Sermon for Sexagesima

admin | 16 February 2020

If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities

Courage and prudence are transformed into humility on this Sexagesima Sunday. We are turned not to the vineyard of creation but to something more basic and more humbling. We are turned to the dust and ground of creation with the parable of the sower and the seed. For courage can be at once unwise and destructive, brave but foolish, if it is not tempered by prudence, by practical wisdom; in short, if it is not aware of human limitations, of our own weakness and infirmity. And prudence can be too cautious and timid unless tempered by courage. Both need justice and charity, love.

We are turned to the ground. “Remember, O man, that dust thou art.” God formed man from the dust of the ground breathing his spirit into us and so we become living beings. In being turned to the ground we are in effect being turned to God and to our connection with the created order. Only so can we begin to reclaim the dignified dust of our humanity. Only so can we be the good ground instead of the waste-ground of the wayside, the rocky ground, or the thorny ground, all of which signal something of the nature of our falleness and our incompleteness, of folly and sin.

The parable is more than an image, more than an illustration. In Luke’s account, Jesus tells the parable but then provides the interpretation. This shows something of the radical meaning of the Gesima Sundays. They are about an awakening to the inner qualities of grace in us. That awakening means teaching and learning. Thus Paul provides a lesson about the correctives to courage and Luke about the deeper meaning of prudence. In both there is a kind of humility that recalls us to God in the very circumstances in which we find ourselves, a kind of awakening to ourselves in relation to God and creation.

Courage, in the sense of being bold and in calling attention to how well we have persevered in the face of animosities and persecution, can lead to an insidious pride which elevates us above others. We claim a particular identity which we then extol over others. It can easily become the kind of ‘look at me, look at me’ narcissism of our contemporary culture. This is the danger of incurvatus in se, our being turned in upon ourselves but not to the grace of God in us. Instead of self-awareness there is an ignorance of self in our shallow thoughtlessness, in our inconstancies and inconsistencies, and in our worldly preoccupations and distractions as presented in the images of the ground of the way-side, the rocky ground, and the thorny ground.

What then is the good ground? It is the ground of humility, a word which in the literary traditions calls us to the humus, to the ground. We often mistake humility for a kind of wimpiness. It is really a kind of strength grounded upon honesty and reality. Paul’s extravagant sounding passage from 2nd Corinthians really reminds us of our identity in Christ that strengthens us not by any quality of our own but by virtue of Christ in us. It is that inward turn that the Gesima Sundays teach and show. Being the good ground is about paying attention to the Word of God in creation and redemption. That means paying attention to what God seeks for us, his good for our perfection which is found in him. “But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.”

No doubt in the bleak midwinter of February’s cold and snow, there is much need for patience. But it is not just about toughing it out as if life were simply about surviving endless ‘weather events’ presented in almost apocalyptic terms by the media; it is more about our active attention to the Word of God as what truly defines us.

This suggests something different than merely weathering out the winter storms, something much more wonderful and joyous. It is found in praise even the praise of winter! For it, too, belongs to the praise of God for creation and for our humanity. We give voice to creation’s praise of God. This idea is beautifully captured in the canticle, the Benedicite Omnia Opera (BCP, pp. 26-28) which unites both courage and prudence in a song of praise that is at once cosmic and personal. “O All ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:/ praise him, and magnify him for ever.” It belongs to the Apocryphal texts as one of the additions to the canonical Book of Daniel.

The canticle provides a wonderful litany of the order of creation in praise of God the Creator beginning from the angels and the heavens, the sun and moon, the stars, the shower and dew, and, yes, even the frost and cold, even the ice and snow; in short, a litany of all of the forces of nature, before turning to the animal and human creation in its praise of God. It is a wonderful litany of praise that awakens us to the glory of God in the created order. Even more, it reminds us of the glory of God in human lives.

We sometimes forget that the sub-title of the Canticle is “The Song of the Three Children,” the song of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, to use their Hebrew names as distinct from their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their song is about courage in the face of persecution. King Nebuchadnezzar demands that the Hebrews fall down and worship him. As told in the Book of Daniel, this highlights the ego-centric nature of idolatry, which is essentially the worship of ourselves. They refuse and are thrown into the fiery furnace where they sing this song of praise. They are in the Book of Daniel joined by a fourth figure described as “like a son of the gods” which later Christian traditions will identify as Christ. Such is praise in the face of persecution. Now that is courage but as grounded upon an insight into the goodness of creation even in the face of human persecution and folly and even more about God’s power and truth being with us and in us.

We are called to the praise of God in spite of ourselves and regardless of the circumstances of our lives. There can be no greater counter to the forms of fearfulness in our culture than the praise of God. Like Paul, we learn to glory in the things which concern our infirmities rather than in being puffed up about ourselves. Why? Because the grace of God is made known even through our weaknesses. Our strength is in him and not in ourselves; that is itself a kind of prudence or wisdom. The Collect reminds us that God “seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do.” Our trust is in God. Humility perfects both courage and prudence.