Fr. Sean’s Trinity XVIII Sermon

That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge.

For the last two weeks, Fr. Gene has preached from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, helping us understand Paul's encouragement to the Christians at the cosmic level. It has been a great reminder of the exciting work of the church--of bringing the kingdom of God to all Creation, generation after generation, leading/looking forward to the Resurrection in which we will be recreated with new bodies. We live in this specific age/time of waiting—our king has conquered death, sin, and Satan, the battle is won, and now the kingdom of God spreads throughout all the world throughout every generation, routing the enemy as it flees from the victorious army. Satan still causes havoc, but these are desperate acts of bitter vengeance in light of ultimate defeat. In this age we fight not in doubt of victory but because of the victory, vanquishing the fleeing enemies.

But we also fight knowing that this is not the end. We wait for the final judgement when our Lord will institute the new heavens and the new earth and we join the saints in the general resurrection. This is what Paul refers to in the Epistle for this Sunday as the day of the Lord: "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." We are heading towards the Day of the Lord, but the work and enjoyment of that Day starts now, in this age which we call the Messianic Age. 

Last week, Fr. Gene outlined for us our easy tasks during this Age:

Your job is easy and also involves just two things (1) Reverse the Curse (2) Perfect the World. The Lord Jesus has deputized us, His Body, His hands and feet, to bring down the citadels of evil in high places and to continue to break the power of Satan over Creation. It’s just a mopping up job.

Amen. Amen.

What I want to do this morning is to take a look at how the texts from this week helps us understand our task of living in the kingdom of God in this age. You probably noticed that the lectionary has taken a one week break from Ephesians and go back to 1 Cor. Trinity XVIII has been set aside to commemorate the Ember Days, but since those move around the calendar, this year they are separated by a couple of weeks. While next week we will return to Ephesians, this one week return to 1 Cor helps add some important insights to the way we live in this Messianic Age, the age of waiting for the final coming of our Messiah. As the Ember Days are of a more penitential character, the readings from this week recognize that there are difficulties to our simple tasks of reversing the curse and perfecting the world. 

First, our Collect asks God to "grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil." In the original Latin and in the 1549, more literal translation, the Collect read: "grant thy people grace to avoid the infections of the devil..." This is a wonderful phrase, and it helps remind us that the difficulty we have as humans comes from the Fall. Humans are sick and need to be healed. The infections of the devil will lead to death if a cure does not heal that wound, but the Fall of Adam and Eve did not turn humanity into demons, nor did it completely destroy the image of God within humanity. There is within humanity a tension, a disunity within ourselves that gives rise to unreasonable actions. We do what we don't want to do. This comes from the wounds of the Fall. - By the wound of ignorance, our intellects have lost the way to Truth. - By the wound of malice, our wills have lost the inclination to the Good. - By the wound of concupiscence, our desires have lost order and unity. - By the wound of weakness, our wills have lost the power to fight against evil. 

As a result, humans live in noise and confusion and disunity. We are separated from God, from our fellow man, and even from ourselves. This diagnosis creates the condition for sin, but we still choose sin--this is not deterministic! We are sick, and our sins make us sicker. So the Collect teaches us that our sin, the wounds of the fall, and the temptations of the world/flesh/devil–these three conditions–make it difficult to pursue the kingdom of God. But I want to make two observations. First, sin is only one part of the problem. Forgiveness of sins is essential to our lives in Christ, but being freed from our sins still demands healing from the wounds of the fall and the conquest of the world/flesh/devil. Second, this is why our Collect calls on God to give us “pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God.” In other words, grace perfects nature–God’s grace brings our human nature into a completed, perfected state so that we can follow God with pure hearts and minds. In our pursuit of God and his kingdom, we should always remember the difficulties we have but those cannot be our focus. We must focus on our end–union with God. 

In our Epistle for this morning, St. Paul writes:

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: So that ye come behind in no gift.

You see, St. Paul does not focus here on the difficulties but on the vision of the whole, the union we have with God through Jesus Christ! If our focus is solely on sin and the forgiveness of sins, we will miss the whole picture. The end is a life in union with God Almighty.

This is why St. Paul calls on these Christians in Corinth or Ephesus to reverse the curse and perfect the world! It might seem overwhelming or impossible, but it is important for us to see what high calling we have! But not in a way where a coach tells a mediocre team that they have to go undefeated the next season. That is the wrong way to understand this! St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they have already been given the grace to live by Jeus Christ. Therefore, Christians live in the gifts that God has given them. Also notice that St. Paul tells them that they are already enriched by Jesus in all utterance and knowledge. This is God's way of working: gifts upon gifts. We heard the testimony and have been confirmed in it, and then, as we pursue Jesus, we will not come behind in any gift.

In other words, how do we reverse the curse and perfect the world? We receive Jesus and then use his gifts. We let Jesus work in all that we do. As human beings, we naturally attend to the world around us and then use intelligence and reason to make sound, responsible judgments. But this requires attention--but not just paying attention to ourselves, the people around us and our surroundings, but bringing to the people and objects an intelligence and reason that is shaped by the divine gifts we have received. In our culture we have two strong temptations that reduce this attentiveness. Some are so used to receive what comes to our attention as a fully formed judgement, that they fail to see any level of meaning beyond that. Others never fully attend to what is in front of them in the first place because they put one thing in front of them after another, missing the depth of reality. As Jesus in the Gospel reminds us, we are called to love God with all of our heart, mind, and strength. May we attend to God’s grace in all that we do, lifting up our heart, mind, and strength to him.