Can We Serve Two Masters?

Sermon 4th Sunday after Pentecost

Rom 6:18–23, Matt 8:5–13, 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST !!

   Jesus  reminded us last week: No man can serve two masters. This week St. Paul reminds us the same thing thing. We must choose what we will serve. We can be estranged from righteousness and subject to our passions, or we can bring ourselves to God and work with Him to free us from our passions and live a righteous life. And when we say “righteous life” we don’t mean that we don’t do this sin or that sin, Paul means that we are in a covenant relationship with God. 

   As both Jesus and Paul tell us, we must choose our slavery . . . We can be enslaved to sin, passions. . . or we can choose to be a slave to righteousness, doing things God’s way. . . One way leads to death.. .the other to life.  God can free us from our slavery to the passions if we will work with Him in our relationship with Him, and with others. The result, the wages of sin is death. Notice that Life eternal is not a result of working, but is a free gift of God. God wants us to stop working for death. 

   And how can we labour to heal both ourselves and the others we meet? . . . with Love. It is God’s Love that heals us. And we are commanded to give Love of God both directly to Him, and through those we meet who are created in His Image, and love for ourselves who are also created in God’s Image. Most of us love parts of ourselves, and we loathe other parts of ourselves, just as we find certain people easy to love, and others difficult. 

   The Centurion comes to Jesus in humility. His house servant is very sick — too sick for him to bring to Jesus. This Centurion loves his servant, using terms of endearment for him. He also loves the Jewish faith; even though he is a gentile — we read in St. Luke’s account of this that he had contributed to the building of a Synagogue. 

   Jesus does something that He did not do for the others He met who were paralyzed; He volunteers to come to the Centurion’s house (a gentile) to heal his servant. Jews, especially rabbis did not generally go into the dwellings of gentiles. The Centurion, in humility, objects . . .I am not worthy that you should enter the roof of my house. . . say the word and my servant will be healed. 

   This is alluded to in St. John Chrysostom’s pre-communion prayer. “I am not worthy, Master and Lord that Thou shouldst enter under the roof of my soul; yet in-as-much as Thou desirest to live in me as the Lover of mankind, I approach with boldness. Thou hast commanded: Let the doors be opened which Thou alone hast made and Thou shalt enter with Thy love for mankind just as Thou art. . . .  

   The Centurion shows true humility — and in his humility shows faith greater than any in Israel. By his confession he recognizes that Jesus’ authority comes from the Father. It is likely that he did not appreciate the full implications of his request and certainty that Jesus could heal by His Word since He had such authority. And as a man who is both under authority and wields authority, the centurion understands obedience. 

   Humility is key. . . . The way is wide that leads to destruction. Enter the narrow way.

   In our country today we are working hard for death. We have many “other masters” screaming for our attention. We want to be comfortable — we want the latest toys. We want to be secure — we don’t like it when the order gets challenged. And sometimes the Order needs to be challenged, for the Order has a way of participating in the “principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual corruption” that St. Paul warns us against — for even if it is not killing us, it is killing others. On top of this, Abominations are happening daily: Abominations of abortion, abominations of forcibly removing children from their parents, of putting women, men, and children in dangerous conditions, ignoring our stewardship for the Planet God has given us; our cities are being damaged by those who love chaos; racism is actually popular among some, and those who justify racism are screaming their obscenities; desecration of holy places are being done by more than one flavour of extremists. All of these are abominations. One group seeks to justify the one sort of abominations; another group seeks to justify still another sort of  the abominations. All of them are abominations. Our nation is filled with hatred: hatred for the other, whether the other is someone from the other political camp, another race, or our own poor and hungry and homeless, or the stranger who comes to us. We are instructed to love all of these with a love that heals both them and ourselves. 

   Loving requires us to get to know the stranger; loving ourselves requires us to get to know ourselves. Both of these require us to look past our fears. To look past our fear means we must confront them in ourselves. We must move past our fears in order to love. We must move past our egos and conceits in order to love. The Centurion modeled humility, obedience, and love. 

Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas, of blessed memory, summarized it this way:

   The Christ preached by the Apostles was the Christ who gave Himself out of love for mankind. He is the One who receives all who come to Him in faith and humility, those who love Him. He is not moved to respond to our petitions because of some supposed worthiness on our part. Our accomplishments, position, wealth, and fame do not commend us to Him. Neither does our belonging to a particular race or nation, and neither does membership in His Church, if we make no effort to live in accordance with His will, have no faith or humility, think of ourselves as deserving His salvation, or think only of ourselves and never earnestly desire the well-being of others. 

   Christ is not impressed by our egos. He is impressed by humility, and faith, and love. And He bids us to labour to love our world as He loved it.

   Love is not always easy; but St. Paul said: it is a more excellent way. 

   To Him Who loved us, and gave Himself for us and our salvation be all glory honour and worship, together with His Father Who is without beginning, and His All-holy glorious and Life-Creating Spirit: now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. 

The Cost of defiling God’s Image in others

Last year in Charlottesville

 

It is the anniversary of a difficult weekend in our nation. When we see the events of this weekend last year, the natural thing is for us to get angry (not that our anger is natural, but that it is what we are thrown to feel), and then to feel helpless and frustrated. We see violence against the unarmed. We see the images of actions taken by hate-filled men, and know that where we can’t see, that someone died as a result of their action.

 

We see people saying that one race is better and that other races are less. Yet this is a denial of Creation; it is a denial of all of mankind being in God’s Image. Saints Peter and Paul both denounce this. Indeed the Council of Constantinople in 1872 condemns phyletism — any superiority based on race, nationality, or ethnicity. It is heresy. And the very word “superiority” is an abrogation of humility. Humility is the fundamental virtue; without it, no one will be saved. We must reject this appeal to lack of humility. It is not hyperbole to say that what is happening in our nation is demonic. And this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting.

 

If we quiet ourselves enough, we can notice that underneath the anger and frustration, is fear: Our own fear that our country is falling apart, The fear that drives others to commit such acts of hate against their fellow humans. If we were to read the portion from Galatians before the appointed epistle reading we would see the fullness of it: enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, rivalry, dissension, partisanship. . . . these are the works of the flesh — and we have seen much of that recently. It is hard to look at what has happened and respond with love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Yet this is the fruit of the Spirit.

 

Violence against any wounds all of us. The Spirit can heal our wounds — but we must be open to that healing. Jesus took our passions on Himself and nailed them with Himself to the cross. He bids us to come to Him with our passions and burdens and accept His burden instead of our own; for He is gentle and lowly in heart. (indeed gentleness is a pun for Christ in Greek) There we will find rest.

 

And He invites us to learn from Him. As He is humble and lowly, so He invites us to be humble and lowly . . . to lay our burden down — to take up His burden. Our burden is usually what our passions excite in us. For a time we enjoy that excitement; after a while what was exciting becomes tiresome, a drain, a burden.

 

Humility is very much lacking in our society. Yet this is exactly what Jesus is calling us to. Humility takes the sword and beats it to a plowshare, and then uses that plow to dig in to see what passions make our decisions for us. And thus exposed, our passions can be healed by our heavenly Physician. For from His fullness we receive grace upon grace.

 

God gives us the grace to bear the burden. Yet in a real sense, it is the grace bears us.

Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

It is the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. Time to look at Pride and humility. Time to get ready for that time that we spend getting ready.

So, . . a tax collector and a Pharisee walk into a temple. . .

The phrase that leaps out to me this year is a warning in the words of the Pharisee.

“O Lord, I thank Thee…” and words of madness, as we will hear St. Andrew declare to us in just a few weeks.

Who are those people for us? For the Pharisee it was the Publican

O Lord I thank Thee that I am not like that Publican.

Who do we hold as people we might thank God we are not like?

We could reverse it: “O Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like that Pharisee.”

We could find some person to look down on: “O Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like that homeless man.”

We could ascribe it to our enemies: “O Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like that bad person.”

We could choose a supervisor, a fellow-worker, a politician,

We can even choose a member of the clergy: “O Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like that priest/bishop/preacher/deacon.”

Whoever we pick, it is pride, deadly pride.

For whatever person we might choose, we have to own that the very things that annoy us to no end are in someway within us, and we are just as capable of doing and being that person we may thank God we are not.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.