Fr. Sean’s Trinity VIII Sermon

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Recently, I took my boys to see Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing up in Barboursville. It is a play I have seen many times, and still love to see live. To be honest, it is strange play for while it starts clearly as a comedy and ends well, the last third of the play is actually very serious—Shakespeare is very funny until he suddenly isn't. The play, if you are unfamiliar with it, is simply about two couples—one who wish to be married, and another who think they will never marry. Through a series of unfortunate events and rivalries, both of the couples are split and pitted against each other, only to be joined together in the end in holy matrimony. Masked balls, eavesdropping, and identity confusion do not help communication.

The play is really about identity—who one really is based on their actions and the fruit of their actions. Don John, the villain of the play, is the quintessential wolf in sheep's clothing. He attempts to ruin the marriage of the young couple Claudio and Hero by tricking witnesses to believe Hero was unchaste. The ploy is devious but still funny until at their wedding, Claudio refuses to marry Hero, she faints at the accusation, and her father nearly abandons her completely. At the center of the confusion was Hero's identity—whether she was a disloyal and uncouth woman or whether she was falsely accused. 

In the midst of the confusion, Shakespeare gets quite serious, and the audience, who still just wants to laugh and see some silly slapstick, can't avoid the repercussions of the evil Don John. Even those who fell for his lie must go through hardship and repentance before the ending. While at other times I have thought this play was literally Much Ado about Nothing, this time I saw how Shakespeare made his audience confront the questions of identity, false judgments, and the wreckage left behind evil intentions. 

When I saw the play, I had the Gospel for today in the back of my mind, when Jesus said to his disciples: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Yes, Shakespeare's content was the marriage of a young couple and not the church, but I could not help but see that the same issue was at hand. How do know the truth of another? And even more, how do we know the truth of ourselves? It is not as easy as it appears. 

False prophets, Jesus warns, will look like sheep even though they are wolves. Likewise, Augustine comments that there are certain works that can be displayed such as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but these are not the fruit of the vine. We should do those works and we should work hard to develop them, but even wolves will have these actions. 

Those actions can be done with evil intent and should not be our guide. St. Paul tells the Galatians clearly what is the fruit of wolves: "[Gal 5:19-21 KJV] 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

The selection read for our Gospel today comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' longest single teaching in the Gospels, ranging from Matthew 5-7. The extended sermon begins with beatitudes (blessed are the poor in spirit...) and this selection is his final few paragraphs. 

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

This, for some, is hard to hear, for it appears that either our salvation is not sure, or that our moral actions earn us salvation—ha! No, the reason this makes sense is because of another one of Jesus' teachings: that he is the vine and we are branches grafted into that vine. Last week's Collect even mentioned this: "Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things; graft into our hearts, the love of thy name."

Therefore, we must remember that we are not our own trees, producing our own fruit, but that we are branches on a vine and producing fruit because of that graft. The metaphor has always struck me and it is amazing how the natural phenomenon of grafting really deepens our understanding of this spiritual truth. 

When one wants to graft, for instance, the best results are achieved when you graft plants that are as genetically similar as possible. This compatibility between the two parts, the rootstock and the scion (that is the branch being grafted into the root), is essential. It means for us that adoption straight into divinity would not have been successful unless there was already a union between humanity and divinity in which we can be grafted! We 'get into' divinity through this grafting with Jesus Christ's humanity! There is a mutual participation of both parts in the new creature. And also, when these layers are not aligned, the scion does not receive the life it needs to survive. And when a Christian refuses to align his life to Jesus', he is literally separating himself from the source of life, refusing to bind with that life.

But if there is alignment and growth, then the scion not only lives on the nutrients of the root stock but takes on the remarkable features of that root stock. And yet, when growth is produced, it is the scion which flowers and then fruits! Yes, it takes on the life of the rootstock, but it produces its own unique fruit. There are trees I have seen at nurseries recently that have multiple varieties of apples grafted onto one rootstock. Just so, as we all are grafted into the one vine, we each produce our own unique fruit in Jesus Christ. The church is not a copier machine but an organic and living organism with unexpected fruit!

Last week we saw the radical change St. Paul talks about in Romans from the old man who is bound to the flesh (Rom. 6) to the baptized Christian who is now alive in Christ (Rom. 8). AThe old man is the man of flesh. Just like last week, we must remember that flesh here does not physical creation but the life oriented away from God: a life that does not accept the purpose for which we are designed. And now writing to the parish in Corinth, Paul expresses the same idea. 

BRETHREN, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

He reminds them that they are debtors, meaning, in debt. It means that they have received something, a gift. But notice that our debt does not demand repayment in the ordinary sense. We are not called to give back what we have received. Being debtors to God demands that we use the gifts given to us, that is the repayment. The gift demands that we must live:

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 

Now that we are grafted into Christ, we are sons of God, and we feed on His Body and Blood. 

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. 

Your identity is in Jesus Christ. You belong to him and no other. Even our sufferings are now made gifts for they lead us toward glorification. May we always trust that we are in Him and align our lives to him.