The First Sunday in Lent (March 6, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

The lectionary, in its wisdom, has us in 2 Corinthians for the second time in three weeks. On Sexagesima, I mentioned that one of the occasions behind the Apostle Paul’s second epistle to Corinth was that there had been false apostles that infiltrated the community to spread a malformed gospel and cast doubt on the authenticity of Paul’s apostleship. This led our patron to launch an extensive defense of his ministry to the Corinthians to keep them from being misled, not only by false apostles who lacked genuine authority but also who promulgated a false gospel. Our reading today is an extension of that defense which is included in a larger exhortation for the Corinthians to follow Paul’s example in co-operating with God to bring about the reconciliation of the world, an urging for the Corinthians to repent, and finally, an encouragement to persevere so that we can enjoy eternal bliss.

There are different ways to speak about “causes,” especially when we talk about salvation. On the one hand, we affirm that God is the ultimate cause of our salvation: without him, we could not be saved; without his initiative, we would be separated from God for both moral and metaphysical reasons, without any hope for reconciliation and relationship. But, one of the beautiful mysteries of our faith is that God uses secondary causes that include human works. This is because God is not a being among beings; he is not finite and in competition with creation. But also, it points us to his loving nature: he makes us alive so we can be partners with him. So, when someone asks you, “how did you become a Christian?” you can answer a number of ways: (1) I became a Christian because God poured his grace into my heart; (2) I became a Christian because I was baptized in the Church; (3) I became a Christian because I heard a sermon, met a faithful Christian who witnessed to me, or was inspired by some other form of testimony. And guess what? All three of those are true and valid answers to the question “how did you become a Christian.” What this means is that those of us who are Christians are not merely passive receptacles of grace, but active participants, in the form of secondary causes, in bringing about the reconciliation and restoration of sinners. According to St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:15, this is because Christ, the God-man, “died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again.” What this means is revealed two verses later: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Part of being transformed into this new creature is becoming a representative of God in the world: “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.”

Now there is a sense, in which St. Paul means that an ordained minister is a co-operator in a unique way: they administer the sacraments, they preach the Gospel, they teach and lead the Church in order to feed and build up the flock. But this isn’t empty clericalism: the end goal is for the laity to be built up into ambassadors themselves who carry the Gospel through their various vocations. The Church is a place for us to rehearse what the story that we share with the world: the story of our creation, of our fall, and of our redemption in Jesus Christ. The story we tell is wrapped up in doctrine, what we believe as expressed through the Scriptures, through preaching, through liturgy, through Bible study, and all the other things we do in our life together. As we leave these doors and go about our weeks, however, you the laity become a type of minister, participating in the royal priesthood of Christ in the sense that the various relationships, vocations, and contexts that you inhabit are arenas in which you can tell the story of our salvation.

In this exhortation to the Corinthians that they should be co-workers with God, we see a credible defense of Paul’s ministry. False prophets tell people what they want to hear, they tickle ears, they assuage guilt, and they lower the bar. But Paul doesn’t do this; he raises the bar. This isn’t the prosperity Gospel he’s preaching; it’s not moral therapeutic deism; it’s not a political or cultural echo chamber. These are too easy. Real Christianity, as St. Paul points out both in word and deed, is hard, impossible even, apart from grace, because it’s built on the fundamental principle of sacrifice.

So rather than presume on the grace that’s been given to us by doing what we want, we should use this life to repent so we can enjoy eternal bliss in the life to come. To highlight this point, St. Paul quotes Isaiah 49:8: “For [God] saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” This has an impact for us as hearers because it urges them to live a life of repentance, an apt theme for Lent. Paul is speaking to the Corinthian community particularly, but his message is not locked into that context: “receive not the grace of God in vain” is both a challenge and a warning we need to hear. There is no time to waste because now is the time, now is the day of salvation which means we cannot procrastinate. We need to take every change to recognize God’s grace in our lives and participate with it.

So for the hearer, Paul’s exhortation initially directs us inward: repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But it doesn’t stop there because this exhortation should move us from being hearers to doers to preachers. It should fill us with a sense of urgency, it should light a fire under us to evangelize. We say it every week, but it’s important to be reminded: Jesus Christ will come again to judge the quick and the dead. The Gospel expands our horizon beyond ourselves. Yes, we want to make sure we’re right with God, but we’re also called to recognize that our relationship with him is not private; it’s played out in our relation to others. So the reading should cause us to ask an important question: am I bearing that message of reconciliation to those around me? To my family, to my friends, to my co-workers, to those I interact with online, to my political opponents, to people who cut me off in traffic, to strangers in the grocery store?

It always reminds me of the reluctant prophet Jonah. Called to preach to the Assyrians, a mortal enemy of Israel, Jonah dragged his feet, trying to run away from God, and even after the infamous incident with the fish, he was a pretty lackadaisical preacher. But God is a worker who can use even a dull tool and the Assyrians respond. Jonah presumed on grace: he thought his position as an Israelite exempted him from caring about and loving his enemies; but the Assyrians, somewhat surprisingly, are a figure for people who respond. To use Jesus’ parable of the sower from a few weeks ago, they were good soil that produced the fruit of repentance, even when the farmer scattered seed carelessly. But it raises the question: who are we? Are we the ones who presume on grace or are we good soil? If we really are good soil, then we should cross-pollinate in all of our circumstances.

A final facet of our reading, connected to what has come before, is that grace is a powerful thing because it infuses gladness in our souls and empowers us so that our suffering becomes transfigured. Perhaps this is more evidence of St. Paul’s authenticity: the myriad of contexts through which he was faithful to his apostolic vocation, even when those contexts involved hardship, deprivation, and persecution. A few weeks ago in our 2 Corinthians reading, we saw a similar list of unlikely qualifications to put on a resume that overlaps with what St. Paul identified as his qualifications in our reading this morning, things like beatings, imprisonment, tumults, labours, watchings, fastings, and many other difficult situations. Grace is what flips a switch in us where these things, that are seen as universally negative and inconvenient, become for us a medicine that contributes to the healing of our souls. As C.S. Lewis says, it is “because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the frame of men. The blows of his chisel which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.” Or, as Paul iterates in Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” In Paul, these experiences undoubtedly made him a better preacher because they became opportunities for him to encounter God’s grace in such a way that his preaching was not abstract and theoretical, but personal and intimate, based on his first-hand experience with our Lord. That we would pay attention to that grace in our lives, I have no doubt it would do the same for us.

As Christians, we are called to be co-operaters in God’s unfolding plan of salvation which should lead us to repent of our sins and invite others to do the same. As we do, we begin to see our reality, both the good and the bad, as integral into our formation as disciples. These are especially important lessons for us as we embark on our 40 days of Lent in which we traditionally use the absence of food to emphasize three positive actions: almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. Almsgiving is a major way for us to co-operate with God by helping those in need through living out the Gospel in our engagement with them. Fasting is a way for us to live in a state of perpetual repentance for our sins. And prayer better enables and equips us to acquire that new perspective which sees God at work in all our circumstances and teaches us to open ourselves to his movement.

I would like to close with something a little different this morning. With your bulletins this morning, you should have gotten an index card. If you didn’t, you can get some as you leave. If you want to participate, I would like you to meditate on people in your various contexts who need to be invited into this beautiful co-operation with God, either because they outside the Church or have wandered from it. Come up with a list of 5 people and write them on the index card and put it somewhere you won’t forget it: in your prayer book, in your Bible, taped to your bathroom mirror, or somewhere else you won’t forget about it. And, if you choose to participate, try to commit to praying for these people at least once a day during Lent, especially if you’re practicing fasting, but even if you’re not. Pray that God would move in their lives and open yourself to the possibility that you might be one of those secondary causes that God uses to bring about their redemption. Does he want you to share the Gospel with them? Does he want you to invite them to Church? Does he want you to help them in some material way? What does he want you to do? What does he want you to say? How does he want you to do it or say it?

Receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time: behold, now is the day of salvation.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.