Christ Church

“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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