Sermon

And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering… And while he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” St. Luke ix. 28.

This past Friday we buried Ann’s sister, Jackie, who had died of Covid several weeks ago. It was a lovely graveside service conducted by their Baptist preacher who is a fine Christian and a man who obviously cares for his parishioners. But being a Catholic I could not forget that Friday was also the Feast of the Transfiguration, which is a Holy Day of Obligation. A Holy Day of Obligation is a time set apart by the Church to commemorate a major event in the life of our Lord or one of the many heroes of Church, like our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or one of the Apostles. John Casteen, the younger, the poet, has a wonderful line in one of his poems: “I owe a debt I don’t know how to repay.” That gets to what Holy Days of Obligation are about. Gratitude. Respect. Admiration. Maybe even bafflement — awe and love. When we find ourselves at the place where we “owe a debt we don’t know how to repay” we may have discovered the wonderful, God-given capacity to love and adore God — and maybe one another as well. The only thing left to do is to worship.

But let’s get back to the text. Our Lord feed the 5,000 and shortly after that, the Bible says that he went to a “lonely place” to pray. His disciples followed him to that place and after he had prayed, he asked them, “Who do men say that I am?” They all had different answers: “Some say Elijah. Some say you are that prophet. Some say a great teacher.” Jesus stopped them. He fixed Peter with his eyes. “And who do you say that I am, Peter?” In a flash of divine inspiration Peter blurted out: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you… but my Father in heaven…” Then our Lord looked around at his motley crew of followers and said: “Some of you standing here will not die until you have seen  the kingdom of God coming with glory.

Eight days after that, Jesus took his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, on a hike up a mountain to pray. These three, Peter, James, and John had been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. James and John were at the Jordon when he was baptized. They were at the wedding when he turn the water into wine. He healed people with a touch, even raised the dead. They saw him feed the five thousand. They heard him preach. Weird and strange things like they had never heard before: “You must lose your life to save it.” “Blessed are they that mourn.” “Blessed are the poor.” “Blessed are the meek.” Jesus told them that he, by his own power, had initiated God’s Kingdom which would one day fill up the whole created order. Peter, and James, and John may have been thinking about some of these things as they hiked up the mountain that day. They reached the top and Jesus went off alone to pray. They knew he wanted them to pray as well and they wanted to do what he wanted them to do — but instead they fell asleep.

One of the major lessons for Christians to learn is the importance of what the Church Fathers called “watchfulness.” Watchfulness, or better yet, attentiveness, is no easy task and too many Christians simply drift through life. Drifting is not really living at all and we are called to better things. We are called to buckle down to being a Christian, to get serious about living attentively, intelligently, reasonably and responsibly in life and when you do that (and frankly no one can do it for you) you experience yourself appropriating the Image of God who created you to live attentively, intelligently, reasonably and responsibly in the world. I am saying that when you do that you live true to yourself, an authentic Christian, the genuine article, and you live true to God without whom there is no truth and there would be no you.

Attentiveness is a natural, human faculty that may, by our conscious and intentional resolution and work, become a virtue. A virtue is a habit. What we do — our deeds — form our character. Attentiveness is our first step to discovery and understanding and attentiveness may also be trained to stand guard over our minds. We have a two-fold opportunity to be attentive to what is before us and to be attentive to what is within us. But it isn’t effortless. 

As Jesus prayed, Peter learned first hand just how difficult is attentiveness. When Peter exhorts the Church to be sober — to be wide awake and alert — he is speaking out of disappointing, personal experience. It took Peter his whole life with Jesus to learn the importance of attentiveness. This was not the last time Peter fell asleep. As Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, his disciples fell asleep and when the Romans arrested him, Peter and the other disciples ran away. But now I’m getting distracted — here at the end of their hike with Jesus, Peter, James and John just couldn’t keep their eyes opened. But Peter, James and John woke up. And when they woke up everything was  different. The Bible says: 

And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

Now for the first time they saw our Lord’s divinity flash so brightly that day was turned to night. Eight days before, Peter declared his faith in Jesus’ divinity: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” but now he sees it with his own wide-awake eyes. His face shone like the sun, too bright to look upon. Even his clothing suddenly became the brightest light they had ever seen. Glistering is the translation of the Greek word: a word used only once in the New Testament means “to emit flashes of light, to shine or glister as lightening.” Christ is the uncreated light of the Father, he is not reflecting light, he is Light. The Shenikah Glory of God made flesh. Now his closest disciples look upon the Glorious God come down from Heaven.

Now this is what I want to say — we have been born again and this radicalized state of being of the baptized is to have God the Father as our Father and to have Jesus the Messiah as our sibling. When we are baptize into Jesus we are baptized into his humanity and we are baptized into his glistering divinity as well:

He (God) has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…  II Peter 1:4

This is all about our participation in the life of God, or as Peter put it our partaking of the divine nature and that brings us to the understanding of what grace is. As I have said when I was growing up we were taught that grace is unmerited favor; the free and undeserved help that God gave us in order that we might respond to his call be to his children. Though that is partially correct, I want you to understand that grace that is not so utilitarian, but rather, that is grace is a state of being: Grace is participation in the life of God. To be in a state of grace is to be participating in the life of the God who is God which is equivalent to participating in eternal life. And the way that happens is receiving the good and perfects gifts that come down from the Father of Lights. By virtue of our incorporation into the human nature of Christ we also participate, share in, commune with the divine nature of the God who is God. And thus we constitute a renewed, recreated humanity. And because of that we may and must live transfigured lives that communicate the holiness, wonder, love, and free, ungrudging generosity of God the Blessed Trinity to this beautiful but broken world we live in. 

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Chapter 15 opens with an account of disreputable folk from all over the place, ironically, seeking Jesus and finding him to be not only friendly, but beyond friendly — he welcomed and even ate with these unclean sinners. The Pharisees take note:

This man receives sinners and eats with them.

Then Luke presents three of our Lord’s best-known narratives: the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin, and the prodigal son is positioned to be the climax of chapter 15.

By way of some background I want to say a few things about the Sermon on the Mount because that sermon is a way of talking about the theology and ethics of Jesus that are enfleshed in this narrative. That sermon was not intended for some kind of generalized human society, but rather it was intended for the Church. Jesus preached an ethic not to humanity, not to the nation-state, but to his own disciples who are the citizens of his present and future Kingdom. For example though we live in a society that thrives on anger, Jesus said that insults and anger are equivalent to murder and his disciples would not practice anger, insults or abusiveness. He also equated lust with adultery and he advised by whatever means necessary to pluck lust from your life and caste it away. 

Jesus said that his disciple would live selflessly and that their obedience to Jesus is itself a “sign of the Kingdom of God.” But that raises some big questions. What happens when a child of the Kingdom does not fulfill his destiny? What happens when I am not a sign of the Kingdom of God? What happens if I am a sign of God’s failure? To be a sign of God’s failure would be to live as though God didn’t matter or didn’t even exist. Rather than living as though one was already breathing the fresh, free air of the Kingdom of Christ, one would live in accordance with this present culture. I want to suggest to you that when a child of the Kingdom makes such choices it is like what happens in chapter 15 of St. Luke. It is like I go missing. I am similar then to a lost sheep, a lost coin, or a prodigal son. Now if that is all I have to go on, my willfulness, my turning from Christ, then it is a pretty grim situation. Jesus said, “If your eye offend thee, pluck it out. If your hand offend thee, cut it off.” If instead of being a sign of God’s Kingdom, I become offensive, odious to God’s Kingdom, will Jesus then pluck me out of his life? Will Jesus caste me away? Chapter 15 of Luke is the answer to that question and in particular the parable of the prodigal presents. So let’s look at the parable. 

The boy was in his late teens. Unmarried. The Law provided for settlement of a family’s wealth prior to the death of the father, but that was not normal. In the case of a distribution of property ownership prior to the death of a father, two requirements were made: First, the beneficiary obtains ownership of the property at once, but the father continues to have free hold of the property –- including any interest or productivity that may be gained from it — till his death and only then does the right to interest and produce pass to the beneficiary. Secondly, the elder son would get a double portion of the estate and in this case that would mean that the younger would receive one-third. In the texts the young son called the property “ton bion” which literally means the life; or we might call it today “a living.” The son asked for his portion of what his father’s life is worth. Furthermore the son demands not only possession, but also the right of disposal immediately. This boy intended to sever his relations to his father and his family.

Astonishingly the father allows the boy’s demand and his material inheritance is converted into cash and he leaves his family for a new life in a faraway land where he threw away his wealth in undisciplined living. He went on a spending spree acquiring nothing of value till he has spent his last cent. Then came the unexpected — a famine. The table turns and the boy’s life falls apart. He was hungry in a foreign land and he had no money, no family to turn to, and he ended up hiring himself out to a Gentile looking after the pigs. This image of feeding pigs is a vivid description of what happens when a child of God goes missing. 

Then we entered the boy’s interior life where we learn his subjective experience: He would have eaten the sweet beans he was feeding the pigs if he could have brought himself to do it. And he had no one in that distant land to take pity on him. Jesus says that it was at this point that the boy “came to himself,” which is roughly equivalent to our saying, “coming to one’s senses.” This is the beginning of repentance; he begins to turn. Notice that there is not much of what we would call heart-felt repentance or sorrow going on here. The boy was hungry, his life had fallen apart and he knows that there is no one to blame but himself. Even the day laborers that worked for minimal pay for his father were better off. He put together a plan to return to his family and acknowledge his foolishness before God and his father. He acted immediately and he acted humbly. He would forfeit all his birthrights of sonship. He planned only to place himself at his father’s mercy, to acknowledge his sin against him and God and his only request was that he be hired on as a day laborer — the very lowest of three classes of laborers. The boy accepts the consequences of his actions without making excuses. He confesses. He makes his humble request. This is what real repentance looks like. 

The son left and carried out his resolution to throw himself upon his father’s mercy. But even before he arrived home his father saw him coming and ran out to meet him and fell on the boy kissing him. Now this is breaking all protocol. No Middle Eastern father in antiquity would have greeted or responded to an insubordinate son in this manner. Coming home in this context was risky business to say the least. But Jesus is not conducting sociological research, he is teaching us about his Kingdom and he is teaching us about his Father. This is what God is like: he is full of mercy and grace and love. 

I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father calls his servants to get the best robe for the boy, and a family ring and shoes and then kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast. Why?

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

At this point, the table turns again when the elder brother shows up and he finds out that his good-for-nothing younger brother has returned and he refuses to enter the home. The boy who was once an outsider is now inside and the boy who was once the perfect insider has taken his brother’s place as the outsider. And he is indignant. This isn’t fair. Maybe in his world.

But in the Kingdom of God repentance and confession wipes the slate clean. Repentance, turning around, brings not only a new direction, but repentance is also the beginning of the restoration of relations. Nevertheless he is so consumed with fairness that he cannot rejoice with his brother’s return to the family. The parable leaves us hanging: the obedient brother is become disobedient, the insider has become the outsider and he essentially says to his father: “You old fool! He wasted your livelihood on prostitutes!” 

Jesus addressed this parable to men who were offended by his behavior toward sinners and outcaste; people who were offended at the Gospel. It is as though Jesus is saying to his critics, “Look at how great God loves his lost children. Contrast his love and grace with your own joyless, loveless, unthankful and self-righteous lives. Look here; look at these outsiders and sinners coming to me, rising to new life, returning home. Rejoice!”

So what happens when I don’t fulfill my destiny? What happens when I am not a sign of the Kingdom of God? Does Christ pluck me from his life and caste me away? We know the answer. Repentance, turning back, confession and throwing one’s self upon the mercy of God, knowing from the mouth of Jesus himself, that this father in the parable is descriptive of God the Father. The Father has provided a home for us all in the Church. A home that is ordered in holiness and infused with kindness, graciousness, and big hearted forgiveness.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John wit the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also.

+

This past week was nearly one of unbounded joy and a liturgical spectacle fit for a prince — indeed a prince of the Church. Bishop Chad was enthroned as our Archbishop in a two & half hour liturgy that one rarely has the opportunity to participate in. And it was made all the more special to be there with our delegates, Priscilla King, Margaret and Garry Woody, two of our aspirants, John and Kyle, as well as Fr. Sean and Fr. Mark as well. We have a new Archbishop and a renewed vision of the our duty and opportunity to serve Jesus Christ our God and King in this present age. Bishop Chad is young and bright and effortlessly cheerful. A Duke Divinity graduate who dabbled with the lure of an academic career till he fell in love with the Bride of Christ and gave his heart to her service. Then he fell in love with Megan and ever the churchman, he proposed to her at the Altar of the Washington National Cathedral. “I got right down on me knees at the Altar — believe it or not,” he told me. She said yes and together they have made a family dedicated to Christ’s Church. They have four children — Aidan is 18, Owain (Owen) is 14, Millie (may-lee) is 11, and Caelin (cay-Lynn) is 6. Bishop Chad loves his wife and his children and he loves his clergy and his laity and he genuinely does so. Most of you have met Archbishop Chad and you have heard him preach wonderful sermons, he has confirmed many of you and your children, and has celebrated the Holy Communion here. And God willing you will see him many, many more times as the years roll on. I know this man very well and I know his spiritual life, his wisdom, and his confidence in God the Blessed Trinity and I know the hardships that he has endured. For all his very real sunny fellow-feeling, he shares the same sadnesses that are part and parcel of our common life — the betrayal of friends, his own failures, and the ups and downs of family life, finding the right place to live, figuring out how to educate our kids, raising children and keeping them safe and growing them up into happy Christian men and women. Megan’s mother died this year and her father lives alone now. Dick was a Presbyterian minister for 40 years, but they converted to Anglo Catholicism and after some study and examination he was ordained to the priesthood. So Archbishop Chad is his own father’s-in-law Father-in-God. Now this is starting to sound like an old country song. His parents are growing infirm and living with illness and disease. Though they live in Western North Carolina, he spends lots of time wth them. When he travels up this way he always stays with them a night or two and he and the family spends extended time with them in the summer and the same for M. He’s good man. A good family man. And he is a prince of the Church, consecrated an Archbishop, made an Apostle. In all of that he is an example of a Christian man that you can all be proud of and that we may all take encouragement from. He wants what we all want — to love and be love by our families, to be reasonably happy in this life, to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be supremely happy in the life to come. We are a blessed Church in the APA to have him as our Father in God. And while thinking about all this and the Feast of St. James the Apostle, I remember that wonder hymn written by William Alexander Percy, They Cast Their Nets in Galilee and I thought it was a perfect way to bring up some thoughts on the Christian life and Apostleship. 

They cast their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown;

Such happy, simple fisher-folk,

Before the Lord came down

There is no indication that Peter or John or James were going through a personal existential crisis when along came Jesus and solved all there problems. In fact the men all seem pretty much at peace with themselves, their families, and the Jewish ways. They were not gloomy or searching for meaning in life. They weren’t dissatisfied with their work or their station in life. If anything they were going about there work doing their jobs responsibly, raising families, building a business, worshipping, until Jesus came along and actually disturbed their’s and everyone else’s peace. This giddy notion of inward peace is a rather new concept. You cannot really find people searching for peace in the New Testament. Searching for forgiveness of our sins, yes. Healing our broken hearts and broken bodies, yes. Jesus promised rest and forgiveness and everlasting life and he did things that no man or angel could do. He did things that only God could do. And he split the atom of their social, spiritual, personal life and what they thought was peace vanished in the bright blaze of God’s glory. 

Contented, peaceful fishermen,

Before they ever knew 

The peace of God that filled their hearts

Brimful, and broke them too

What men thought was peace and contentment, what our world tells us is peace and contentment and important and oh so urgent is shattered by the peace of God that passes understanding. A peace that fills our hearts to the brimming sometimes so unexpected and then it breaks us. The peace of God breaks us, breaks the hold of this world’s oh so desperate trumpet, breaks the hold of old sins and shame, and breaks our self-centeredness and brings everything in life under the judgement of Christ’s Kingdom. And sometime, for some of us, it may break us to death for Christ’s sake.

Young John who trimmed the flapping sail,

Homeless, in Patmos died.

Peter, who hauled the teeming net,

Head down was crucified 

And St. James the Apostle we can add to that list of those who gave their life for Christ’s sake. But it is highly doubtful that any of us will die for Christ’s sake, die like Peter or James. But we are called to a greater and more difficult death than that. You all recall Flannery O’Connor who said, “I will  never be a saint, but I could probably be a martyr if they killed me quick.”

Well, there you have it. If its quick, its more likely we can stand it. But the fact is that we die daily, as Paul said. This is slow motion daily dying. Dying to self-centeredness, dying to unruly ambition, dying to the siren calls of this world to be busy and be important — dying to that is not the easiest thing in life either. But the Kingdom of God is the peace of God and we are citizens of heaven first and foremost and that makes the peace of God our right by citizenship. 

The Peace of God, it is no peace,

But strife closed in the sod.

Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing —

The marvelous peace of God.

And here it is, the Peace of God is no peace, but strife that will strive and strive on till death do us part. Now that is not exactly the phrase that wins converts to Christ. Imagine the bumper sticker: “Come to Jesus, add more strife to your life, and learn how to die daily.” Following Jesus is not about the very modern misguided notion of peace of mind. The Apostles would not know what you were talking about. Following Jesus is about believing that God is and that he is who Jesus says he is — that Faith. Following Jesus is desiring the will of God, his purposes for your life and the lives of those you love — that’s Hope. Following Jesus, is about loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. Pray for our new Archbishop that God will protect him and enable him to continue seek first the Kingdom of God and lead us as a loving, faithful, and worthy Shepherd of the Church.