Sermon: 13 Pentecost (30 August 2009)

Sermon: 13 Pentecost (30 August 2009)
(Song of Solomon 2:8-13/Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9/Ephesians 5:21-6:9/Mark 7:1-23)
It All Boils Down To This

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.

I have never found reductionism very helpful; much of life – seemingly all the important aspects of life – is irreducibly complex. So, when someone says to me, “Well, it all boils down to this one thing,” I know that it generally doesn’t and that the speaker has probably failed to grasp the true complexity of the situation. I once listened to a Christian speaker tell a congregation that the entire gospel boils down to loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. Of course, Jesus never said that – not about the gospel anyway. And I wondered: Does the speaker really see vanishingly little importance in the incarnation, ministry, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Can these really be boiled down and out of the gospel? Certainly, the framers of the Creed and the fathers of our faith didn’t think so. No, I have never found reductionism very help.

So, no reductionism for me – well, except maybe for this once: because progress in the Christian life really can be boiled down to one thing. Perhaps there is better way to say that: no significant spiritual growth will happen without one particular quality, a quality which serves as the foundation upon which Christian character is built. Since the Desert Fathers (abbas) – monks of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who left their cities for solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria – knew and explored this quality so thoroughly, I’ll let their stories and sayings introduce this one essential quality.

Macarius was once returning to his cell from the marsh carrying palm leaves. The devil met him by the way, with a sickle, and wanted to run him through with it but he could not. The devil said, ‘Macarius, I suffer a lot of violence from you, for I can’t overcome you. For whatever you do, I do also. If you fast, I eat nothing; if you keep watch, I get no sleep. There is only one quality in which you surpass me.’ Macarius said to him, ‘What is that?’ The devil answered, ‘Your humility; that is why I cannot prevail against you.’[1]

And Theodore, deacon in Scetis said,

‘Humility and the fear of God surpass all the other virtues.’ ‘The gateway is humility: our predecessors suffered much and therefore entered heaven joyfully.’[2]

And there it is: if progress in the spiritual life must be reduced, boiled down, to just one thing, that thing would be humility.

Examples abound in Scripture, some from the mouth of our Lord, himself.

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men – extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14, NKJV).

And when his disciples asked Jesus who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus

called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:2b-4, NKJV).

Of course, Jesus didn’t simply talk about the importance of humility. Jesus was himself the greatest example of such humility, as Paul reminds his brothers and sisters in Philippi.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:5-8, NKJV).

Clearly then, even if you are not willing to boil down progress in the spiritual life solely to humility, you nonetheless have to admit that it is exceptionally important. We have it on Christ’s authority.

If humility is so important, how do we get it? How do we cultivate humility, even presuming we’d want to? Well, you’re not going to like the answer: I don’t; no one does. But here it is: Submit to one another in the fear of God (cf Eph 5:21). Paul says it here in Ephesians, and both James, the brother of our Lord, and Peter insist upon it also.

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Pe 5:5-7, NKJV).

I know what this looks like in a monastery where each monk takes vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; being submissive means obeying the abbot in all things and living under the order’s spiritual rule. I know what this looked like among the desert fathers and mothers; being submissive meant deferring to one another’s judgments, putting the others first, and considering oneself truly as the chief of sinners. But, we are not monks or desert abbas or ammas. How do we acquire humility through submission? What does that look like? Before I answer – before Paul answers; I’m not taking the heat for him on this one! – let me warn you that you’re really not going to like the answer. We learn humility not within the cloister or out in the desert, but within the familiar territory of human relationships: in the home, in the workplace, in the church. We learn humility by being submissive to members of our own family, to our employers, to our elder brothers and sisters in the faith. And that is hard, especially when our husband is a boor, our wife is a nag, our boss is a jerk, and the saints of God are hypocritical prigs. Do I really mean to tell you that you must be submissive to these kinds of people? Of course not, but Paul does – if you want to make progress in the spirit, if you want to have in you the mind of Christ.

So,

wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything (Eph 5:22-24, NKJV).

The battle of the sexes – skirmishes and all out war for dominance and advantage – is a consequence of ancestral sin. In the beginning Adam loved Eve as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and Eve was delighted to be his helper, comparable to him. The two were joined and became one flesh. But then came the deceiver, and the sin, and the separation, alienation, and accusation. In consequence the woman was subjected to her husband: “Your recourse will be to your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16b, OSB).

I can’t hear this text as a woman; I don’t know how most women react to it. But I do know that submission by anyone in any form is an affront to the fallen nature of man. The passions of pride and selfishness war against it. And that is precisely the point: the passions must be put to death and the only way to do so is willingly to embrace submission – as an act of obedience to the Lord – and to pray for humility. Christian wives practice submission and perfect humility in the most intimate and challenging relationship of all: marriage. This is not about who’s better or smarter or any other comparative you want to name; this is about spiritual growth and transformation. This is not about subjugation; this is about spiritual freedom. This is not about punishment; this is about the means to a glorious, spiritual end. This is about the mind of Christ in the person of a Christian wife.

Now,

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-27, NKJV).

I probably shouldn’t presume to speak for all men, but that won’t stop me. Men get married for a variety of reasons: love, lust, convenience, family, stability, economics – some reasons noble and some reasons base. But I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man who married solely, or even primarily, for the spiritual welfare of his wife: to sanctify her and cleanse her, to present her holy and without blemish to the Lord. No. Our motives typically are much more self-centered and self-serving than that. So Paul asks from Christian husbands – as he does from Christian wives – a most difficult measure of submission: to subordinate self-interest and personal satisfaction to the interest and satisfaction and welfare of another. Husbands are asked to view their wives through the lens of Christ, to see them first as spiritual sisters – for whom they are responsible to the Lord – and only second as physical mates. I don’t know whose task of submission is more difficult, wives or husbands. But that way lies humility – and only that way – and it is humility we must have.

Children do not escape Paul’s notice either.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth” (Eph 6:1-3, NKJV).

Is there anything more headstrong, more opinionated, more naturally resistant to obedience than a teenager? Oh sure, a teenage child most always will do what the parents require because they have little choice. But I’ve heard the under-the-breath muttering often enough, seen the roll of the eyes and the hands-on-the-hips slouch and experienced the whatever attitude often enough to know that obedience frequently is grudging at best, and certainly not rendered in a spirit of willing submission and respect. And I have a great teenager. I can only image what some parents experience.

But, frankly, parents – fathers – we often provoke and exasperate our children by speaking foolishness. “Do this,” we say, sometimes for no apparent reason. “Why?” they ask, sometimes reasonably, sometimes with attitude. And then we fathers play the trump card: “Because I’m your father and I said so.” As Christian fathers we can do better than that; we must do better than that. “Why?” a child asks. “Because whether I’m right or wrong, your obedience is right and pleasing in the Lord’s sight and will make you holy.” That is an answer full of Christian wisdom and humility.

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4, NKJV).

The Christian family is among the best of all human relationships, and is fertile ground for the practice of submission and the development of humility. Some human relationships, though, are by their very nature coercive; yet, even these can be fires in which to refine humility.

Bondservants [slaves], be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is slave or free (Eph 6:5-8, NKJV).

I’ve seen and heard this passage cheapened in commentaries and study Bible notes and in Sunday School classes. This text is not about employee-employer relationships. This is about slaves and their masters, about humans owned by other humans, about men and women in the most vulnerable and powerless of situations.[3] It is about the restaveks in Haiti – children sold into chattel slavery because their parents can no longer feed them. It is about the millions of slaves in India and Pakistan and Sudan. It is about the forgotten ones who are not forgotten by God, about the powerless ones who nonetheless have the power to be holy. It is about redemption of a seemingly hopeless situation. For the slave – like the husband and wife and child – hope and power lie in submission, not submission in fear but in promise that submission produces humility and humility produces Godliness. Obey not because you must, but because by God’s grace you can and because by God’s grace your obedience furthers your salvation. In this way the slave becomes as powerful as any master.

And Paul certainly limits the power of the Christian master – actually exhorts the master to be submissive to the needs of the slave, a thing unheard of in Paul’s day.

And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him (Eph 6:9, NKJV).

This is a remarkable passage emphasizing the equality of master and slave before God, and yet for some people even this is not enough: they condemn Paul because he fails to condemn slavery. But surely this misses the point entirely. Paul’s concern is not whether the social institution of slavery should stand, but how Christians should stand within that, or any, social institution – stand in such a way that submission, humility, and salvation are possible within that institution. This theology nullifies the power of any institution to demean or coerce by giving individuals the power to choose holiness. Yes, there are still many coercive and abusive social institutions. But, thanks be to God, we do not have to wait until they are all abolished before we can practice submission, develop humility, and work out our salvation. In fact, those very institutions might even come to our aid by providing us the arena in which to battle our pride and lust for power.

So, it all boils down to this. Beloved, be submissive one to another. Wives, honor your husbands and do all things with respect. Husbands, love your wives and put their welfare – spiritual as well as physical – before your own. Children, obey your parents, not because you have to, but because it is right and pleases God. Mothers and fathers be good to your sons and daughters and raise them in the Lord. You powerless, remember that God empowers you through your willing submission. You powerful, remember to submit yourselves to the Lord who alone has true power.

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for


“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Amen.
[1] Benedicta Ward, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks. Penguin Books, p. 156.
[2] Ward, p. 154.
[3] While there were varieties of servitude in first-century Roman culture, the term Paul uses in this text – doulos, pl. douloi – is most typically used to indicate a slave as opposed to an indentured servant.

Sermon: Transfiguration of Our Lord ( 22 Feb 2009)

Sermon: Transfiguration of Our Lord (22 February 2009)
(2 Kings 2:1-12/Psalm 50:1-6/2 Corinthians 4:3-6/Mark 9:2-9)

If you will you can become all flame.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
_______________________________
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’

Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’ [1]
_______________________________

The church tells the story of two and a half men. It is our story, as much for women as for men, though the outward form is sometimes gender specific. And it is – as all true stories are – God’s story. It starts…well, it starts in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, when through the Word all things came into being: light and life and men. ”And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27, NASB). Adam and Eve, scripture names them – our first parents, the exemplars of our race.

Man was, by nature, oriented toward God, in communion with God – a partaker of the divine nature. God’s breath was man’s life. God’s will was man’s desire. God’s love was man’s goal. Man walked a path through the Garden toward God in company with God, progressing from one degree of glory to the next. Man, created in the image of God, would, through obedience and communion, progress ever toward the likeness of God and would be drawn ever more fully into perichoresis, the mutual life of the Trinity. Such was man’s purpose and nature – man’s logos. And so it was until man was deceived by the father of lies, the serpent Satan. Satan offered precisely what man wanted, a fulfillment of man’s God-breathed life and nature – to become like God.

1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:1-5, NKJV).

Rightly does scripture call the serpent cunning. Man is created in his very nature to desire God, to move toward God, to become like God – but only through divine grace that comes from obedience to God and communion with God. Satan offers to fulfill man’s greatest desire and rightful purpose through an act of disobedience and rebellion. Perhaps you’ve misunderstood God’s instructions, Satan suggests to Eve. Perhaps God wants you to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, wants you to be like him now. It sounds so right and the fruit looks so appetizing that man – in the person first of Eve then of Adam – through disobedience bows down to worship the creature – the serpent Satan. And all hell breaks loose; sin and death come forth victorious and claim their victims. Man is diminished in body and mind and spirit. Man, the glorious creation of God – the bearer of God’s image and the promise of his likeness – is reduced to half-man. Half-man hides from God, unable to bring his shame into God’s presence. And so, cut off from the source of life, death reigns supreme – not over the first man only, but over all the children of man. Man was made for light and life. Man inherits darkness and death.

Yet, the image of God within half-man has not been completely erased; man’s logos – man’s purpose and nature – compel him forward toward life and meaning. But, apart from God, faced with immanent death, half-man knows not where to turn. He has forgotten God, forgotten the height from which he fell. And so it is that half-man turns toward the creation, desperately rummaging there for the answer, desperately seeking there to stave off death and the fear of death, desperately grasping light and life in a place of darkness and death. And so, half-man spirals downward.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them (Rom 1:21-32, NIV).

Such is the state of half-man – not of each individual, of course – but of the race of half-men: distanced from God, unmindful of his glory, obsessed with self and power and pleasure and death, and spiraling ever downward toward corruption.

Then, into this world of half-men, comes the True Man, the new Adam – the One who spoke man into existence and breathed into him the breath of life, now himself incarnate, now in human form.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5, 14, NKJV).

This True Man took half-man to the mountain: Sinai, Carmel, Tabor. Look and remember, he says to half-man. Turn from darkness and death toward light and life. See what God intends.

1 And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”2 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. 3 His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. 4 And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”— 6 because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. 7 And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” 8 Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves (Mk 9:1-8, NKJV).

“Jesus, as far as we can we obey the Law and the Prophets – Moses and Elijah. We say our prayers a little, we fast a little, we give our alms a little. As far as it is in us so to do, we live at peace with all men. What more can we do?” say the half-men. And his clothes become exceedingly white and his face shines like the sun, and the voice of God speaks, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him.” Jesus answers without saying a word: If you will you can become all flame. This is True Man, man in the image and likeness of God. This is the proclamation that the gospel is about transfiguration, about half-men becoming true men, about darkness dispelled by light, about death swallowed up in the victory of life. It is about half-men receiving by grace through Christ alone what is Christ’s alone by nature. This is the story of two and a half men: of Adam and the fall, of the race of half-men, of Jesus and the transfiguration.

45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.”The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man (1 Cor 15:45-49).

The power of the gospel is the power of transfiguration, not for Jesus only but for all the race of half-men. Jesus’ transfiguration points the way to yours and to mine and to all who will come to the light of his dawning.

Athanasius, newly consecrated bishop of Alexandria, determined to visit all the churches in his see, to make certain the orthodox faith was being proclaimed. On his journey he learned of three, old monks who lived alone on an island. Like the devoted bishop he was, Athanasius set sail to the island to shepherd, even if briefly, this small flock. He was greeted with great warmth and reverence by the monks. “Tell me,” Athanasius said to them after awhile, “how it is that you pray.” “Father, we are not learned men,” the monks replied. “We simply lift our hands to God and say, ‘We are three and you are three: Have mercy upon us.’”

“Ah, dear Fathers, this will never do,” said Athanasius. “I must teach you to pray as the church prays.” And for the next several days – the monks were slow learners – the new bishop taught the old monks the Lord’s Prayer. Satisfied at last that the monks knew how to pray properly, Athanasius set sail for Alexandria. That very night aboard his ship he noticed a glow in the distance, a glow getting brighter and rapidly approaching the ship. He looked and saw the three old monks running toward him on the water. When they reached the ship they simply stood on the water as on dry ground with holy light encompassing them. “Father Athansius,” they said, “forgive our slowness, but we have forgotten again the words of the prayer you taught us. Please pray with us again.” “No, my fathers,” Athanasius said. “It is you who must pray for me.”

For all the old monks did not know, they did know this: the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (cf 2 Cor 4:6). And through this glory – a glory seen not on Mount Tabor only, but supremely on Mount Calvary – they were transfigured.

And that is the heart of the gospel, that through Christ half-men become true men; that through Christ darkness and death are conquered by light and life; that through Christ man is reconciled to God, becomes a partaker of the divine nature, moves from glory to glory, from image to likeness.

The promise and the challenge of the gospel are one and the same: If you will, you can become all flame.

Amen.
[1] From The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Translated by Benedicta Ward. Cistercian Studies Series, number 59. This is saying 7 of Abba Joseph of Panephysis and appears on page 103.