Category: Sermons

“Thy faith hath made thee whole”

Today’s Gospel is the quintessential thanksgiving Gospel. It is appointed for Thanksgiving Day as embracing both the idea of harvest thanksgiving and national thanksgiving, the idea of giving thanks for our rational and political freedoms, however much in disarray. The Gospel story is especially powerful and complements the paradoxes of the Epistle reading from Galatians which continues the theme of our living and walking in the Spirit, bidding us, on the one hand, to “bear ye one another’s burdens,” and, on the other hand, to bear our own burdens.

In bearing one another’s burdens we are bearing our own as well. How? Because we are social, spiritual and intellectual creatures in and through our life with one another. We don’t live in isolation from one another. To be human means our connection and life with each other. But how and in what way?  These readings, like so many of the Scripture readings of the Trinity season, point us to the truth of our humanity as lived in a sacramental and social community. They speak to us about becoming and being whole.

Our text in the Prayer Book is from the King James Version which preserves Tyndale’s translation about being made whole. Wycliffe in his 14th century translation renders it as “thy faith hath made thee safe.” More modern English translations adopt the idea that “your faith hath made you well” and a few use the somewhat more literal phrase, “your faith has saved you” and one gives us “healed and saved.” In truth the Greek word which carries over into the Latin salvum conveys a range of meetings over the centuries about being rescued, being kept safe, being preserved, and getting home with the idea of being where you belong and thus who you truly are. But it is this sense of wholeness that warrants our careful attention.

The story seems at first to highlight the one who turned back. There were ten who were lepers. All ten were healed by Jesus who bids them “go and show yourselves unto the priests.” As Luke puts it, “as they went, they were cleansed.” All ten. One of them, though, in seeing “that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice, glorified God, and fell down on his face at [Jesus’] feet, giving him thanks.” Luke adds to this the observation that the one who turned back “was a Samaritan.”

It is a most moving spectacle. Jesus comments on his action in contrast with the other nine, that only one “returned to give glory to God,” and calls him “this stranger.” Is the story then about the radical individual who stands out and away from others in splendid isolation? Is being saved merely personal? Or is this stranger, this Samaritan, like the “certain Samaritan” in last Sunday’s Gospel, precisely the one who shows us the truth of our humanity in our corporate, social and spiritual lives?

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“And who is my neighbour?”

There are five questions in today’s Gospel that shape our understanding of the familiar Parable of the (so‑called) Good Samaritan which illustrates the ethic of compassion. The questions belong to a deeper consideration of the radical meaning of this parable and its place in the ethical understanding that belongs not only to the interaction and connection between Judaism and Christianity but between the major religions and philosophies of the world. In other words, there is something profoundly universal communicated to us here through the idea of the law as grace and in the insistent point about the nature of our obligations towards one another in care and compassion.

Thus this Gospel highlights the idea that we are primarily and essentially social, spiritual, and intellectual beings whose lives are bound up with one another in an ethical community. In this sense, it counters the reigning ideology of our times which assumes the self-completeness of the radically autonomous individual and which leads inescapably to the technocratic mastery of anything human or non-human that would limit the negative freedom that such autonomy assumes.

The first four questions belong to the setting of the scene for the parable; the fifth belongs to its conclusion. Two of the questions are raised by “a certain lawyer;” the other three are the questions of Jesus. The whole passage assists us in the understanding of what Paul means by “walk[ing] in the Spirit” and as not being “under the law.” This is challenging since the parable illustrates precisely the meaning of the law as primary, as a given good. The point, I think, is that the law in so far as it speaks to the reality or the nature or the form of our humanity embodies our freedom and dignity and is not simply a constraint. Such is the ethical wisdom of the teachings of the sister religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and of the Hindu teaching about ‘dharma’, of the eightfold path in Buddhism, and of the concepts of ‘ren’ and ‘li’ in Confucianism, for instance, and in accord with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle as well, albeit in very different registers of meaning and approach. It has, in general terms, to do with a life lived in accord with reason, a reason that belongs to the order of the cosmos and the human community through which individuals find their fulfillment. That order is not simply a human construct but depends upon an abiding principle, something divine, which informs our humanity. Such is the concentrated wisdom in this Gospel.

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“Ephphatha,that is, be opened”

Are hearing and seeing merely passive senses? If so then what does that mean in terms of the activity of thought? Something seen is received by the eye; something heard is received by the ear. This suggests an activity, the activity of seeing and the activity of hearing.

What is seen and heard are there for the understanding. There is something communicated, the meaning of which we enter into through the profound activity of understanding. There is an acting upon what has been received. It is not just words which are heard or something which is seen that is received. What the words signify, what the vision reveals, is given to be understood. As Paul puts it, “the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life.” Such is the spirit of understanding.

Our understanding is our wrestling with the significance of things. It is a profoundly spiritual activity. It speaks to who we are in the sight of God – those to whom God reveals himself and into whose presence he gathers us. Hearing and seeing, as the senses of understanding, are the ‘intellectual senses.’ They signify an acting upon what is received. There is a similar double-sidedness to our “being opened”.

In the Gospel for today, “they bring unto [Jesus] one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech.” They beseech the healing touch of Jesus upon the one that is deaf and at least impeded in his speech to the point that others must speak for him. There is, in response, the putting of his fingers into his ears, a spitting upon the ground, the touching of his tongue – all outward, tangible and physical acts – but, as well, there is Jesus’ “looking up to heaven,” his sighing and his saying unto him “Ephphatha, be opened.” There is, in short, a healing: “and straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”

As with all the healing miracles of the gospels, they signify the restoration of our humanity. What is wanted is not the deformity of our being but its constant progress towards perfection. What is wanted is our being made totally and completely adequate to the truth of God; in short, our being opened to God signals our willingness to do what God wills for us. The project of the Trinity season is the constant process of being transformed more and more into who we are in Christ through our being opened to his grace and glory.

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“But some are fallen asleep”

In complete contrast to the Pharisee,” the Publican, standing afar off,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel parable, “would not lift up so much his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” God has only sinners to send to sinners to proclaim the great good news of human redemption in Christ. Some of you heard me say that though I doubt you remember. Today is the 23rd anniversary of my being among you and that was part of my first sermon here at Christ Church on August 15th, 1998. To be sure, I can hardly remember either! The fact that it is our granddaughter Anna’s birthday is, perhaps, much more memorable.

But that aside, there is a wonderful paradox and contradiction that confronts us in today’s readings and their conjunction with an intriguing and important theological and pastoral commemoration. August 15th marks the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, which in the Prayer Book calendar is referred to as The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a literal translation of the Greek κοιμνσις and the Latin dormition but which also became known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine of the Assumption became Roman Catholic dogma as late as 1950. Yet the underlying idea is about the crucial role of Mary and that has strong support among Anglican and Protestant theologians.

The great paradox lies in this. In the Epistle, Paul repeatedly makes reference to things in the life of Christ “according to the Scriptures;” the phrase is used explicitly twice and alluded to at least twice more. It becomes an important doctrinal and creedal point captured in the idea that essential faith depends entirely on that which can only be proved by the received witness of the Scriptures. Yet the dogma of the Assumption of Mary has absolutely no scriptural ground or base whatsoever.

Nonetheless, it belongs to a profound creedal reflection on the role and place of Mary in the working out of human redemption. But because it has no explicit scriptural attestation, it cannot be required to be believed in our Anglican and Protestant understanding.

I want to probe the deeper connection between Mary’s Assumption or Dormition or Falling Asleep, to refer to its various terms, and the nature of our pilgrimage in faith in the Trinity season. Today’s readings provide an interesting complement to the place of Mary in the work of human redemption. The idea is that “where Christ is there shall we be also.” Such is the deep meaning of the “grace which has been bestowed upon [us],” realised most fully in Mary, “full of grace.” Such is the deep truth of her commemoration on this day.

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“No-one can say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit”

“No-one can say JESUS IS LORD but by the Holy Spirit.” It is the earliest creedal statement from within the Scriptures themselves, wonderfully and significantly highlighted by being passed on down to us in capital letters (though many of the earliest manuscripts were all in majuscules – capital letters). It is a Trinitarian statement really, the nucleus of what we proclaim more fully in the great Catholic Creeds of the Church which come out of the Scriptures and which return us to the Scriptures within a way of understanding. Such clarifying proclamations give shape to our lives in grace. “Concerning spiritual gifts … I would not have you ignorant,” says St. Paul. “Now there are diversities of gifts,” and he goes on to list them. They are gifts which arise, as it were, out of this fundamental proclamation – out of what we have been given to say about God by God himself. “No one can say JESUS IS LORD but by the Holy Spirit.”

The diversity of gifts belongs to our life with God in the communion of God – the Trinity. The different gifts are about his grace in our lives; in short, about the divine unity which is the ground of all true diversity. To esteem them is to honour him. This is something communicated to us by the grace of God with us – Jesus Christ – God’s Word and Son. To confess Jesus as Lord acknowledges him as “I am who I am,” as God with us, God in the very flesh of our humanity, God made man. Only so can he be Lord. In Jesus the Old Testament mystery of God’s name – “I AM WHO I AM” (also in capital letters!) is opened to view, explored and explicated in terms of the spiritual relation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost  and in the forms of our incorporation into that divine life through Jesus as way, truth, life, light, resurrection, door, shepherd, bread, and vine. God’s relation to us radically depends upon his self-relation, upon the communion of God with God in God, the communion of the Trinity.

This is the burden of our proclamation in which we are privileged to participate. For if we cannot proclaim with clarity the God of our salvation, then we cannot participate with charity in the divine life which has been opened to view through the sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

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“These things were our examples”

The Calendar in the Canadian Prayer Book designates August 1st as Lammas Day and as the commemoration of The Maccabean Martyrs. In doing so, it looks back to the calendars of festivals and commemorations of the European medieval developments particularly in their Anglo-Saxon form and the way they have been recalled at different times. St. Peter in the Chains was a third commemoration on August 1st as well,  looking back to the story of Peter in Acts being freed from his chains by an angel while in prison and to the subsequent building of a Cathedral in Rome dedicated to the breaking of his chains in the fifth century. The concept contributes to the centrality of Peter, the Petrine primacy, as it came to be asserted in Rome. It is, perhaps, no surprise that such a commemoration did not continue on in England post-reformation. But what about Lammas Day and The Maccabean Martyrs?

Lammas Day is associated with the harvest. It is one of the four ‘cross-quarter’ days which have to do with a profound sensibility about our connection to creation understood in terms of the celestial and the terrestrial, the heavenly and the earthly, captured artistically and arrestingly, for instance, in the many windows and sculpted stone work of the medieval churches and cathedrals of Europe that depict the labours of the months along with the signs of the zodiac. Such images place human labour in the world as ordered to God and as a form of participation in the life of God; something which we have largely lost in our technocratic world which presumes the mastery of human and non-human nature at the expense of both. August 1st is more or less halfway between the summer solstice and the fall equinox; likewise, November 1st stands half-way between the fall equinox and the winter solstice; February 2nd or Candlemas roughly half-way between that and the spring equinox; May 1st, May Day, between that and the summer solstice. Such things are reminders of the patterns of nature’s year and what that means for human life seen in terms of the created order.

In one of the wonderful stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral in north central France, August is associated with the labour of the threshing of the grain or wheat. July’s labour was the harvesting of the wheat; August marks the threshing of the wheat leading to its being transformed into bread; September marks the harvesting of grapes. Lammas derives from Old English, hlaf, loaf, and, maesse, mass, hence loaf-mass; it marks the first harvest and its fruit, as it were. The term, mass, in loaf-mass ties it to the Christian theme of our sacramental participation in the fruits of Christ’s redemptive work as suggested in today’s Epistle.

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“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem”

Providentially, The Eighth Sunday after Trinity coincides this year with The Feast of St. James the Apostle. The connecting link is the idea of the Resurrection and the forms of our participation in the redemptive work and life of Christ as the pilgrimage of our souls. The Saints remind us that glorification is intimately intertwined with the concepts of justification and sanctification. St. James, in particular, reminds us of our life in pilgrimage. He is the great saint of pilgrimage which, simply put, is about going up to Jerusalem.

St. James, too, is a Maritime saint. There are so many, many churches in the Maritimes dedicated to the honour and memory of St. James, sometimes more than one in the same community! St. James is one of the disciples whom Jesus calls from fishing to become a fisher of men, as we heard on The Fifth Sunday after Trinity. St. James speaks to our Maritime sea-faring traditions. The Collect alludes to his calling even as the Lesson from Acts points to its radical cost. James is put to death by Herod the king. The Gospel teaches the meaning of that calling. It has altogether to do with our going up to Jerusalem with Jesus. We know this from Quinquagesima Sunday in the preparation for Lent in the Gospel reading, there from Matthew and now here from Mark. It points to the radical meaning of Christian pilgrimage as a form of witness or martyrdom, highlighting the connection between justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Going up to Jerusalem, as Jesus explains, means his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. The Saints show that this means our participation in Christ’s redemption of our humanity: drinking of the cup of which Christ drinks; being baptized into Christ’s baptism. We are consecrated to God by virtue of our incorporation into the death and resurrection of Christ. Suffering and glory are all part of that story.  As Paul tells us in the Epistle for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity, “we have received a spirit of sonship.” We are “the children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.” But only “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.” The martyr saints remind us of the suffering and the glory.

To be a martyr means to bear witness. The Saints are more than heroes and more than mere role models. What defines them and what is meant to define us is the calling or vocation which we share with them. What moves in them is the redemptive life of Christ made visible in them. They have found their wills in the will of Christ. It is “not I but Christ who lives in me;” that has to be the constant theme and struggle of Christian witness. It cannot be about calling attention to ourselves. It is not “look at me looking at you looking at me,” the culture of narcissistic self-obsession. It is “look to Jesus.” See Jesus and see yourself in him. This is the point of the liturgy – seeing ourselves and one another in Christ and being with one another in Christ.

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“I have compassion on the multitude”

It must seem strange in the sultry heat of the quiet summer and in the lush richness of nature’s bounty in the beauty of the valley, to hear about sin and death and about being in the wilderness with nothing to eat, even given the endless shadows of COVID-19 and the sense of outrage in the culture against the churches.

But this is to lose sight of the guiding wisdom of the Spirit in the Scripture readings in terms of the balance and interplay between the theological themes of justification and sanctification which ultimately speak profoundly to our current distresses.

Sanctification is about our taking ahold of the redemptive work of Christ’s justifying grace; it is the active reception of what has been given. This Sunday’s readings highlight this idea in terms of our lives sacramentally which is nothing less than our living in the love of God.

They open out to us things that we need to hear, things which have to do with a larger, more complete, and more honest view of human life  and in its relation to the natural world of which we are an integral part. Ultimately, it is about life with God in Jesus Christ, something of lasting worth and meaning in which we participate here and now. To put it more simply, there is a spiritual and scriptural wisdom here which challenges the complacencies and certainties of our ordinary lives. Ours is the culture, to some extent, of full bellies and empty souls, notwithstanding the grotesque inequalities of wealth in the global world where famine and poverty still rule. The greater question is about what it means to be human. The spiritual and biblical view of orthodox Christianity suggests that it has altogether to do with the dynamic of our life with God. And that is wonderfully illustrated for us in the Collect, Epistle and Gospel for today.

“The free gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ,” St. Paul tells us. “I have compassion on the multitude,” Jesus says. These are the strong positives of our spiritual life that speak to the human condition, “in times of adversity and prosperity,” we might say (echoing the marriage service). They are profoundly suggestive of the dynamic of that spiritual life expressed sacramentally in terms of baptism, on the one hand, and holy communion, on the other hand. Baptism is about nothing less than our personal and individual incorporation into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “being made free from sin and become servants to God” and to what further end? That we may have our “fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” This we cannot earn and do not deserve. It is not something to which we are entitled. It is, precisely, “the free gift of God.” Yet, it is meant to be lived. If we have the beginning of our spiritual life personally and individually in baptism, then we have the continuation and growth of that spiritual life in us through holy communion and by its extension into our lives.

In a way, it is as simple as that. And as hard. Why? Because we have to think it and will it. We cannot take it for granted or assume that we deserve anything that is good.

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“Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you,
and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man!”

Today’s Gospel ends where the Gospel from two Sundays ago began. “Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” Both Gospel readings belong to Luke’s account of what is known as Christ’s Sermon on the Plain, a remarkable set of ethical teachings, some of which are utterly unparalleled in the Scriptures and are particularly challenging.

Perhaps, there is nothing more challenging than Christ’s commandment to “love your enemies” and to “do good to those who hate you,” words which mark the beginning of today’s Gospel. You did not hear in that reading that “blessed are you when men hate you,” but those are words which are part of this remarkable sermon. In between this text and the demand to love your enemies are four unique statements by Jesus, four ‘woes’ which complement the four ‘blessednesses’ or beatitudes in Luke’s account. “Woe to you that are rich for you have received your consolation (in the sense of getting what you called for or sought); woe to you that are full or satisfied for you shall hunger; woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep; and finally, woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” These call into question how we define ourselves in relation to others: as rich, as self-satisfied, as self-content, as highly regarded in the eyes of others; in short, how we compare ourselves to others and how we want to be seen by others. These ‘woes’ precede today’s Gospel reading which is in effect a kind of commentary on the blessings and woes that Luke records.

As commentary, it complements as well the Epistle reading about the radical nature of baptism not simply as rite but as the symbolic and sacramental reality of our life in Christ. Baptized into Jesus Christ means baptized into his death without which we are not alive. “If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him,” “be[ing] dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Powerful statements which belong to the equally powerful demands of the Gospel about loving those who hate us, loving those who are our enemies; in effect, saying that this may actually be a blessing. But how do we make any sense of this? It seems so completely impossible and so completely counter to our experiences.

In truth, these words belong very much to the confusions of our age and to the empty rhetoric of apology. The American writer and social, gender, and racial activist, Roxane Gay, rightly notes a feature of our contemporary world in which, as she puts it, we have made “a fetish of forgiveness”. In other words, we talk the talk but that doesn’t mean we walk the walk, if you will ‘forgive’ the cliché. There are important questions about what exactly is apology and by whom is it made, to whom, and for what. What does it mean to apologize for the sins of others, for instance, (about which some have made a particular fetish)? We may regret any number of things which have happened in the past but that is not the same as apologizing for our own thoughts and actions and their consequences, nor is it the same thing as repenting.

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