Sermon for Sexagesima
admin | 31 January 2016“Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”
Misunderstood and often overlooked, the three Pre-Lenten Sundays, with their exotic and strange sounding names, provide a necessary preparatory interlude between Epiphany and Lent. Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima are vestiges of older patterns of the biblically based practice of the Quadragesima, the forty day period of fasting, penitence and prayer commonly known as Lent – a term for Spring from Old English referring to the lengthening of the days – which marks our participation in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The pre-Lenten Sundays point to different ways of marking the forty days of Lent. Septuagesima, the week of seventy days, Sexagesima, sixty days, and Quinquagesima, fifty days before Easter, these Sundays have coalesced to form a transitional season having its own intrinsic spiritual character.
They warrant our special attention. Displaced by radical changes in the ordering of the ecclesiastical calendar and the lectionary pattern of scripture reading in recent times, their educational, spiritual and practical significance has been largely ignored. Yet the spirituality of these Sundays is really about appreciating certain crucial and defining features of Christian moral doctrine and life. It has to with the classical and the theological virtues; in short, with the rich interplay between nature and grace that shapes character. These Sundays carry forward a theme which we have also seen in the Epiphany season.
The scriptural lessons on these Sundays prepare us wonderfully for the journey of Lent as the journey of our souls to and with God in Jesus Christ; in short, our whole life. Ultimately, they ground us in the way of our journeying, at once presupposing and anticipating the way to Jerusalem. They prepare us by way of the forms of love. Lent, after all, is the pilgrimage of the soul in love. The love of God perfects and renews our loves. These pre-Lenten Sundays are all about the interplay of the cardinal virtues of temperance, courage, prudence and justice with the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.
As such they offer a powerful narrative of the love which perfects our humanity and which engages critically with the assumptions of the therapeutic culture. They recall us directly to the moral discourse of Christianity with its rich legacy of terms and categories which speak profoundly to the nature of the soul in its desiring. In short, they belong to the theology of amor, love.
The four cardinal or classical virtues of temperance, courage, prudence and justice belong to the ethical discourse of the ancients with respect to the perfection of the natural man; our humanity, we might say, in its actions and activities with respect to worldly ends and purposes. They are transformed into forms of love by the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity that belong to a higher vision of our humanity that sees our end in God. Thus, the four cardinal virtues are put upon a new foundation, the foundation of grace, which seeks the greater perfection of our humanity through our participation in the life of God. We are being “transhumanised,” as the great poet-theologian Dante puts it, in the Paradiso of his Divine Comedy, actually coining a new word in Italian (“trashumanar”) to capture the profound and radical nature of the theology of amor, love. God is love and his grace catches us up into the way of love. Our humanity finds its truth in and with God.
The epistle reading for today, taken from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, suggests the transformation of courage into a form of love, the love that bears witness to the truth of God in Christ even in the face of hardship and persecution. Paul is “bold,” he says, as bold as anyone can be said to be, but he is not boasting so much as calling attention to the necessity of bearing witness to Christ regardless of the circumstances. It isn’t about calling attention to himself. “If I must needs glory,” he suggests, then “I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities,” for the awareness of our weaknesses opens us out to the transforming power of God’s grace. Christian courage shows itself in the face of trials. It is anything but mere bravado.
It is not only wisdom to know the lessons of these pre-Lenten Sundays but prudence itself must dictate the course of our lives in the world of God’s creation. The Gospel is St. Luke’s parable of the sower and the seed. More than just the parable, we are provided with its interpretation. If the seed is the word of God, then the ground is the quality of our hearts. The parable and the interpretation challenge us about the prudent use of God’s word in our lives. What kind of ground are we going to be? The prudent ground is “the good ground,” namely, that of “an honest and good heart” which “having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” The practical wisdom of the Christian way is rooted in our attention to God’s word and in letting God’s word have its way in us. Here Jesus explains to the disciples the meaning of the parable for they are “given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,” is a common and repeated biblical exhortation to be wise in the things of God. Yet Jesus not only tells a parable but he also provides the explanation of the parable. That is key. We are given to know certain things, the things that pertain to the nature of our life with God, “the mysteries of the kingdom of God.” Such things are the daily food of our life in Christ. In a way, this Gospel illuminates the path of redeeming love. We journey in the knowing love of God for us, seeing but in “a glass darkly, but then face to face,” yet seeking to “know even as we are known.” But only in and through our prudent attentiveness to the Word of God which is constantly being sown in the soil of our souls. Something is required of us.
“Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”
Fr. David Curry
Sexagesima Sunday
Jan. 31st, 2016 re 2009