Homily for Lent 3, Year A, 2011
Sunday, March 26th, 2011
Trinity Anglican Church, Bradford, ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Romans 5:1-11
“For while we were still weak, at the right time God died for the ungodly.”-Romans 5:6
Strength, fortitude, self-assuredness – In the coming days as the electioneering gets under way for our upcoming federal election, we will hear much from our politicians about how strong they are, about the fortitude they have, and political statements will be uttered with such self-assured self-confidence that we will be led to believe that not one single one of our candidates has a weak, vulnerable bone in their bodies. All the while, in Libya, we witness horrifying displays of strength and power layered upon rhetorical utterances of strength that either side shall fight to the last man, woman and child. Yet, we only need to cast our gaze toward Japan, or to Christchurch New Zealand, to realize that human strength is but a phantasm and our utterances but bravado when faced by far greater forces that shake the ground upon which we walk and raise the seas upon which we sail. What is human strength when the “earth withdraws its consent”, as author and chronicler of earthquakes, Simon Winchester, has so aptly put it?
Fundamentally, we know that we are fragile creatures. Fundamentally, we know that our lives are fleeting in the cosmic scheme. Fundamentally, I believe all of us know deep down that we are indeed dust, and to dust we shall return. Yet, we continue in our bravado, in our displays of strength, and we continue to seek to “one-up” each other in the rhetoric of strength. Why do we do this?
I believe that it is because we know that deep down that we are not strong, that we vulnerable and fragile creatures, and so we fight against our vulnerability and fragility with words of strength and displays of power. However, the more we claim false strength and fortitude, the more we realize that we are hiding behind a façade. What happens when our self-proclaimed fortitude fails? What happens when we are unmasked? What happens when the curtain is drawn and the wizard is revealed as the diminutive little man masking his vulnerability behind a curtain and the projection of the face of the great and powerful OZ?
Most of us fear the moment of unmasking, and yet we know that it is inevitable. Sooner or later, we shall be found out, whether someone else unmasks us or when our lives spin out of control and we stand unmasked in front of the mirror. When we are faced with our own vulnerability, we are prone to feel like failures, unable to muster the appropriate strength to hold our lives together, unable to be strong enough to hold the lives of others together. At the core of our being we are frightened by something that is intrinsic to all of us as human beings, something from which none of us are immune – our fragility and vulnerability. Because we fear this so much, we create façades of strength to hide behind, but sooner or later we must face the fact that we are mortal, we are vulnerable, and that if you prick us, we will bleed.
The great mystery of our faith, though, is that this is precisely the place that God confronts us, that God meets us, and that God leads us into newness of life. It is not in our moments of strength, nor in our moments of rhetorical bravado that we encounter the loving God, but rather in moments in which we feel the weakest. It is in our moments of suffering, both physical and spiritual. It is in our moments of sadness. It is in our moments of failure. It is the moments in which the wounds of our lives lay open. It is in the moments when human resources are exhausted. It is in the moments when we feel the farthest from God that we meet the Christ: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” When we feel weak, when we feel distant from God, the Christ seeks us out.
St. Paul reminds us that it is not in our perfection, in our strength, or in our righteousness that God died for us, but rather in our imperfection, in our weakness, and in our sinfulness that he goes to the cross. He goes to his death not out of disappointment in us or to punish us with guilt for all the ways in which we have failed; rather, he goes out of deep love and because his heart, the heart that is big enough to eclipse the cosmos, seeks to draw us into its loving compass. In his vulnerability, his vulnerable people are made strong. In his brokenness, his broken people are made whole. In his unjust and death, his unjust people are made right in body, mind and spirit.
Thus, the world’s understanding of strength is turned on its head. No matter how many powerful words I may choose to use, no matter how often a politician may preface words of strength with rhetorical flourishes such as “Let there be no mistake…”, no matter how loud we shout about our strength, strength is not something to be manufactured, but will only be known in the embracing our weakness, in touching our pain, in acknowledging our brokenness, that the Christ might give us his strength, the true strength that comes from God, in the midst of our vulnerability.
This is how St. Paul characterizes strength. It is not a strength rooted in bravado or rhetoric that masks vulnerability, but a strength that embraces its vulnerability in order that the power of God might be made known. This is why he says that contrary to the false boasts of strength of the world, we boast in our suffering , because we know that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
What then is strength, true strength? Strength begins with an admission of our weakness and an open heart to let the Spirit of God work upon us. It is our endurance in allowing God to work through our weakness that character is formed. It is only then that true character, not false strength, shall be formed within us. And with such character we have hope, for we have witnessed the strength of God, we know what God can do for us and for this broken world. With such hope we need not shout. With such hope we need not raise arms against others. We need only to witness to his love by loving, and journeying together in our weakness and vulnerability, for this is the place where he meets us. This is where his heart touches ours. It is where his authenticity touches our authenticity, and it is in this life of shared authenticity and honesty that the strength of God will be known in Jesus Christ.
c.2011, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Showing posts with label Lent 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent 3. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 6, 2010
"Give them another chance!" A Sermon for Lent 3, 2010
Homily for Lent 3, Year C, 2010
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 13:1-9
“Sir, let it alone for one more year.”
-Luke 13:8
In considering the evils that have plagued this world in the past century and contrasting the great evils of our time with the relatively benevolent behaviour of everyday men and women, it would be easy for us to say we are free from sin. Most of us lead lives in which we do our best to love our families, be good citizens, and make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. For the most part, we are not criminals or hurtful people and when contrasted with those who stand trial for brutal crimes or against those who perpetrate holocausts and ethnic cleansing, we come off looking pretty good. Without a doubt, the goodness of ordinary people is often eclipsed by the all too real stories of human depravity and brutal disregard for the lives of others. Thus, we should celebrate goodness where we find it and allow goodness to cast a light on the darkness. It is worth remembering during this Lenten season, though, that as good as we might be, we all do things for which we are ashamed and of which we ought to repent. To recall the words of St. John, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
I suspect that this is the thrust of the first part of story found in Luke 13. Some people put a question to Jesus about those who suffered various horrible fates, namely some Galileans murdered by Pilate and those who were killed when a tower fell on them. In the ancient world, disaster was often considered to be a punishment for sin. Indeed, a disaster might have even been considered a display of God’s wrath and evidence of previously committed sins. Sadly, this archaic religion is not a thing of the past. A certain well-known televangelist recently claimed that the Haitian disaster was a consequence of sins committed by the Haitian people in the nineteenth century. Yet, one wonders if this well-known preacher has ever read Luke 13 in which Jesus rebukes the questioners with the words, “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
We are so quick to see the sin in another and to assume that their misfortune is result of their faithlessness, but God forbid my own sins should be unmasked, for I am surely deserving of no better a fate. The truth is that be they large or small, our sins and our mistakes are all things for which God ought to be justly displeased. If our human brokenness were unmasked to the world there is not a one of us that could stand unashamed. We all have things we hide. We all have things in our lives about which we are deeply ashamed. And truth be told, we are all likely afraid that if our brokenness were unveiled, we would be punished for it.
Jesus’ words are harsh, not because God is harsh, but because we belong to a harsh reality, that good and decent as we are, there is not one of us that is perfect, and there is not one of us that does not harbour some shameful secret. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Lent is a time for us to stare the reality of our sinfulness in the face.
Jesus confronts us with a harsh reality, but does not leave us without hope. As he so often does, he tells us a little story, a parable, to teach us something about God and the kingdom. Jesus tells the story of a man who plants a vineyard and this man’s encounter with the gardener who tends it. One particular tree in the vineyard has been without fruit for three seasons and the man, being the practical fellow that he is, commands the gardener to cut it down for it is simply wasting the soil in which it is planted. The gardener pleads with him though, “just one more year and a little more tending to the soil… if it doesn’t bear fruit at that time, then you can cut it down.”
“Give me one more chance, one more season.” We all deserve another chance, for we are all sinners. In spite of the fact that we think we ought to be punished, Jesus says, “Give me another go with him.” Maybe we need a little nourishment, a little cultivation, maybe just a little time. The truth is that maybe what we need is just a little help from our Lord. Left to our own devices we can be decent people, but we will always be flawed people. There will always be someone we offend or hurt, there will always be some way in which we have let ourselves down, let our loved ones down, let our God down. As Christian people, though, this need no dissuade us from pressing forward, for the Lord our God is good indeed. He does not visit disaster upon us for our sins, as some might suggest, rather his style is to say, “let’s give her another year,” or “I’m not finished with him yet.”
Most importantly, though, we are not left to our own devices to make things right, for God himself in Christ, tends the soil of our brokenness and sinfulness, and in doing so brings forth fruit in our lives. The whole Lenten journey is less about what we can do to make ourselves better people, and entirely about what God can do to bring forth fruit in our lives and for his kingdom. The triumph of the cross is the vanquishing of the shame of our sin and brokenness. The cross is at once Jesus’ cry to the Father, “give them one more year,” and at the same time his loving tending to the soil of our broken lives. When we are withering and dying under the shame of our guilt, Jesus stands for us, with us, and puts his hands into the dirt of our lives to cultivate within us the fruit of redemption.
Thus, to keep a holy Lent is not to work harder at something we can never attain on our own, but to offer the things we dare not share with other men and women directly to the Christ, hanging on the Cross, and he will bury them in a tomb from which no stone can be rolled away, and then give us living water that we might flourish and grow under the nourishment of his risen life.
c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill ON
The Rev. Daniel F. Graves
Text: Luke 13:1-9
“Sir, let it alone for one more year.”
-Luke 13:8
In considering the evils that have plagued this world in the past century and contrasting the great evils of our time with the relatively benevolent behaviour of everyday men and women, it would be easy for us to say we are free from sin. Most of us lead lives in which we do our best to love our families, be good citizens, and make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. For the most part, we are not criminals or hurtful people and when contrasted with those who stand trial for brutal crimes or against those who perpetrate holocausts and ethnic cleansing, we come off looking pretty good. Without a doubt, the goodness of ordinary people is often eclipsed by the all too real stories of human depravity and brutal disregard for the lives of others. Thus, we should celebrate goodness where we find it and allow goodness to cast a light on the darkness. It is worth remembering during this Lenten season, though, that as good as we might be, we all do things for which we are ashamed and of which we ought to repent. To recall the words of St. John, “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
I suspect that this is the thrust of the first part of story found in Luke 13. Some people put a question to Jesus about those who suffered various horrible fates, namely some Galileans murdered by Pilate and those who were killed when a tower fell on them. In the ancient world, disaster was often considered to be a punishment for sin. Indeed, a disaster might have even been considered a display of God’s wrath and evidence of previously committed sins. Sadly, this archaic religion is not a thing of the past. A certain well-known televangelist recently claimed that the Haitian disaster was a consequence of sins committed by the Haitian people in the nineteenth century. Yet, one wonders if this well-known preacher has ever read Luke 13 in which Jesus rebukes the questioners with the words, “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
We are so quick to see the sin in another and to assume that their misfortune is result of their faithlessness, but God forbid my own sins should be unmasked, for I am surely deserving of no better a fate. The truth is that be they large or small, our sins and our mistakes are all things for which God ought to be justly displeased. If our human brokenness were unmasked to the world there is not a one of us that could stand unashamed. We all have things we hide. We all have things in our lives about which we are deeply ashamed. And truth be told, we are all likely afraid that if our brokenness were unveiled, we would be punished for it.
Jesus’ words are harsh, not because God is harsh, but because we belong to a harsh reality, that good and decent as we are, there is not one of us that is perfect, and there is not one of us that does not harbour some shameful secret. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Lent is a time for us to stare the reality of our sinfulness in the face.
Jesus confronts us with a harsh reality, but does not leave us without hope. As he so often does, he tells us a little story, a parable, to teach us something about God and the kingdom. Jesus tells the story of a man who plants a vineyard and this man’s encounter with the gardener who tends it. One particular tree in the vineyard has been without fruit for three seasons and the man, being the practical fellow that he is, commands the gardener to cut it down for it is simply wasting the soil in which it is planted. The gardener pleads with him though, “just one more year and a little more tending to the soil… if it doesn’t bear fruit at that time, then you can cut it down.”
“Give me one more chance, one more season.” We all deserve another chance, for we are all sinners. In spite of the fact that we think we ought to be punished, Jesus says, “Give me another go with him.” Maybe we need a little nourishment, a little cultivation, maybe just a little time. The truth is that maybe what we need is just a little help from our Lord. Left to our own devices we can be decent people, but we will always be flawed people. There will always be someone we offend or hurt, there will always be some way in which we have let ourselves down, let our loved ones down, let our God down. As Christian people, though, this need no dissuade us from pressing forward, for the Lord our God is good indeed. He does not visit disaster upon us for our sins, as some might suggest, rather his style is to say, “let’s give her another year,” or “I’m not finished with him yet.”
Most importantly, though, we are not left to our own devices to make things right, for God himself in Christ, tends the soil of our brokenness and sinfulness, and in doing so brings forth fruit in our lives. The whole Lenten journey is less about what we can do to make ourselves better people, and entirely about what God can do to bring forth fruit in our lives and for his kingdom. The triumph of the cross is the vanquishing of the shame of our sin and brokenness. The cross is at once Jesus’ cry to the Father, “give them one more year,” and at the same time his loving tending to the soil of our broken lives. When we are withering and dying under the shame of our guilt, Jesus stands for us, with us, and puts his hands into the dirt of our lives to cultivate within us the fruit of redemption.
Thus, to keep a holy Lent is not to work harder at something we can never attain on our own, but to offer the things we dare not share with other men and women directly to the Christ, hanging on the Cross, and he will bury them in a tomb from which no stone can be rolled away, and then give us living water that we might flourish and grow under the nourishment of his risen life.
c. 2010, the Rev. Daniel F. Graves
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