Proper XVII+A 31
August, 2014 Father Robert
R.M. Bagwell+
An
atheist was taking a walk through the woods, admiring all that the
"accident of evolution" had created. What majestic trees! What
powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!" he said to himself. As he was
walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He
turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as
he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was
closing in. He ran even faster, so scared that tears were coming to his eyes
His heart was pumping frantically. He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled
over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on top of him reaching for him
with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him. At that instant the
atheist cried out "Oh my God!". Time stopped. The bear froze. The
forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving. As a bright light shone upon
the man, a voice came out of the sky, "You deny my existence for all of
these years; teach others I don't exist; and even credit creation to a cosmic
accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count
you as a believer?" The atheist looked directly into the light. "It
would be hypocritical of me to
suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhapsY. could you make the bear a
Christian?" Very well," said the voice. The light went out. The river
ran again. The sounds of the forest resumed. And then the bear dropped his
right paw. Brought both paws together, bowed his head and spoke: "Lord,
for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful."
Would
you look carefully at the collect this morning: "Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good
things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true
religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good
works; "
You may or may not know that
Anglican theology is very much wedded to the collects. The
Lutherans have a Confession of Faith, even the Baptists have a Confession of
faith. We do not have a confession of
faith. Our faith is found in the 39 Articles, the Creeds, the ancient counsels
and the and we have the collects. This collect sets up an interesting
question. "How do love God's
Name", what is to increase "true religion" to be nourished with
goodness" and bring forth "good works." This sort of encompasses the whole of our
Christian faith and life. Jesus' final
charge to us on the Mt of the Ascension was this: He said to tHis disciple and
therefore tro us.
“All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you
always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18b-20)
There can be no more pertinent reading to
our current day. For though you may
still think of American situation as a Christian nation., I want you to know
that the Enemy has made great gains in "stuffing" the ears of people
lest they hear and should believe..
The first thing I want to draw to your attention is that we,
"we" go forth in the authority of Jesus. This is not our endeavor, but God's endeavor.
Do you not remember that we are "ambassadors for Christ. We represent
Him, We re-present Him. I am not suggesting
that you get up on a soapbox in downtown Savannah. I am suggesting that you begin to take seriously
the fact that you are God's Emissary. Whoever's
lives you touch it may be very well that God is touching them through you! We are so often distracted by the
Deceiver. We don't want to offend
anyone. Isn't God a "personal
matter." Did you read the same
Bible I did? Faith is personal but it is not private!
I know that this is not so called "politically
correct" but it is "religiously correct". If the early church were as cowed in fear as
the contemporary Church. The message
would never have made it out of the upper room on Pentecost! And before you
think it's someone else's job, like a priest or preacher or even a missionary
for example, you would be terribly wrong. And before you think that this is the job of the clergy and those who
wear vestments, I want to ask you "have you read the baptismal covenant lately?"Before
I get off my soapbox let me give you a startling statistic. A majority of
unchurched people say they attended a church for the first time because someone
asked them. "Oh my! So intimidating!"You can understand that! If you ask someone who already knows and
trusts you, they are less intimidated at the thought.. So I want to ask you, have you invited anyone to church? EVER? Pray
on it! But let me return to my initial question.
"How do love God's Name", what is to
increase "true religion" to be nourished with goodness" and
bring forth "good works." Our Bible speaks a lot about God's love. That differentiates
Christianity from every other faith tradition except to some extent Judaism.For
instance we read in first John: "7 Dear friends, let us love
one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God
and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because
God is love." (I Jn 4}
This is unique to us! You do not hear a Moslem saying "Allah is
love". Now an Arabic Christian would
but not an adherent of Islam! How do we love God? Why love God? We love
because he first loved us. 20 Whoever
claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does
not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom
they have not seen. 21 And he has given
us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Love is a
matter of the will. What we see portrayed
in Hollywood is not the love of which Paul or Jesus speaks. I have gone over this dozens of times in pre-marital
counseling. Love is a matter of the will!
How many of you know that our spouses are not
always that loveable? So let me differentiate for a moment. There is love and there is like. How many of you know that you can love a person
even if you do not like what they are doing? Love values the integrity of the person. Remember
the covenant? "Respect the dignity of
every human being?" Love is unconditional
if you are a Christian. That is difficult,
but that is God's love and God's Spirit in our hearts will love others through us
if we will let him. How many of you know that we offend God every day with our thoughts
and words and deeds? Or did you think that was just in the Prayerbook so you read
it?
God's love is unconditional. I am quite sure that God does not like some of
us some of the time, but he still loves us. Much as a parent will make excuses for
a child, but still love them even if they do not love the behavior. In Peter's Epistle we read: "8 Above
all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."
I Peter 4:8 How do I know this? Because
the Bible says: " But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 Not after he cleaned us up, but while we were yet
sinners.
Jesus brought a revolutionary idea into the world. That God
is love, lover, and loved. Love begins
in the blessed Trinity as that love is given and received, then shared that
love with us. Jesus has grafted us into the
Family of God. That family which begins with
the mutual love in the Trinity and through Jesus is now shared with us! Which
brings us to Paul's writing from the letter to the Romans.
:Paul
writes: "Let love be genuine; hate
what is evil, hold fast to what is God; love one another with mutual affection;" Earlier in this chapter in verse one Paul
writes: " Love must be sincere." (12:1) You may say: "why of course it must be! After all
what is insincere love? I don't know but
it sure isn't love and I believe it will eventually show itself not to be so. That is why we must love our neighbors as ourselves.
Don't let your love be some pretense of veneer
of Christianity, a shallow façade. Seek to treat everyone as you would treat the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me share with you something I've
learned from the original language, and we'll let it inform the text." The
word “sincere” comes from the Latin words sine cera, which means “without
wax”. The phrase comes from a practice
where people would hide the cracks in cheap pottery with wax in order to pass
the pottery off as being worth more than it actually was. Quality products were often stamped with the
words sine cera to show it had not be doctored. It would be similar to those
products today that are stamped, “all natural” or “100% pure”. Paul is telling us to love in a way that is
pure and genuine. http://unionchurch.com/archive/051505.html)."
In a day when they would cook in pottery,
when they would heat up the ceramic, the wax would melt out. Then you would know you had been had.
Interestingly enough, that word sincere and genuine are the
same word and it is the translation of the Greek word: "Anu-pokritos"
which literally sounds like the word we use today: "hypocrisy." As
for the other questions that the collect begs, I would like to suggest that they
are answered in the rest of Paul's writing for today. "How
do love God's Name", what is to increase "true religion" to be
nourished with goodness" and bring forth "good works."
We
love God's Name by reflecting God's love towards others. That is the only way
we show God that we love him. How do we
show others that we love him? By what we
do towards them. It is the same. When others see us and if they know we ae Christians,
then we have to behave! We must because if
we do not, we bring dishonor on the name of the Lord Jesus and the glory of God.
Have you heard the expression "and they
call themselves a Christian?" I know
if you live in the South, you have heard that expression!
We show
ourselves to be "hypocrites!" When
we call ourselves "Christians" that means "little Christ". We
show God's love to others and that is how we show God we love Him!
What
is true religio, true religion? In the
writings of a fourth century Christian Lactantius, opted for the word
religare, a verb meaning “to fasten or bind.”
He said that this signifies we are “tied to God and bound to him by the
bond of loving kindness."
Goodness comes from "god-ness", God-likeness from the
Old English, following God doing and good works are the only way we can show
God, we love him or show others that we love God! We do not do good works so God will "like"
us. We do good works because God dwells in our hearts
and we cannot help ourselves.
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