Divine Things

A Sermon offered for the 2nd Sunday of Lent 2009

There’s an old story about a man who was a spiritual seeker. He visited many great teachers and spiritual communities looking for a way to connect with God. He visited a great Sufi master who lived in Persia hundreds of years ago, and after a few more visits in the Sufi community, he was greatly impressed with the sincerity of their life and he wished to join them. But he had one question to ask first. He said, “Before I join your community, I need to know: does your God perform miracles?”

The Sufi master reflected for a moment and then said, “Yes, God does perform miracles. But some think it is a miracle when God does the will of man. We think it is a miracle when man does the will of God.”

I know from personal experience how difficult it is to see life from any other perspective except for my own. We all do tend to be quite self-centered, which is to be expected to some extent. However, when it extends to our relationship with God, that is a major problem. It is al too easy for us to think of God as the solution to our problems, the one who can fix our dilemmas. I hope that the story of Anna and Theodore in our Lenten study book is reminding all of us again that our relationship with God is really all about God! We are on a journey of theosis: allowing Christ to live in us, joining our life in the life of God.

One encouraging fact is that we all need this kind of reminder, and even the apostles lost sight on occasion of the reality right before them. “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” So our Lord rebuked Peter.
Here in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus begins to prepare his friends for his impending death. This, of course, is not at all what they had in mind. They wanted to follow a winner, be part of a victorious movement that would restore the honor and dignity of their people.

Death at the hands of the chief priests in Jerusalem did not seem to fit this plan. O, he spoke also of rising again in three days, but of course they had no idea what this meant. But this death was no tragic ending to his life. In fact, it was the master stroke, the coup d’état that changed the entire landscape of life on this earth. Our Lord chose the cross of his own free will. He chose to do the will of his Father.

Here we are given the contrast in perfect clarity: Peter, focused upon human things, things of this world, hoping that God will fulfill the long-suffering dreams of his people; and our Lord, focused upon God’s will, freely choosing to lay down his life to fulfill his Father’s dream for the world.

It is a miracle when we do the will of God. The Holy Spirit changed Peter, of course, and he and countless others over the years have in fact done the will of God and have left us a legacy unlike anything else on earth. Sadly, Frederica Matthewes-Green is right about the spiritual amnesia which afflicts most of us western Christians. And it is indeed an affliction, a malady of the soul. We forget who we really are. When I went to college, I became a Baptist through the influence of a pastor there who became a great friend and mentor to me. His church sent me off to the Baptist seminary in Richmond, Virginia, which was a wonderful learning community. But I could not remain a Baptist for this primary reason: they suffer from appalling amnesia. For most Baptist churches, there was John the Baptist and the Apostles, and then came along Billy Graham! With nothing noteworthy in between! How sad! This is an extreme case, of course, but it highlights what is common to most of our churches in this part of the world. We have forgotten who we really are and instead we chase new trends and fads and fashions.

When we get down to it, our faith starts with Abraham, one who walked before God with trust and confidence. Do any of you know that funny old camp song about the descendents of Abraham?

Father Abraham had many sons (children).
Many sons (children) had Father Abraham.
I am one of them, and so are you.
So let’s just praise the Lord!

Perhaps many of us will think of this old-fashioned summer camp song when we hear these lessons about the promise made to Abraham in his old age: “you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.” The amazing truth is that today we are members of the great progeny of Abraham. Through the waters of baptism, God has adopted us into the covenant as children of Abraham. And this amazing family of God stretches thousands of years from Abraham through the time of the apostles into the age of the Church, and it includes countless thousands who have denied themselves in order to do the will of God.

For us, our journey into life in Christ, our path of theosis, begins with a simple act of free will. God has made a choice to bring us into the family of Abraham, the family of the Church. The introduction to the liturgy of Holy Baptism in The Prayer Book states this fact with outstanding clarity: “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble” (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p.298). This staggering truth itself is enough to cause us to fall face down in awe and worship before One who chooses to invest so heavily in us.

Of course, God is the same God who made the original choice thousands of years ago to enter into covenant with this wandering Aramean. Abraham could have refused this gracious offer. But Abraham consented to this covenant offer, and for good reason! It would be hard to walk away from such an opportunity. But this covenant also demanded daily choices from Abraham. “Walk before me, and be blameless.” These kinds of right came to Abraham with great responsibility. It is no different with us.

In our life here on earth, we can never separate our faith from our actions, for how we see the world around us has a direct effect upon how we act. Abraham’s trust in God allowed him to act in faithfulness, to walk before God and to be blameless.

It is the same with us, particularly during this our Lenten journey. Our actions and our beliefs are closely intertwined. It may be that, the next time we stand in church to confess the Nicene Creed, we need to seriously ask ourselves the question: do I honestly believe this? Or perhaps our sense of faith is strong, and the problem is that our actions are incongruous with our faith. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves: why do I act the way I do? If I honestly trust in the living God who “calls into existence the things that do not exist”, why then do I fret with worry and anxiety? If I believe that God has chosen me and will never leave me nor forsake me, why then am I jealous at the success of another?

Whatever the “one thing” is that we lack, we can be sure of “the unchangeable truth of [God’s] Word, Jesus Christ”, as our Collect for today describes. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. In Christ, our covenant responsibility before God is accompanied by an even greater promise than that received by Abraham: the promise of the Holy Spirit! Thanks be to God that with our responsibility to walk in holiness comes a never-ending supply of divine grace to transform our lives.

So let us not grow weak in faith when we consider our own frailty and our difficulty in our process of theosis, of living in union with God. During this Lenten season, we must confess our failings, for this covenant relationship with the living God requires complete honesty and transparency. But with the eyes of faith, we know that the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit is ready to fill us, if we choose to walk this path of transformation.

God has made a choice, one which is unchangeable. For that we give thanks. Today, and everyday, it is our turn to choose to do the will of God. Amen.