sermon from the 12th sunday after pentecost, august 19 2007

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“I came to cast fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled!”

Our Lord begins today’s gospel reading with a difficult saying. “I came to cast fire on the earth.” And, as though to reinforce the point, he follows it up with yet another difficult saying: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

These sayings rank up there among those we are least open to hearing. We like to think of the Lord as the “Prince of Peace.” And indeed it IS much easier to think of Jesus as the harbinger of the social ethics of the 1960’s. We want him to be all about love, and peace, and equality. In this country, among the more affluent and educated, Jesus and his teachings are associated vaguely with sandals and rainbows and a kind of charming rusticity that conciliates our desire for a world where people can muster enough indifference to leave one another alone.

But: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! …. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”

These sayings should wake us up a little bit. We SHOULD be unsettled by them. In Matthew the Lord is even more emphatic: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;” he says: “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” And John the Baptist, prophesying about the coming Messiah, said “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.” And again, in St. John’s gospel, the Lord says “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”

What is the Lord talking about? What are all the axes and swords and fire and judgment and division that he seems to be saying are some essential part of his purpose in coming into the world? The answer, I believe, is this: Christ came into the world to establish a radical society wherein GOD REIGNS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN. Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” And this, as we saw last week, is constitutive of his proclamation of the KINGDOM… the REIGN of God. And it is THIS that causes division, because when the Lord calls us into the Kingdom, he is calling us into this radical new society where God’s will is done… he’s calling us OUT OF our home culture where anything but God reigns supreme. This is a violent process that meets with resistance, both within our hearts, as well as resistance from those around us who are still firmly entrenched in telluric culture. Being a disciple of the Lord means embracing a WHOLE NEW WAY OF THINKING, a radical re-ordering of priorities and commitments.

And so “henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three” and “a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (Mat. 10.34).

God is not a fairy godmother. He can’t just plink us instantaneously into the Kingdom, into accord with his will. Rather: he CALLS US OUT. And as you begin to answer his call, the GRUNT WORK OF SALVATION begins: the axe gets laid to the root – and as you begin to acquire ears capable of REALLY hearing the Word of God, you find his Word “sharper than any two-edged sword,” you find it piercing to the division of soul and spirit, [and] joints and marrow,” you find it discerning your thoughts and the intentions of your heart. You will sit down to read the Scriptures and you will find the Scriptures reading you. And its painful. Its convicting. It burns.

But as those things attaching you to the world and the flesh are cut away and burnt, you feel yourself growing lighter, and the forces at war within your soul inclining you first earthward and then toward heaven pass a kind of equilibrium. You begin to catch fleeting glimpses of uncreated light, and to taste the infinite sweetness of the Lord, you feel yourself beginning to rise.

This is the PROCESS of salvation. Some people think that you can just be zapped by God and be done with it. [“Are you saved?”] They’re wrong. Salvation is a lifelong race that must be run. Its a war that must be waged. St. Paul said “Salvation is NEARER to us now than when we first believed” [Rom. 13.11], for the same reason that “salvation is far from the wicked” [Psalm 119.155] who “do not seek” the statutes of God, who have no interest in allowing God to reign in their hearts.

This process of salvation is precisely what is described in today’s reading from Hebrews: “Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us RUN with PERSEVERANCE the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In our STRUGGLE against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of SHEDDING YOUR BLOOD…. It is for DISCIPLINE that you have to endure. [For] God is treating you AS SONS…”

But if its so difficult and painful, what’s the point? I thought living the Gospel was supposed to make things BETTER, not more difficult!

God desires to reign in our hearts because he desires to share himself with us, because he knows that HE is the object of our most profound longings. We all want to be happy. We all want to be at peace. But we seek happiness and peace in the acquisition of STUFF, or in the gratification of sensual desire, or in disordered relationships – and ANY human relationship is disordered if it is not engaged within the context of God’s sovereignty. I’m not just talking about sexual relationships, or even primarily about sexual relationships, but economic relationships, the relationship between parents and children, how you treat the girl behind the cash register at Starbucks. We seek fulfillment and happiness and peace in a MILLION ways from these sources: the acquisition of STUFF, the gratification of carnal desires, and in disordered relationships with other people. But we won’t find fulfillment there. We won’t find happiness, we’ll never be at peace.

God knows that HE is our ONLY ultimate satisfaction. It is a misplaced desire for HIM that leads us wandering through life looking for peace and happiness and fulfillment in a million ways from the things and the people around us… anywhere but in God. But God knows you, and he knows me. God said “BEFORE I formed you in the womb, I knew you” [Jer. 1.5]. He knows us better than we know ourselves, because he MADE us… and he knows that he alone can satisfy the unquenched thirst at the bottom of every human life. And so he calls us out of our firm situatedness in the world. And getting unstuck can be a very painful process. He knocks at the door of our heart, and if we open to him, he begins to come in, and to displace those things we never thought we could live without – until one day we find ourselves feeding only on Him… the existential hunger that would have killed us is satisfied, the darkness has given way to the light, and God is all in all. This is the great vision of the Kingdom from the Apocalypse of St. John: “And [that] city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Let us pray.

Lord renew in each of our hearts the process of Salvation. Open our hearts to you. Draw us gently to your presence. Correct us not in your anger, but let us know the saving power of your love and mercy. Give to each of our hearts a thirst for you, and fill us with your own Spirit.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

sermon for the 13th sunday after pentecost, august 5 2007

Luke 12.13-21

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Beware of all covetousness.”

In today’s Gospel lesson a man comes to the Savior out of the crowds with a seemingly benign request. In fact, its not only a perfectly REASONABLE request, but the man is asking for justice and equity. He’s asking for GOOD THINGS. “Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.”

These kinds of family squabbles can be unbelievably nasty. Its not unusual for them to ruin relationships between siblings or even between parents and children.

What could be more reasonable? “Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.” This fellow only wants what is rightfully his. His brother is the villain in this situation. His brother has taken everything for himself, and so this poor man comes to the Lord, thinking Jesus to be a man of justice and equity and fairness, and he appeals to him for a just judgment about what rightfully belongs to him. He’s not asking the Lord for a new car, or a million dollars, or even to be cured of a disease. He’s been cheated out of something and he wants it restored.

The Lord’s reply is therefore a little surprising. “Take heed, and beware of all covetousness.” Hold on a minute. What covetousness? How can you COVET something that is YOURS to begin with? Surely the Lord means something else. Surely the man was harboring some malignant attitude to which the Lord, in his omniscience, was privy. But no. What the poor man doesn’t undertand, and what WE often misunderstand is that the Lord is NOT a man of justice and equity – at least not the way we think of justice and equity. The Lord is a man of LOVE. He IS actually saying you can covet what is yours according to the world’s standards of justice and equity, and he tells a parable to drive the point home.

The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. You may now retire. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.

So what’s the problem? This guy is perfectly within his rights. The problem lies in what the man in the parable says to his own soul: “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.” To which God answers: “You fool! This night you soul is required of you.” The problem is that you cannot ascend to heaven if your soul is attached to earth and to the things of the earth. And it doesn’t matter in the end whether you’re attached to what is rightfully yours or rightfully someone else’s.

“Take heed and beware of ALL covetousness.”

Beware of ANY attachment to this world. Be ready to leave it all behind, because some day you will HAVE TO. This is why so many men and women down through the ages in the Church have given everything to the poor and fled to the desert. This too is why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. This is why we must DIE TO THE WORLD – why we must live as though we could die at any moment. We must be ready to drop EVERYTHING and GO.

Beware of all covetousness.

In his book about heaven and hell, The Great Divorce, CS Lewis writes about a man who is allowed to visit heaven from hell. On arriving, he’s offended to see someone he knew in life who had been a murderer and is now among the Blessed. The man from hell is free to stay in heaven if he wishes, but he is too offended by the presence of a murderer, and too obsessed about what he believes are his own rights. Lewis writes:

'Look at me, now,' said the Ghost, slapping its chest (but the slap made no noise). 'I gone straight all my life. I don't say I was a religious man and I don't say I had no faults, far from it. But I done my best all my life, see? I done my best by everyone, that's the sort of chap I was. I never asked for anything that wasn't mine by rights. If I wanted a drink I paid for it and if I took my wages I done my job, see? That's the sort I was and I don't care who knows it.'

[The murderer who had been saved says:] 'It would be much better not to go on about that now.'

'Who's going on? I'm not arguing. I'm just telling you the sort of chap I was, see? I'm asking for nothing but my rights. You may think that you can put me down because you're dressed up like that (which you weren't when you worked under me) and I'm only a poor man. But I got to have my rights same as you, see?'

'Oh no. It's not so bad as that. I havne't got my rights, or I [wouldn’t] be here. You [won’t] get yours either. You'll get something FAR better. Never fear.'

'That's just what I say. I haven't got my rights. I always done my best and I never done anything wrong. And what I don't see is why I should be put below a bloody murderer like you.'

'Who knows whether you will be? Only be happy and come with me.'

'What do you keep on arguing for? I'm only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity.'

'Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.'

The indignant man is never able to ask for the charity. He can only demand his rights. He refuses to ask for the “bleeding charity” which is all it would take to enter heaven, and instead he marches indignantly back to hell, protesting that he only wants his rights.

Beware ALL covetousness. For the Lord is not a man of justice and equity, as we have come to think of those words. He is a man of BLEEDING CHARITY – a man of LOVE.

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote about the difference between seeking justice and equity, on the one hand, and on the other hand seeking and exemplifying LOVE – the attitude of charity, of real LOVE. Kierkegaard wrote:

“The one who truly loves does not seek [what is] his own. With regard to his “own,” he knows nothing about the claims of strict law or of justice, not even the claims of equity; neither does he know anything about [the] exchange that erotic love makes, which also knows how to watch out lest it be tricked ([and] therefore knows how to watch out for [what is] its own)…. No, the one who TRULY loves knows how to do only one thing: how to be tricked, [how] to be deceived, [how] to give everything away without getting the least in return – see, this is what it is not to seek one’s own. Ah, the poor fool, what a laughingstock he is – in the eyes of the world! The truly loving person becomes the unconditionally INJURED one…. No ingratitude, no misjudgment, no unappreciated sacrifice, no mockery as thanks, NOTHING, neither things present nor things to come, is able to bring him sooner or later to understand that he has any MINE [whatsoever], or [to] make it appear that he had only FOR A MOMENT forgotten the distinction MINE and YOURS, because he has ETERNALLY forgotten this distinction and has ETERNALLY been conscious of loving sacrificially… of being sacrificed.”

Beware ALL covetousness. The Lord is not a man of justice and equity as we have come to think of those words. He is a man of BLEEDING CHARITY. A man of LOVE.

Let us pray.

Lord teach us to love you as you loved us. Teach us not to count the cost. Teach us to seek you for nothing but your sake. Teach us to pour out our lives to you and for you. Fill our hearts with your own loving sacrifice. Offer yourself on the altar of our hearts, and so give your love to us. Draw us ever closer to you in the bond of your love that seeks only to give itself. Free our hearts from being attached to anything that hinders us from your embrace. And deliver us from ALL covetousness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

here's what's coming up at holy cross

sermon from the 7th sunday after pentecost, july 15 2007

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead… But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion…”

The story of the Good Samaritan is one of the most famous of our Lord’s parables. It has been the subject of endless exhortations to compassion and kindness and love of neighbor. And that’s as it should be. For indeed the Lord elsewhere admonishes us to have compassion on those who suffer and want, because in so doing our acts of compassion actually find their object in HIM: Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

Compassion is a very good thing. Corporal works of mercy are very good things. We SHOULD feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, visit the sick, and bury the dead. And I am pleased to note that our parish is cognizant of the corporal works of mercy, and a good deal of our life as a community is in fact organized around doing these things. Just yesterday some of you were at the Austin Street Shelter doing precisely these things.

But there is more to the parable of the Good Samaritan, just as there is more to the Christian life. Last week we had a Baptism, and I talked a little about how in the liturgy of the Catholic Church, we see as it were the material creation cracked open and the divine light welling up through the cracks. When we set aside otherwise common, physical elements for the purposes of God, they convey to us by grace the goodness, beauty, and truth of God. They become sacraments and sacramentals. So water is no longer JUST water in Baptism, but the revelation of Grace, and the effecting of forgiveness of sins and rebirth in Christ. And the elements of the Mass are no more common bread and wine, buy by grace reveal to us the suffering and death of our Lord and apply his merits to our lives. At Mass, we stand mystically at the foot of the Cross, with our Lady and St. John.

The same thing happens with the TEXTS of God’s self-revelation, the Holy Scriptures. Some of you may know about the various LEVELS of interpretation about which the Church Fathers speak. Traditionally there are said to be three or our levels of truth in Scripture. At the uppermost level of meaning in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we can glean that it is ABOUT Jesus telling a story to a lawyer who had come to test him. On this historical / narrative level of meaning, the information conveyed in this text of Scripture is historical data, about what and where and when Jesus did and said what he did do and say.

Interest in this level of meaning is rampant in our culture. Its what the Jesus Seminar is all about, and its most of what they teach in seminaries. People interested only in this level of interpretation are constantly producing documentaries and books asking, and attempting to answer, questions “Who was Jesus REALLY?” or “Who is the historical Jesus?” And they tear apart the Gospels in an attempt to figure out whether Jesus was married, and to whom, and whether he spent his formative years in Tibet, and what was his favorite breakfast cereal. It is also interest in this level of meaning that generates works of fiction like The da Vinci Code.

But this kind of interest goes nowhere. It leads only to endless debates and to unanswered and unanswerable questions. This too is the level of meaning at which the debate between the creationists and the evolutionists takes place. To remain at this level, to be perfectly honest, is insufferably BORING.

The second level of interpretation is the MORAL level. And this is the kind of reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan that we have just undertaken. Its not just about what Jesus said and to whom he said it, and when, and so forth. But its also a message TO US about how WE SHOULD BEHAVE. Here the Bible becomes the WORD OF GOD, and its no longer simply by human authors on this level – the surface narrative cracks open ever so slightly, and divine light begins to glow: the Parable conveys truth FOR US, from the mind and heart of God. At this level we learn that we SHOULD have compassion for others – God teaches us something about what it is to love our neighbors. The text at this level takes on a hortatory or imperative character. It becomes NORMATIVE. We SHOULD help those who are suffering and afflicted, because Jesus told us to.

But we must not stop there. There’s more to biblical hermeneutics, and there’s more to this parable… and there’s more to the Christian life. Things get more interesting the deeper you go, and you find that there is a kind of causal connection that wells upward from the depths of the Scripture’s significance: the surface levels mean what they mean because of the deeper meanings. The third and fourth levels of interpretation are often called spiritual or anagogical or mystical levels. And these are the levels of the Bible’s most profound truths, where the Bible is most assuredly inerrant and infallible, and correct interpretations on these levels are usually concerned with our individual souls, and our relationship to Christ. This is where God speaks not just to US collectively, but to YOU and to ME individually, not just by means of generalized moral principles or some such, but by speaking to each of us in our particularity. At this level God’s heart calls to MY heart.

Whereas we are used to taking the parable of the Good Samaritan as hortatory dialogue about how to be neighborly and compassionate, at the ANAGOGICAL or SPIRITUAL level, this parable is about what Christ does FOR ME. Origen, for example, writing in the early 200’s, identifies CHRIST as the Good Samaritan, and ME as the one who was set upon by robbers. (We’re used to thinking of this parable as being about what WE SHOULD DO, identifying the Good Samaritan with our ideal selves, but the deeper meaning is about what CHRIST HAS DONE for us.) Christ is the Good Samaritan; I am the man set upon by robbers. The wounds are what I suffer through disobedience and sin, which have left me half dead. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho represents the in-between state where Christians live – somewhere between this world and Paradise. The Priest who comes along is the Law of the Old Testament, which does not help me in my half-dead condition, and the Levite stands for the Prophets. But the Good Samaritan is Christ, who comes and binds my wounds, and pours the oil and wine of his grace onto the wounds of my disobedience, and who carries me, placing me on his beast, which stands for his physical Body, which he assumed when he left Paradise and came to us on earth – the vehicle of the Incarnation. And the Lord picks me up and carries me to the Inn, which is the Church, where I may rest and become healed through living a sacramental life, learning to love God within the Church by keeping the precepts of the Gospel and the commandments of Christ, which the Church keeps and ministers to me. And there I stay, nourished within the Inn, at the expense of my Lord, who gives the two denarii, that is his Grace, to the Church on my behalf. And here I must stay until he returns – that is at the Second Coming. Here I must stay to continue the healing process that began when I first met the Lord on the road. Here, by the grace of God, I will be made healthy enough to meet him joyfully when he comes back.

This, I think, is the truest meaning of this parable. It seems truest to me because it resonates most with what I know of myself. Of course I know the moral level to be true as well: I should help others in need, and be compassionate. And I believe the historical data of this passage too: some two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth DID meet a lawyer, who DID ask him this question, and who DID receive this answer. But what’s truest yet is that I NEED HELP and HEALING, and that I’ve found it – or rather it has found me – in Christ. That I was half dead through disobedience – that I needed and I need the saving grace of Jesus Christ. I need him to CARRY me, to deposit me safely in the bosom of Holy Mother Church, and that HERE I will be healed, and made fit to meet him when he returns.

And this truest meaning of the parable, that I know in my heart to be about ME, sheds light on the moral meaning as well. I must be compassionate to the poor and the suffering because my Lord showed a compassion infinitely deeper FOR ME. And that I must now spend my life learning to be like him, for his sake, out of a heart full of thanksgiving, humility, and love.

Let us pray. Lord help us to know the healing power of your grace. Deliver us from the wounds we have suffered through disobedience. Carry us Lord to the Inn of your peace. Grant that we may abide there and find recuperation until you return. And teach us to be the ministers of your help and healing to those who suffer.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.