Fr. Robert R.M. Bagwell+
Epiphany III+C
24, January AD 2016
Epiphany III+C
24, January AD 2016
In seminary, I was taught that the collects
are the harbingers of the Anglican / Episcopal theological tradition. In theory
the collects for every Sunday inform our theology in the Anglican tradition.
What was our supplication or request from God together this morning a little
while ago.
This collect asks God to help us: to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and
proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole
world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works;
In
our present day, Christianity is being challenged on every side. We are seeing for the first time in our
nation's history, Christianity being smeared, threatened, sued, and
persecuted. This is something novel in
the American experience. Our nation was
founded on the precepts in the Bible.
John Adams our second president said this: " Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (The supposed deism of John Adams' day was not as removed
from the Christian faith as we have been told.
As we approach the choice of our
next leader,, I notice a very disturbing trend over the last few decades and in
both parties of our nation: the sacrifice of Truth, casual intentional deceit,
untruth and manipulation. Christianity, the great tempering force for truth is
told to sit in the back seat and "shut up." The words of Jesus John 14:6 I
am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me, are considered narrow and prejudicial and unwelcome.
. Whatever 'political pundits may say, dishonesty is unacceptable.
. Great swaths of our nation have
forgotten the principles upon which we were founded much fueled by the Black Robed
Regiment, the ministers who stood for the revolution based on the Holy Scriptures
because of the covenant that the king had broken with the colonists.. There is
no more "the Truth", rather we are told that "that is YOUR
truth". It isn't mine.
Much like many of our people, so the people of
Israel after seventy years in Babylon, in modern Iraq had forgotten the laws of
God.. The priestly offerings ceased with
the destruction of the Temple Solomon built.
They had not heard the reading of the Book of the Law since that time to
our knowledge, for 70 years. When heard
it, our text says: "" all the people wept when they
heard the words of the law." It is much of this same
understanding that informed those who wrote our present system of laws. When we return to our foundations, I hope it
would give us sorrow. No one likes lies,
but we put up with them from national leadership. George Santayana (1863-1952) said "Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it."
By our original documents, it is clear
that the nations' foundations are steeped in the Christian faith. Though how
deceitful re-writes of history have
been, even the atheists cannot escape God in Christ at the core of the American
experience.. The glorious terrain of the virgin land of North America testifies
to God. The first verse of our Psalm
reads : " The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork, to
the great chagrin of evolutionary theory. You cannot
stamp out God, no matter how hard you endeavor to do it.
What was the first thing that Mao Zedong's did when he became the ruler of the
budding Communist China? He closed all
of the churches and other religious buildings and forbade their literature. The state was now God. There are those who seek the same for the
United States. All references to God are removed from public building, crosses
from cemeteries, and all references to the highly religious beliefs of American
history are purged from textbooks.
We are a long way from the days when
Jefferson rode his horse to the capital building where several different groups
held worship services on Sunday. On top
of all of this, we are warring with a sect of Islam who prescribes every act of
everyday life.
Into
this scenario Jesus comes. Welcomed or unwelcomed Jesus comes. He goes into the synagogue in his home town. As most of the synagogues did not have
professional rabbis, the members of the congregation would stand up and read
from the scrolls. Jesus is asked to
read, so he takes the scroll of the Book of the prophet Isaiah and turns to a
passage that tells of the prophesied Messiah and reads:
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
This
was well enough as usual and expected.
He then sat down to teach and has the temerity to say: Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.
Was this local boy for real? How
dare he? Blasphemer!
What began
with a Bible reading quickly turned into a riot and some of the people wanted
to take him as a mob to a nearby cliff and cast him down, however God had other
plans. In the text that follows, we read
about another one of Jesus' miracles But
he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Back to the collect, are we
seriously able to pray this? Christians
are again dying for their faith. Houses of worship over a thousand years old
are being destroyed. In the midst of
this, missionaries are telling stories of Moslems, who experiencing ISIS, are
questioning their faith. Many have
reported seeing Jesus in a dream that leads them to the underground
churches. The true stories of men and
women who against all of HUMAN reason, risk their lives to tell of Jesus. The
recent release of our fellow Americans from Iranian imprisonment.
God is moving. Let us pray for the Moslem people, that they
may find the Lord of Life. Conversion requires moving from one structure of
looking at reality to another. From the purely natural human perspectiveCto
God=s perspective! To quote one of my many mentors: Conversion is saying to GodCAI
can never walk away from you because my life has no meaningCpurposeCor
focus without you at the center of my personal history. @Conversion
is truly meeting Jesus, having a life altering encounter, being restored to union with God who gives
ultimate meaning to life itself.
The
persecution is spreading. Our Anglican
Church is suffering terribly in Africa and Asia, in South Pacific and of course
the middle east. . It is
most certainly is coming here and our choices are far more than party
and much more of person.. Like the
ancient martyrs we celebrate on our kalendars they many are going
joyfully. As we read in the first
reading: the joy of the Lord
is your strength. Let us pray daily too
be filled with that joy. God's strength
in us is born out of joy.
Perhaps some of you will remember
this hymn. It is in the 1940 hymnal
written by a Unitarian poet, the son of a Unitarian minister, James Russell
Lowell, to protest the American war with
Mexico. Although he was not a follower of Jesus as Christ, he does speak to
weighty moral choices we are called upon to make at times of life. He named the poem: This Present Crisis, we know it as Once to Every Man and Nation.
Once to every man and nation, comes
the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
AMEN
