The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (October 27, 2019)

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in the sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

You shall be my people and I shall be your God.

Introduction

In America, we like the idea of “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” This isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, the emphasis we tend to collectively place on personal responsibility is good and I think, on a civic level, leads to a higher degree of human flourishing when it’s done well.

However, in American religion, especially ever since Charles Finney and the Great Awakening, we’ve had a tendency to apply this way of thinking to religion.

Many people mistakenly labor under the idea that, if we put in a good faith attempt, God will sort of meet us halfway. “If we do our best, God will do the rest.”

I was once at a church where we sang a praise and worship song with a chorus that went, “Holy Spirit come, as you respond to us.” Do you get the message of the song? If you move, then God responds. It makes God reactionary to us.

The beauty of the Gospel, something our collect and readings emphasize as well as what is emphasized by the liturgy we say week after week, is that we acknowledge our inability, of our own power, to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps" in front of a holy God. Rather, we must learn what total reliance on him is.

Jeremiah 30:12-22

This week for our Old Testament lesson, we are back in Jeremiah the prophet, as he is trying to get the people’s attention to turn from their sin towards God.

In today’s reading, you could say that our collect for the day is being re-told: “Forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee.”

Israel and Judah’s rebellion and sin left them with an incurable wound. They offended against the same God who created them, who called their ancestor Abraham, who led Israel out of slavery and brought them into the land.

Because of their sin, God says, “I have dealt you the blow of an enemy…Because your guilt is great, I have done these things to you.”

Two important things to note about the text, both of which I’ve said before.

First, the Old Testaments prophets almost never have an oracle of judgment that isn’t followed or related to a message of reconciliation.

Second, the final section of our reading is a shift to that concept:”For I will restore health to you and your words I will heal, says the Lord, because they called you an outcast.

Because the people are purged of sin, through punishment, they receive restoration of their land, seed, and power (all things which are related to God’s initial promise to Abraham).

But above all the benefits of restoration provided for them is the promise of intimacy of God: “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

It’s not because of the people that they are restored but because of God’s actions on their behalf.

The Old Testament matters because as the Church, Israel tells our story because we are Israel. So the Old Testament, far from being irrelevant matters a great deal.

St. Augustine: The New Testament is in the Old Testament contained and the Old Testament is in the New Testament explained.

Matthew 9:1-8

The truth which is important in the Old Testament reading, namely that Israel inability to heal itself in light of its sin. Only God’s action can revivify them.

In our Gospel lesson, this morning, this principle is extended through the narrative in Matthew 9.

Christ, as he is getting off a boat, has a paralyzed man brought to him. Jesus, seeing the faith of those who brought him says, “Take heart, my son: your sins are forgiven. This is not the answer most readers or people present were expecting. We want him to get healed! But the reason Jesus is does this is because the Scribes and Pharisees are present. Jesus’ action makes them incensed that he would say he could forgive sins, this is blasphemy in the Jewish mind because only God can forgive sins and so Jesus is making the claim to be God.

So Jesus does what he has done in our last few readings and poses a question to his interlocutors: “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Rise and walk.’’ The answer is that it’s easier to say that your sins are forgiven because you can’t see the result. So Jesus decides to choose the harder option and tells the man to rise up and the man does.

The healing miracle lends the credibility to Christ’s authority to forgive sin.

Paralysis is a condition which the paralyzed person cannot heal of their own power.

Similarly, a sinner cannot receive forgiveness based on their own power or work, hence the collect: “without thee we are not able to please thee.”

Only through Christ, the Great Physician and Healer of our souls can we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the healing of our person.

Ephesians 4:17-32

In light of the fact that e have been brought over from death to life by Christ, Paul exhorts us to live a transformational life, one n which we become who we are in Christ.

“Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

This idea of putting off your old nature and putting on the new is about Baptism. In Galatians 3, Paul uses this imagery to describe our new identity in Christ that we receive when we are baptized: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27).

The call of the Christian life is to live out one’s Baptism—constant dying to sin and being raised in newness of life, a putting off of old flesh and sin and putting on of the righteousness given to us by Christ.

This looks like being “renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God” is a Eucharistic reference because Paul uses the same language in Romans 12:1-2, “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The passage is Eucharistic because at the Altar, we receive the sacrifice of Christ and, in response, offer ourselves there too. In dying, we are renewed.

Fortunately, Paul tells us what the practical looks like. He gives us an enfleshment of what transformation looks like.

It means putting away falsehood and speaking truth, not being angry, not stealing but doing honest work, not talking evil with bitterness, wrath, and anger but being kind of the Other, forgiving the Other just as we were forgiven by Christ.

We don’t lie because we are all members of one another because we inhabit the mystical Body of Christ.

We don’t sin in anger, we deal with it promptly and reasonably without letting it best you (unlike Cain in the Cain and Abel story).

We don’t engage in thievery but work with our hands honestly and give to those in need.

Paul summarizes the ethic this way: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

Conclusion/Application

In my opinion, infant baptism is the most beautiful and concise picture of what God’s grace in affecting our salvation looks like: the baby is often kicking and screaming and contributing virtually nothing. Yet in Baptism, we know God works through his Church to make them a member of the Church.

Once we receive the great gift of being incorporated into the Church, we are spiritually awakened. We can finally see the world: we can begin to comprehend what is True, Good, and Beautiful.

As we come to realize what these truly are, we purées them, through God’s grace as the Holy Spirit directs and rules our hearts.

This transformed life is a logical outworking of the power of love we talked about last week. We love him because he first loved us (and we forgive others because he has forgiven us).

His love for us is what enables us to dive deeper and deeper into Him, and, as a result, we will never be the same but must be about our task of knowing God and making him known, not only with our words but also through our actions.

In Baptism, we put off the old and put on the new. The rest of the Christian life follows this pattern, continually appropriating the divine life made available to us.

By God’s grace, may we all be conformed to the Image of Christ further so that our very actions become Sacraments for the world, so that in word and deed we always point to Christ.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.