Grace – Candle in a Cave

13 October 2024

Sermon: Proper 23 RCL B – “Thanks be to God”

Once, there was an elder in the lower parts of Egypt, and he was a very famous hermit who lived alone in a desert. Two young men knew of the old hermit’s pious life, and they often scoffed and ridiculed him. Knowing this, Satan brought it about that a woman of easy virtue came to the two young men and said, “What will you give me if I can cause the hermit to stumble and sin?” The young men loved the idea, so they agreed on a certain sum of money they would give her. Going out the following evening, the woman came to the hermit’s cell, pretending to have lost her way. She knocked at his door, and he came out. Seeing her, he was disturbed and said. “How did you get out here?” She pretended to weep and said, “I have lost my way.” So, being moved to pity, he let her into the front room of his cell, and for his part, he went on to the inner room and locked the door. But the unfortunate woman cried out, “Father, the wild animals will eat me out here.” Once again, the hermit was disturbed, thought of the Judgment of God, and said, “How did this dreadful thing ever happen to me?” But opening his door, he let her in. It was then that the devil began to shoot flaming arrows of lust into his heart. But he said within his soul, “The ways of the enemy are darkness, and the Son of God is light.” So he lit a lantern, but the temptation continued, and he said, “Well, let’s see if you will be able to bear the flames of hell if you stumble and fall into sin by this temptation.” So he put a finger into the lantern’s flame, but though the flame burned him, he did not feel it because the fire of lust burned so brightly in him.” It went on like this all night until morning. He had burned all his fingers. The unfortunate woman, watching what he was doing, was so struck with terror that she almost turned into stone. In the morning, the two young men came to the hermit and said, “Did a woman come here last night?” “Yes,” said the hermit. “She is over there asleep.” Seeing her, they said, “Father, she is dead!” Then the hermit, throwing back the cloak he was wearing, showed them his hands and said, “Look what she did to me, that child of Satan! She has cost me all my fingers.” (Naturally, it was the woman’s fault that the hermit lusted after her.) However, having told them all that had taken place, he said, “It is written, ‘Thou shalt not render evil for evil.’” So he said a prayer and the young woman was revived, converted, and lived chastely for the rest of her life.

The hermit had done all he knew to do to live an ascetic life—a life free of outside influence and stimulus—so that he might dedicate himself to a life of solitude and prayer. This might seem odd to us today, but it is, in fact, a very noble and holy calling. He believed he was doing everything necessary to please God, but then the woman appeared. For him, she was a temptation, a stumbling block in his walk with God. He overcame the temptation, but the price of his obedience was his fingers—a very high price, indeed.

In our gospel reading, we are told that a young man came to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus answered, “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” Excitedly, the young man replies, “I’ve done all this since I was a child.” In love, Jesus responds, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Like the hermit, the young man believed he was doing everything right. He was following the Law to the letter and walking the path of righteousness, but it wasn’t enough for his salvation. Jesus knew that this young man was wealthy and had many possessions, so Jesus said, “Give it all away and follow me.” The young man went away sad. For him, the price of his obedience might as well have been all his fingers. But even then, it would not have been enough for his salvation.

Jesus is asking the young man, “Do you want to try and save yourself through your actions, your abilities, and possessions, or are you willing to set all that aside and walk by faith?”

In this incident, the young man represents the people of Israel. All their lives, they have believed they could bring about their salvation by adhering to the Law of Moses. That is, by their works (the idea that doing good deeds or following the Law allows you to earn your salvation), but now, Jesus says it is not enough. They must have faith, follow him, and accept God’s grace that is being offered.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul provides a fascinating discussion on salvation by works, which he compares to salvation by faith. Paul writes, the “Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’” (Romans 9:30-33)

The people said to themselves, “If we burn all our fingers, we will be saved. If we follow the Law of Moses, we will be saved. If we do this, that, or the other, we will be saved. Through our works—the things we do—we can earn our salvation.” This belief was their stumbling block. And they so stubbornly believed in their ability to save themselves that they did not recognize the salvation Jesus was offering—a salvation that was far more costly than anything they could earn through their works.

In a day and age when we are so concerned with the stock market, inflation, wars, monkeypox, or whatever, I don’t know that the issue of our salvation and eternal life ever enters our minds, except, perhaps, when we gather here. However, when we do gather, we are the hermit in his cell, and we are the rich young man kneeling before Jesus, and like them, we ask, “What must I do to receive eternal life?” Like with the young man, Jesus may answer our question with a question. “What are you doing to receive eternal life?” We respond, “Well, I go to church, I say my prayers, I give to the poor, I read my Bible, I confess my sins, I receive communion, and more.” Jesus looks at us lovingly and responds, “You lack one thing. You must die to yourself. You must give me your life, then come, follow me.”

Jesus has just laid a large stumbling block in our path. The price is too high. It is too much.

I always get a little tickled when I think of the second part of our Gospel reading. I get this cartoon image of a camel, and he has this big ol’ bug eyes as he stares through the eye of a needle, trying to figure out how he will get through it. A thought balloon pops up over his head. “Nope,” he thinks. “Not a snowball’s chance in the Sahara!” That is us. The price is too high. We simply cannot do it. The stumbling block placed before us plants us face down in the dirt, with no chance of recovering.

The disciples thought the same thing and asked, “Then who can be saved?” Can you see Jesus smiling when He answers? “For mortals, it is impossible, but not for God; for God, all things are possible.” Once, the apostle Paul was ranting against himself because of the stumbling block in his life, so he said in his despair, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” In the confession of his failing, he discovered the answer. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25a)

With all my talking about sin these last several weeks, you may have thought it was the Season of Lent. We talked about confessing our sins, walking in the Light of Jesus, drawing near to God, and being true friends by holding each other accountable. However, even with our very best efforts, we are the camel staring through the eye of the needle, and we respond in despair, “Nope. Not going to happen.” Not because we don’t want to but because we don’t have it within us.

We are to make our very best efforts to follow the commandments of God, but in the end, for our salvation and eternal life, it is too expensive for us; therefore, we need another way. We need God to forgive us our sins. We need mercy. We need grace.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.”

(Psalm 121:1-2)

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Thanks be to God, for through Jesus, the camel can pass through the eye of the needle.

Let us pray:
Father of Mercy,
forgive our failings,
keep us in Your Grace,
and lead us in the way of salvation.
Give us strength in serving You
as followers of Christ.
May the Eucharist bring us Your Forgiveness
and give us freedom to serve You all our lives.
May it help us to remain faithful
and give us the grace we need in Your service.
May it teach us the way to eternal life.
Amen.

4 June 2023

Sermon: Trinity Sunday RCL A – “Presence”

Does anyone recognize the names Frank Lee Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin? What if I told you Clint Eastwood portrayed Frank Morris in a 1979 movie? Well, the movie is Escape from Alcatraz, and it is about those three men and their great escape from Alcatraz prison on June 11, 1962.

It was supposed to be the prison that no one could escape from. Still, those three escaped by using a spoon to dig a tunnel through a concrete wall, paper mâché dummies to represent their sleeping bodies in their cells, and fifty stolen raincoats to build a raft to cross a mile-and-a-half of open water to freedom.

Authorities said they drowned in the process, but no bodies were ever discovered. In 2013 a letter was received, reportedly from one of the Anglin brothers, and said they all survived and had been living in Brazil. And in 2016, a photo of the two brothers that was taken thirteen years after the escape was discovered. There’s been no official confirmation on either of these revelations.

So it seems this was one of the successful prison breaks, but not everyone is so fortunate or intelligent. For example, in 1975, seventy-five individuals attempted to escape via a tunnel out of a Mexican prison. After digging a considerable distance, they surfaced, only to find themselves in the courtroom where they had all been convicted. And in 2012, four men in Brazil attempted to escape through a tunnel they had dug. The first guy got through, but the second, well, he got stuck. The local fire chief said, “[The second man] has a very large physique, and is also very tall. The other prisoners tried to push him, but he stayed stuck in the wall. He started screaming in pain, and that was when the prison guards were alerted.” Jailbirds? More like Jail Dodoes.

Today, in our first lesson, we read the creation account. After all was said and done, God said it was good, but we know the rest of the story. All that God created was still good but became stained by sin, so God removed Adam and Eve from the paradise He had created for them. God drove them “out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”

We can read about successful and failed prison breaks—those folks trying to get out—but I would suggest to you this morning that we are like them, but instead of trying to break out of someplace, we have been trying to break back in. Break back into that garden. The place where, like Adam and Eve, we can walk with God because the presence of God is our true home.

It is too long of a quote for a sermon, but it is worth it. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, “The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death.”

We desire our true country, our true home, which is the presence of God, so we search for ways to get there. At times, we can deceive ourselves into thinking we have found it, but these are only our own machinations. Smoke and mirrors and, in the end, we are like that stocky fella in Brazil and get stuck along the way or like those fellas in Mexico that tunnel out of prison and into the very place where they were condemned. We seek the presence of God through our own devices and are turned away by those cherubim with their flaming sword. So, what is the answer? How do we come into the presence of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

There was a TV show called Burn Notice. It has seven seasons. I never saw it, but I came across a quote from one of the episodes. The main character is talking about breaking into a safe, and he says, “There are two schools of safe cracking. Some people like to beat the lock; some people like to break the lock. But it doesn’t matter when the safe is sitting wide open.”

We search for ways to break into God’s presence and our true home, but the door, the Way, is already open and made available to us. And not just when we are dead and gone, but this very day. If that is true, which we believe it is, how do we enter? How do we come into relationship with God and enter into His presence?

Some would say, “Live a good life. Do good works. Be a nice person,” but St. Paul tells us that our salvation “is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8b-9) A good life, good works, and being a nice person all fall under the category of works. Paul goes on to tell us that we were created to perform good works, but those good works are not how we enter into God’s presence.

Others would tell us that we must pray the sinners’ prayer. A prayer where you confess that you are a sinner, declare Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and that you turn to Him. It is a good prayer, but it is really only a tool because it also falls under the same category as works. If you read any version, the most glaring word is “I.” It is all about what I am doing. I’ll do this. I’ll do that. I’ll work on the other. A good prayer, but too many “I’s” for my taste.

“Fine, Father John, so how? How do I enter into God’s presence?”

Just before those few verses on works from Ephesians, St. Paul answers the question: “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith.”

We hone in on that word grace, defined as “undeserved favor.” So we are saved by God’s undeserved favor, but that still doesn’t answer, “Why?” But Paul did provide the answer in the first part of that passage—“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us….”

To enter into God’s presence, you do not have to break in or work your way in. The gate is already open, and we are allowed entry. We are allowed entry through no action of our own, no great deed, no philanthropic gesture, no nothing. We are permitted entry because we have been loved into God’s presence. Our love for God follows His grace, His love for us. As St. John tells us, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) There it is. The Way to God’s presence is through His love for us.

Today is Trinity Sunday. I’ve shared with you in the past my understanding that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united, one to another, through their bond of love. It is that same love that binds Them together that is then extended toward us. We, in turn, then choose to accept or reject this gift of love from the Holy Trinity.

On the sixth day of creation, God created humankind, yet, even before that day, God knew you and loved you, and through Adam and Eve, we lived in His presence. Yet, there was a time when we were cut off from that Presence, but because God so loved the world, He made The Way possible for us to return. He gave His Son, His Son who is love incarnate, and, as St. John tells us, all who receive Him and all who believe in His name are given the right to become children of God. (cf. John 1:12) Therefore, by receiving Jesus, you receive God’s love, and you enter into your true country—the Presence of Our God.

Question: what are you waiting for?

Let us pray:
Glory be to the Father,
Who by His almighty power and love created us,
making us in the image and likeness of God.

Glory be to the Son,
Who by His Precious Blood delivered us from hell,
and opened for us the gates of heaven.

Glory be to the Holy Spirit,
Who has sanctified us in the sacrament of Baptism,
and continues to sanctify us
by the graces we receive daily from His bounty.

Glory be to the Three adorable Persons of the Holy Trinity,
now and forever.

Amen.

2 March 2022

Sermon: Ash Wednesday – “My Confession”

In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning quotes from another who writes, “One saint used to say that she was the type of woman who advances more rapidly when she is drawn by love than when driven by fear. She was preceptive enough to know that we are all that type of person. It is possible to attain great holiness of life while still being prone to pettiness and insincerity, sensuality and envy, but the first move will always be to recognize that I am that way. In terms of spiritual growth the faith-conviction that God accepts me as I am is a tremendous help to become better.” (p.49)

Brennan sums this up by saying, “Love is a far better stimulus than threat or pressure.” This understanding leads to the realization that God loves us for who we are. That doesn’t mean that we don’t seek to be holy as our Father in heaven is holy, but it does mean that we learn to accept God’s grace and mercy, so that we don’t become discouraged and fall away.

That said, I’m always encouraging you to make a proper confession, whether that be to sit down with a priest or on your own, but as I have also told you, I hate going to confession. I’m very well aware of weaknesses and faults and I don’t like having to put them out there, but today… a public confession (and everybody says, “Well, this just got interesting!” Not like that, but maybe worse.) Here goes, two parts…

Part one: many struggle with being hard on themselves and many struggle with accepting God’s grace and mercy. The more those types of feelings persist, the harder that person is on themself. Friends: I am not good to myself. In many different ways I punish myself for my shortcomings. I am a priest that knows—for a fact!—that you are loved by God and so very deserving of God’s grace and I will do anything I can so that you can experience that love and grace, but… I have refused to accept it for myself. That’s part one. Part two: I’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of standing outside the banquet and missing out on the celebration.

That’s the confession. (Not very juicy, I know.) So, during this season of Lent, what am I going give up? I’ll probably give up something more tangible (that one is between me and God), but I think what I’m really going to give up is the act of pummeling myself and kicking my own backside. I think I’ll give up being a shield to God’s grace and allow him to soften my heart toward myself. As I said, I’m tired of being on the outside of the banquet, trying to make myself worthy to enter in, all the while, forgetting that this is a work that Jesus has already accomplished.

We always think of the ashes on ash Wednesday as a sign of penance and our mortality, our death. They are, but Thomas Merton looked at them from the other side. He wrote, “The ashes become a health-giving medicine and they bring wholeness, cleanness to the body as well as protection to the soul, both of these availing for the remission of sins. They bring the grace of that humility which they signify, they bring also the pardon which we implore by the fact of receiving them.”

The ashes are a sign of penance and death, but when we receive them with true humility, they are not only a sign of sin and death, but of forgiveness and life.

I invite you to continue on the path for this Lent that you have set for yourself, but, if you find yourself in the boat with me, then I invite you to join me in recognizing the fact that God accepts you as you, so that you can then experience His grace and love.

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