous person does not waiver. He or she is like a rock beaten by a storm in the midst of the sea. We must be steadfast as His love is steadfast and His promise of salvation is enduring. (Ps. 119:41) We should be resigned to the will of God and zealous in faith in good times and bad. That is how the saints' act. That is how the martyrs stand unspeakable torment while growing closer to God.

Let everything come from a heart that is indebted to God and centered on Jesus. Neglect nothing in His service, and grow and increase in the knowledge and love of God.

Then we can look in the mirror and face ourselves. Then we can look at others and speak of His testimonies in truth. Then, one day, one glorious day, we can look at our Lord and face Him. Amen.

SERMON FOR THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Amherst, Virginia)

“And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them, and they did set them before the people.”
-St. Mark 8:6

On a Sunday morning, a vacationing priest got a call from a local parish-very small and very poor-telling him that their rector was ill and they needed him to preach on Sunday. He agreed. The next morning, he and his young daughter journeyed to the church, where he preached before eighteen people.

When the service ended, one of the people took the preacher aside and said, “You gave a wonderful message. I wish we could pay you, but we just don’t have any money.” The priest said not to worry, he was glad to help out. As he and his daughter were leaving the church, the priest noticed a completely empty offering plate. Moved by the poverty of the church, he put a crisp $20 bill in the plate, and the two of them went hand-in-hand out to the car.

As they started to drive away, one fellow came running across the lawn with an envelope in his hand. The minister rolled down his window and the man handed him the envelope, saying, “We couldn’t let you leave without giving you something.” The minister opened the envelope and inside was a crisp, familiar looking $20 bill.

As they drove away, the minister asked the little girl, “Did you learn a good lesson from this morning?” She said, “I sure did, Daddy. If you had put more in, you would have gotten more out!” It sometimes takes the fresh, intuitive intelligence of a child to penetrate through the familiar to the true. That is just what we’re called to see today in our Gospel lesson on the miracle of the loaves and fishes: the miracle of abundance.

Today, let us look at these familiar passages as if we are seeing them with the eyes of that child. Let us just look at what happens in the account of that day in Galilee. Jesus is interrupted during his mountain retreat by a crowd of tired hungry people.

What is His reaction? Does Jesus turn only to his disciples, giving them a moral from the situation a moral for the disciples, leaving them to digest a spiritual truth and the people to digest nothing? Does He send His disciples to shoo the people away so that He can continue His own prayer? Does He assemble them, and seeing how many tragically and desperately ill people there are among them, proceed to give them a sermon telling them that if they just think positively and have faith, they can overcome their handicaps or at least compensate for them in some constructive way?

No, He does not resent the imposition on His quiet time, nor does he despise their physical needs; we hear that He has compassion for them. He heals their illness and fills their hungry stomachs. They asked for healing, so He gave it to them. They did not ask for food, but He knows their need and provides for it. We see that it is not only the nature of Christ to provide for the physical needs we recognize and ask Him for, it is also within His character to recognize and fill the physical needs we don’t even bother Him with.

Notice as well that Jesus did not go around through the crowd and distribute the food personally to each person. He sent His disciples to distribute the food, and they did so.

Suppose you were there at the time. Suppose that while the disciples are busily distributing the food to the huge crowd, someone casually walks up to you and starts explaining Jesus’ teachings to you. “Are you a disciple?” you ask, wishing to clarify the situation. “Yes I am,” he replies with a modest smile. At that point, wouldn’t you look out to see the disciples struggling to distribute the food to all the people and wonder why this ‘disciple’ has so much free time? Wouldn’t you ask him, “Well, if you’re a disciple of Jesus, why aren’t you out there distributing the food like the others?” “Why aren’t you doing the work that Christ set you about?” Let’s hold on to that thought for a minute.

At the center of the miracle is bread—that great common food throughout the world. Bread is a staple of life.  And yet we sometimes forget that the eating of bread is a result of our fall into sin.  “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life . . . In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread.”

 Before the Fall Adam and Eve simply ate the fruit of the garden which God had freely given.  Without any burdensome labor on their part, God provided to them all that they needed to sustain their lives.  There was no exhausting tilling of the fields or grinding the wheat or kneading and baking of bread.  No, they had food given to them in abundance as a gracious gift from their Creator.

 However, through the temptation of the devil, that all changed.  There was a rebellion against God by reaching out for the one food that the Lord had not given them to eat.  They wanted to do things their own way, be in charge of their own lives, and be their own gods.  Instead of gaining something, they ended up losing their life with God and were left empty and famished.

Don’t we, too, know the temptation to reach for that which God has not given, to consume the things and the philosophies of this world--trust in them to bring us happiness and contentment?  Satan wants your spiritual diet to consist of satisfying your own desires, focusing not on the Lord and His words but on the pleasures and the honors of this temporal, passing world. 

To appease your spiritual hunger, the devil tries to sell you junk food.  He hisses in your ear, “If you would just get that bigger and better and newer stuff if you would just spend more time on entertainment and recreation if you would just buy into the self-help spirituality of our culture, why then you would get where you want to be; then you would be fulfilled.” This pattern leads St. Paul to say in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your member's servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your member's servants to righteousness unto holiness.”

The prince of this world is a liar.  He offers nothing of substance, nothing that lasts, cotton candy that looks good but melts away.  The more we feed on such things, the emptier and more famished we will become.  None of these things can truly satisfy the gnawing hunger of the soul.

  However, into this barren world breaks the very Son of God Himself to save us.  Where is Jesus in the Gospel?  He is in the wilderness with a multitude of people who have nothing to eat, those who are feeling the effects of the fall in a concrete and physical way. 

Jesus said, “I have compassion on the multitudes.”  That word, “compassion,” in Greek has to do with the deepest possible empathy and feeling.  So fully does Jesus empathize with us and feel for us that He went so far as to make our problems His problems.  Jesus cares not only for the spiritual but also the physical welfare of these people. 

Jesus feels for what happens with our bodies.  He knows what we are going through.  In His great mercy, Jesus came into the world to suffer with us and to suffer for us in order to take the suffering away forever. 

 You can begin to see that taking place in this miracle.  The curse on Adam had been, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.”  Yet, here the second Adam, Jesus, reverses the curse and produces bread in abundance apart from any sweaty or tiring labor.  At this moment He restores the bounty of the Garden of Eden, where food is received in overflowing measure from the gracious hand of God.  We get a glimpse of God the Son beginning to break the curse of decay and death and overcome the fall into sin.

Jesus would complete His work of undoing the fall and breaking the power of the curse on the cross.  As we hear in the Epistle, the wages of sin is death; and sin’s deathly curse was broken and undone in the body of Christ the crucified.  We have been released to a new life, free and full, through the resurrection of Jesus.

However, with that release comes servanthood-the basic requirement for being a follower of Jesus. As St. Paul puts it, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”

Jesus took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples to set before the people.  He gave them to His disciples to set before the people.

In the same way still today, Jesus speaks His words of thanks and consecration, and His priests distribute the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  The seven loaves were multiplied to feed and fully satisfy 4000 people.  In the same way still today, Our Lord uses seemingly insufficient bread to multiply His grace and feed and fully satisfy the church with His very life-giving body.  Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”  In wine, He gives His cleansing blood for our forgiveness, that all those who believe in Him may never thirst.

Beloved, we all are called in a measure to share in the work of Christ-be servants of God, servants of righteousness. What does that mean? On that day when the great crowd had gathered, Jesus saw them—no-saw with them--saw with their eyes, felt with their nerves. He noticed every detail. There was a holy trinity of mind and spirit and senses here at work in Jesus--observation, imagination, and sympathy.

Often with us one of the three is absent, or all three together, and we are prevented from being servants of righteousness. Some people do not observe. There is narrow, focused on their own self-interest—focused on the things of the world. Good observation requires freedom from a focus on self, for pride covers the eyes.

Others, even when they see, lack imagination, or will not use what they have to bring home vividly what they see. To do what Jesus did here, to follow in the imagination of these people trudging down the road home, hungry, fainting--that would be a miracle far beyond their powers.

Still, others lack sympathy. They just do not care enough. The springs of love have never been opened. Many of the world’s greatest evils and much of its suffering go on because there are such multitudes of people who never send their hearts out on any journey, they never do the work Christ has set them to do. They never help set food before others—they never help collect the fragments that none may be lost. Let us ask ourselves this day whether we are distributing loaves and fishes, whether we serve righteousness as we are called to do, and whether we need to put more of ourselves in.

Beloved in Christ, we have been delivered from sin and death. We have the promise of the superabundance-the gift of life eternal His Son.  As you receive this living bread that came down from heaven, you are being given a taste of paradise. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him.”

Let us then renew our commitment to labor to carry forth that food which can only satisfy—Word and Sacrament--“The poor shall eat and be satisfied.” Amen.

SERMON FOR THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY-2022

(Given at Church of the Epiphany, Virginia)

“Jesus said to His disciples, ‘I tell you, unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.’” 

-St. Matthew 5:20

The words from our Gospel reading this morning are taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Did you ever wonder why Jesus went up on a mountain to teach His disciples? It was not only that He would have a natural amphitheater so they could hear well. There was something more, something symbolic about it. Remember it was God who gave the law to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. Moses went up on the mountain and received the tablets of the law from God. Now it is Jesus the Lord, the new lawgiver, who is giving the new law from the mount.

What is it that He is teaching? It is something so simple that it is easily misunderstood or even taken for granted. There is a difference, Jesus is saying, between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. He begins by saying, “it was said to you in ancient days, thou shalt not kill. But I say to you. . .”

He then goes on to talk about anger toward one’s brother. There is a great deal of difference between going down the street with a submachine gun and murdering people and the spirit of the law that involves our dealings with one another. You and I are not prone to the kind of violence that would be murder. However, we should not feel that we are quite good and quite justified simply because we are keeping literally and narrowly the Ten Commandments.

So, we have not killed anybody this week. We have not stolen. We have not robbed any banks. We have not committed adultery. Wonderful. That is great. That is the letter of the law.

Jesus is saying, however, that in the new kingdom that He comes to establish, there is to be much more than a narrow attitude toward the law. “Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.”

The scribes and Pharisees kept the law literally; no more, no less. Jesus is saying, “there is more to it than that; much more than that.” So, Jesus speaks about attitudes that you and I might have that offend God and commit sin. This is not necessarily through an act, but even by the thought and the desire to act. This of itself can and should be seen as sinful. “. . . What I say to you is everyone who grows angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. Any man who uses abusive language toward his brother shall be answerable to the Sanhedrin and he who holds him in contempt, he risks the fires of Gehenna.”

That is from a modern translation and I think it lacks something. I prefer what we just read in the Gospel reading from the King James version: “Anyone who says to his brother ‘Raca’ will be liable to the Sanhedrin.”

Well, what is ‘raca’? Have you called anybody ‘raca’ lately? Have you heard anyone shout out of their car window in traffic “race”? What does it mean?

In ancient Hebrew, it means “you blockhead.” That is the best translation that I could find. “You’re a blockhead!” Jesus was saying, “That kind of an attitude is beyond ‘thou shalt not kill’, but it is also something that should not be a part of a Christian’s life.”

“You fool!” Well, we are quite capable of calling people foolish. However, there is a very narrow meaning for the word ‘fool’ in the Scriptures. A fool is an unbeliever. As the Psalmist says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.” (Ps.53:l) If you, a Jew, are calling someone an unbeliever, that is about the worst thing that you can say about him. You are really…what’s the word…trashing…you are really trashing him or her.

Jesus is saying, “You trash him with those words, and, in turn, you can end up as trash.” That is the whole meaning of “risking the fires of Gehenna.” Gehenna is a valley on the southeast corner of the city of Jerusalem. The valley was the city dump where they threw all of their trash. Like most city dumps, it was smoldering all the time. It was constantly burning. So Jesus is saying, “This is not the way that a Christian will behave toward another Christian in this new kingdom according to this new law.” Otherwise, you risk being cast out.

There is quite a difference, isn’t there, between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Throughout Scripture, we can see that distinction made over and over again. St. John, in one of his letters, writes that if you speak ill of your neighbor you are guilty of murder (1Jn 3:15). That is strong language, but it is truth.

If you speak ill of your neighbor, something is involved and it is simply this: You and I have a right to a good reputation. If you slander an individual’s good name, that is not only a sin against charity; it also is a sin against justice because you slander that person’s right to his good name.

Beloved in Christ, we are, you and I, quite prone to excusing ourselves and the sins we commit. We do this almost offhandedly. We say, “Well, that is my temperament. That is just the way I am. I can excuse my faults and my flaws because I’ve always been that way.” What we do is a wink at our own faults and then we condemn them in others.

Remember that Gospel reading of a couple of weeks ago about a man who had a beam in his eye and he was going to take we are to live according to the spirit of the law. According to the spirit of that law, we do not excuse ourselves, but rather acknowledge the fact that we can and do sin. That we can and do sin several times a day.

What Jesus says we should not do to our brother are all things that are done with that one little part of us that can get us into so much trouble: our tongues. Our tongues are the source of more sin than any other part of ourselves. We can really get into trouble with what we say.

I learned a long time ago when I was a lawyer that if I did not say some things, I did not have to retract them later. It was a good lesson to learn! St. James, in his letter, writes very strongly about this power of ours, this tongue of ours:

All of us fall short in many respects. If a person is without fault in speech, he is a man or woman in the fullest sense because they can control their entire body. When we put bits in the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide the rest of their bodies. It is the same with ships, however large they are, and despite the fact, that they are driven by fierce winds. They are directed by very small rudders on whatever course the helmsman’s impulse may select.

The tongue is something like that. It is a small member, yet it makes great pretensions. See how tiny the spark is that sets a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is such a flame. It exists among our members as a whole universe of malice. The tongue defiles the entire body. Its flames encircle our course from birth and its fire is kindled by hell” (James 3:2-6).

Jesus our Lord agrees with that and that really is a commentary on the Gospel this morning. “If you say these things about your brother,” Jesus is saying, “you are not living according to the spirit of the law that involves “thou shalt not kill.” It is easy for us to live according to the letter, but according to the spirit. That is a different thing.

So, beloved in Christ, each of us needs to examine ourselves regularly, particularly about the power this tongue of ours has. We should try, to the best of our ability, to do no evil with that tongue; that we would set no forest aflame; that we would not be guilty of any injustice because we have injured the reputation, the good name of another.