Category: Sermons

“Nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net”

It is, to my mind, a powerful picture and an enchanting scene. Jesus sits down in a boat which he uses as a pulpit for teaching those that “pressed upon him to hear the word of God,” then bids Simon to “launch out into the deep and to let down [the] nets.” There is the intriguing response of Simon Peter. “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.” It captures a marvelous moment and one which speaks to the existential despair of our age as well as providing the exact counter to our sense of futility and hopelessness.

What follows is equally marvelous. Having let down their nets, “they inclosed a great number of fishes, and their net brake.” Another ship is beckoned to come to their aid and yet the catch is so overwhelming that it “fill[s] both the ships, so that they began to sink.” It is a great marvel and it sparks a further response from Simon Peter: “depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” to which Jesus replies, “fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” We are very much in the presence of God, it seems. The story marks Luke’s account of the call to discipleship of Simon Peter and the others.

In God’s Providence, this Gospel story read on The Fifth Sunday after Trinity coincides with Petertide, the Church’s celebration of St. Peter and St. Paul, the twin pillars and princes, we might say, of the Apostolic Church, so outstanding and so incalculable is their witness. Their joint commemoration is a kind of accident of history, on the one hand, and the providence of God, on the other hand, having to do with the coming together of their bodies to a common place of burial in the sixth century, long after their martyrdoms in Rome. Yet there is something fitting about their being commemorated together. It speaks to the truth and unity of the Church’s mission and life.

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“And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest:
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways”

The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist falls immediately after the Summer Solstice, the longest day and the shortest night of nature’s year, and points us to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and the longest night of nature’s year, that falls just before the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. The interplay of natural and spiritual themes is an intriguing feature of the Christian religion and speaks to a number of other interactions as well, not least between prophecy and fulfillment. The whole significance of John the Baptist lies in his mission. He is sent to prepare the way of the Lord, the way of God’s being with us in the intimacy of the humanity of Jesus Christ.

We are, I suspect, at once very leery and all too gullible about signs and portents; quick to jump to conclusions about the coincidence of events in our own lives, claiming some special blessing from God, but much more reluctant to acknowledge the same reality in the experience of others. It is, I suppose, a feature of our age: insecure in our narcissism, and skeptical, if not altogether suspicious, about others. Yet the story of John the Baptist is a major part of the New Testament witness. The child of an older woman, Elizabeth, thought to be long past the age of child-bearing, and of an old priest, Zechariah, who is rendered dumb for challenging the very idea of the birth of a child in their dotage, John the Baptist’s birth itself is a kind of preparation and foretelling of the birth and ministry of Christ. In a way, that is the whole point. Summer points to winter only to open us out to the eternity of God’s good will and purpose for our humanity and for our world in the Christ who comes into our world.

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“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful.”

Known as the Mercy Gospel, this gospel passage has been read for centuries on this day. Paradoxically, it seems to me, the mercy lies in the realization that we are all hypocrites! The parable Jesus tells is precisely about that. And yet, this is the good news!

The text about the blind leading the blind has become a commonplace in our world; we are quick to use it in relation to political and institutional leadership, but we forget that we are included in its range. The blind who are the leaders lead the blind who are the followers. In other words, this parable forecloses on our tendencies to judge and condemn one another as if we stood upon some superior platform. Quite the opposite, the parable goes on to suggest.

“Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.” This is a devastating reality check. We are utterly blind about ourselves. I love the language of beam and mote; more modern translations of log and speck just don’t have the same resonance. Think of the massive oak beams of this Church and, then, think of the tiny dust motes dancing in the morning light and you begin to get a sense of the contrast and the problem. And so, what is to be done?

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“Rejoice with me”

Humility is the condition of our rejoicing, the condition of our redemption in Christ. Luke presents us with a very powerful message about the nature of humility as the counter to human pride and about the divine redemption of our humanity. The context is animosity and hostility. Tax Collectors and sinners, the despised and the outcast of the world, draw near to Jesus; Pharisees and Scribes, religious leaders, murmur in contempt because of the company which he keeps. They are scandalised. Doesn’t he know with whom he is associating? How can he be a true religious teacher? Jesus response is revelatory and transforming. He tells two parables; actually, three. We have in today’s reading two of the three, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. The third parable is the tremendous parable of the prodigal son.

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke comprises these three parables, each told in sequence. It is a most powerful illustration of the message about redemption and humility. Humility is the counter to our pride which pretends to our self-sufficiency, on the one hand, and our self-centredness, on the other hand. Either we have it all and need nothing outside ourselves or we presume to think that we deserve what we presently don’t have but desire. The gospel of humility is the counter to our pride.

The lost sheep, the lost coin. What do they teach us? Simply this. They teach us the humility of God which is given to shape our souls in the love of Christ. The lost sheep is precious; the lost coin is precious. The shepherd and the woman seek diligently – lovingly – for the one that is lost. Without them the community is incomplete; our humanity less than itself. God seeks the lost. In him we are found.

The third parable captures most fully the dynamic of grace at work in bringing us home to ourselves. We cannot read these two parables without being aware of the third – or at least we shouldn’t. It is the parable of the lost son or the prodigal son.

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“If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart”

The Gospel is Christ’s parable about the kingdom of God being likened to a great supper to which those who were invited all made excuse. The Epistle speaks about our hearts in relation to the truth of God revealed.

We are the ones who are invited to a great supper. Our churches stand as the banquet halls of the kingdom of God. “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” we may say, as, indeed, did “one of them that sat at meat with Jesus.” Why, then, does Jesus tell this parable to one who was at meat with him about a great supper to which many were invited and yet no one who was bidden came? To make him and all of us realize the nature of our blessedness. It is found in our being with Jesus.

The point of the parable is clear. “Come, for all things are now ready,” we hear. God provides so much and more for us. But, more often than not, it is we who are unready and all because of our excuses. We turn to our own ways, to the ground, quite literally, and to the ways of dust and death. We ignore the vision and refuse the invitation.

The consequence would seem to mean “no feast” and all because of our refusals of God’s inviting grace, as if our convenience and self-interest were to take priority over God’s will. But our preoccupations and our indifference are simply the forms of our atheism, our denial of the will of God for us. No feast for us because there is no God for us. We are unaware of the wonder of grace.

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“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them”
& “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

A double text to capture two themes. Do we act out of what we have been given to see? Or do we demand that God be accountable to us? To act out of what we have been to see is captured in the first text, “if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them”; the other text expresses the vehemence of our hostility against God, “what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

We are confronted with the challenge and the refusal. There is the challenge to act out of what we have been given to see of the majesty of God and our blessedness, the divine charity that shapes our lives into holiness. Such is the vision of the Trinity. “Behold, a door was opened in heaven” and we are invited to enter into that vision through the charity of God alive in us. But then, there is our refusal to will that order and truth, preferring, instead, the vanity of ourselves that blinds us to the real needs and even the presence of others. We ignore Lazarus at our feet. He is the image of our wounded and broken humanity, the humanity which God restores but which man ignores. What has he to do with us? we may ask. But in so neglecting Lazarus we are really saying, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

The readings at the Eucharist order our understanding of all the other lessons of this day. The point, too, is very simple. The love that is shown is the love that is to be lived. (more…)

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“If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

Do we act out of what we have been given to see? “Behold, a door was opened in heaven,” we heard on Trinity Sunday. We are invited to enter into that vision through the charity of God alive in us. Against that stand our stubborn refusals to will that order and truth, preferring, instead, the vanity of ourselves that blinds us to the real needs and even the presence of others. We ignore Lazarus at our feet. Lazarus is the image of our wounded and broken humanity which God restores and man ignores. What has he to do with us, we may ask. But in so neglecting Lazarus, the parable suggests, we are neglecting God. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

The lesson is very simple: the love that is shown is the love that is to be lived. The Epistle teaches us that love is of God because God is love. That love is manifested in Jesus Christ so that we might live in love through him. The only question is whether we will live the vision. The Epistle sounds the theme and the Gospel gives the crucial illustration through a parable about our relationship to the vision of God revealed. The Epistle is John’s treatise about that love. The Gospel is the powerful story of the Rich Man (Dives) and Lazarus.

What does it come down to? Simply this. The love of God compels us to love one another. This is not a may-be, but a must-be for our salvation. We are commanded and compelled to love out of the vision of love which has been shown to us. (more…)

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