Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity
“Friend, go up higher”
Spatial metaphors abound in the Scriptures. “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho” or “We go up to Jerusalem”, to take but two familiar examples, the one from the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the other from Quinquagesima Sunday just before Lent. The meaning of our comings and goings are captured in these metaphors; they are about the ups and downs of our lives but, even more, they are images about the nature of our relationship with God and with one another; in short, they are about sin and grace, about death and resurrection.
The Scriptural readings for today emphasize our identity in Christ. His grace defines us and in very dynamic ways. The Collect bids us pray to God that his grace “may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works.” Prevent here does not mean ‘hinder’ or stand in our way; no, it is about the grace of God going before us and then, following or coming after us. The point, too, is that our good works are nothing but the effects of God’s grace in us. It is really all about God’s grace but that does not eclipse, destroy or deny the reality of our human nature; quite the opposite, it is about its perfection. To use a wonderful theological phrase from Aquinas, “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”
What is required of us? Humility. There can be no perfecting of our being, no going up higher, no being raised up to glory, without humility. In a way, it is the way of grace in us making us lovely where once we were unlovely. Religion cannot be about mere duty, checking off the boxes of all the forms of social and political correctness, as it were. It is radically and fundamentally about the transforming power of God’s grace. This is the powerful point of the parable which Jesus tells as the counter to the ways in which we trust in our own presumption about what is acceptable and proper, our own judgments about ourselves and others, which is really about our own pride. Pride cuts us off from God and one another. It often disguises itself in how we think and look at others, thinking ourselves invariably to be better than others and deserving of special attention.
Almighty God, by the faithful ministry of your bishop Theodore you bound up the wounds of the English Church and renewed its vigour in the works of peace. Teach us, we pray, the art of your healing grace, that we may know the true balm and remedy for the divisions which afflict your Church; through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
