Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 12:14-21; St Luke 6:36-42
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Let’s be clear. The Law always accuses. Shout it with fury and it crushes like a hammer to the rocks. Deliver it with a smile and it still stings the heart. Anyway you slice it the Law always accuses.
When Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Law, preaches His Sermon on the Plain, St Luke’s counterpart to St Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, He preaches it to His Church, that is, to His disciples, His catechumens, His hearers of His Word. This is not for masses or the unbelievers. This is for you. And He is not delivering the Law with a smile nor is He thundering it from the mountain, but it still accuses. The Law always does.
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned. And we are judged and condemned already for we constantly judge and condemn others. And not just those we know. We judge the abstract idea of those who have ended up in desperate need and show up at the church door looking for help. We judge their decisions, their motives, and we condemn all their poor choices. We condemn them. And so we stand condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. We hang on to grudges almost as tightly as we hang on to our mammon. We neither freely forgive nor do we freely give. We are like the servant who was forgiven an enormous debt by his master and goes out and starts choking the fellow servant who owed him a hundred bucks. Our unwillingness to forgive displays a lack of trust in the full and free forgiveness of all our sins by the mercy of the Father. Our unwillingness to give betrays a deep seeded greed that refuses to believe that everything we have, everything in this life is gift from a merciful Father.
The Law accuses us and we are accused. The Law condemns us and we are condemned. There is nowhere to hide, without or within. The world and the devil attack us from without, hurling all manner of temptation and immorality at us. Attempting to seduce and confound us. What’s worse, is they have a willingly ally in our flesh, which conflicts and attacks us from within. This type spiritual affliction is even worse. Our own conscience is terrified and tortured. We know that we have failed. By the work of the Law the beam in our own two eyes has become painfully obvious. Where do we turn in our blindness?
Repentance is needed. Daily repentance. This is the constantly necessarily work of the Law in the life of the Christian. It is the work of God’s Spirit in His Law as He works on and in His Christians. This is the warp and woof of the Christian life: repentance and faith; contrition and absolution.
And that’s what we have been doing these past few weeks since Trinity Sunday - hearing and learning from the Gospel of St Luke what it means to be a Christian, how we are to believe and behave. You heard it first in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The point there: listen, heed the Word of the Lord, cling to it for dear life and the source of all good in this life and the life of the world to come. Then the parable of the Great Banquet and the nature of the Kingdom of God; the extravagant mercy of the Lord of the House to invite the poor and outcast and dejected to His banquet. Even St Mary, last Sunday, taught us of the Lord’s mercy upon the meek and lowly and how one ought to receive the Word of God in the humility of faith and the poverty of spirit. And you see it today exemplified in Joseph.
For the Kingdom of God is not like a wrathful and vindictive Lawgiver who condemns His whole creation to Hell. Though He would be justified in doing so. Rather the Kingdom of God is like a merciful Father lavishing His grace and love upon His fallen children; raising them up to Himself in peace and righteousness, bestowing upon them new and splendid identities as His adopted sons and daughters, Christians after His own heart, marked with His Holy Triune Name.
The merciful Kingdom of God is seen in the faithful Father, true fountain ever flowing, bestowing the perfect Gift of His own dear Son, to be born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4:4-5). The Son has opened your blind eyes by removing the two beams - one from each eye - and lashing them together into the cruciform instrument of His all atoning sacrifice for you.
You are His sons and heirs. You may have been sold into the slavery of sin, but you do not rightly belong to that wicked Pharaoh the devil. You are sons and daughters of your merciful Father in heaven. Become merciful, even as your Father is merciful. For this is your true identity as rightful heirs of the Kingdom. He is your God. You are His people. A people after His own heart, created by Him in the beginning and recreated by Him in the image of His own beloved Son, who is not only the Lord of the Law, but the Fulfillment of the Law.
For those imperatives of the Law that accuse you: judge not, condemn not, give, forgive. Are also indicatives that describe Christ Jesus. He did not judge or condemn. He freely and completely forgave those who sinned against Him. Jesus gave all that He had, down to the last drop of His own precious blood, as a ransom for the world.
And precisely because you, dear Christians, share in His baptismal everlasting life you become merciful, even as your Father is merciful. His Father is your Father. As He is, so shall you be. As He was in this life, so you are now. Delight in the Law of the Lord in which you are blessed. It may accuse and condemn your old Adam, but it is the true and perfect, holy and beautiful Word and will of your heavenly Father who loves you in mercy. Study it. Meditate upon it. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. Keep it before your eyes. Set it before your children in love.
For though the Law always accuses. The Law does not only accuse. It also guides. It instructs and informs your life of fervent love toward your neighbor. You are saved and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ alone. By the One who was sold into the Egypt of your sin, who was strung up on the evil Cross, but which God meant for good as the way to keep alive you and your little ones. He saved you. Christ alone. He did not save you from the Law, but for the Law. You are placed, by the good and wise Law of the Lord into your various vocations: father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker. There you are called to bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Repay no one eve for evil. In short, to become merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful. To do as Joseph did: forgive those who sin against you.
For you have been freely and fully forgiven of all your sins in the shed blood of Christ, who suffered for you, in your place, the full penalty of the Law on your behalf. He was accused for you. By faith in Him you are set at liberty; made free to live in the love of Christ for the good of your neighbor. For you are His child and catechumen. He your Father and Teacher. He measured out the full righteousness of the Law, pressed it down, shook it together, and pours it over in abundance upon you. This is how He measures toward you. Without measure. In super abundance. This then is the way of righteousness and generous measurement He exhorts for the sake of your brethren.
Do not be fearful of your sins, dear Christians, come forward to your Joseph, Jesus Christ, who is not only in the place of God, but is God; for He is here in forgiveness and mercy, in blessing and love. He speaks kindly to you and comforts you. He provides for you and your little ones. You are not His enemy. You are hungry, so He feeds you. You are thirsty, so He gives you to drink. His own Body and Blood, the very incarnate mercy of your Father, the superabundance of His grace, measured to you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Let’s be clear. The Law always accuses. Shout it with fury and it crushes like a hammer to the rocks. Deliver it with a smile and it still stings the heart. Anyway you slice it the Law always accuses.
When Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Law, preaches His Sermon on the Plain, St Luke’s counterpart to St Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, He preaches it to His Church, that is, to His disciples, His catechumens, His hearers of His Word. This is not for masses or the unbelievers. This is for you. And He is not delivering the Law with a smile nor is He thundering it from the mountain, but it still accuses. The Law always does.
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned. And we are judged and condemned already for we constantly judge and condemn others. And not just those we know. We judge the abstract idea of those who have ended up in desperate need and show up at the church door looking for help. We judge their decisions, their motives, and we condemn all their poor choices. We condemn them. And so we stand condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. We hang on to grudges almost as tightly as we hang on to our mammon. We neither freely forgive nor do we freely give. We are like the servant who was forgiven an enormous debt by his master and goes out and starts choking the fellow servant who owed him a hundred bucks. Our unwillingness to forgive displays a lack of trust in the full and free forgiveness of all our sins by the mercy of the Father. Our unwillingness to give betrays a deep seeded greed that refuses to believe that everything we have, everything in this life is gift from a merciful Father.
The Law accuses us and we are accused. The Law condemns us and we are condemned. There is nowhere to hide, without or within. The world and the devil attack us from without, hurling all manner of temptation and immorality at us. Attempting to seduce and confound us. What’s worse, is they have a willingly ally in our flesh, which conflicts and attacks us from within. This type spiritual affliction is even worse. Our own conscience is terrified and tortured. We know that we have failed. By the work of the Law the beam in our own two eyes has become painfully obvious. Where do we turn in our blindness?
Repentance is needed. Daily repentance. This is the constantly necessarily work of the Law in the life of the Christian. It is the work of God’s Spirit in His Law as He works on and in His Christians. This is the warp and woof of the Christian life: repentance and faith; contrition and absolution.
And that’s what we have been doing these past few weeks since Trinity Sunday - hearing and learning from the Gospel of St Luke what it means to be a Christian, how we are to believe and behave. You heard it first in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The point there: listen, heed the Word of the Lord, cling to it for dear life and the source of all good in this life and the life of the world to come. Then the parable of the Great Banquet and the nature of the Kingdom of God; the extravagant mercy of the Lord of the House to invite the poor and outcast and dejected to His banquet. Even St Mary, last Sunday, taught us of the Lord’s mercy upon the meek and lowly and how one ought to receive the Word of God in the humility of faith and the poverty of spirit. And you see it today exemplified in Joseph.
For the Kingdom of God is not like a wrathful and vindictive Lawgiver who condemns His whole creation to Hell. Though He would be justified in doing so. Rather the Kingdom of God is like a merciful Father lavishing His grace and love upon His fallen children; raising them up to Himself in peace and righteousness, bestowing upon them new and splendid identities as His adopted sons and daughters, Christians after His own heart, marked with His Holy Triune Name.
The merciful Kingdom of God is seen in the faithful Father, true fountain ever flowing, bestowing the perfect Gift of His own dear Son, to be born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4:4-5). The Son has opened your blind eyes by removing the two beams - one from each eye - and lashing them together into the cruciform instrument of His all atoning sacrifice for you.
You are His sons and heirs. You may have been sold into the slavery of sin, but you do not rightly belong to that wicked Pharaoh the devil. You are sons and daughters of your merciful Father in heaven. Become merciful, even as your Father is merciful. For this is your true identity as rightful heirs of the Kingdom. He is your God. You are His people. A people after His own heart, created by Him in the beginning and recreated by Him in the image of His own beloved Son, who is not only the Lord of the Law, but the Fulfillment of the Law.
For those imperatives of the Law that accuse you: judge not, condemn not, give, forgive. Are also indicatives that describe Christ Jesus. He did not judge or condemn. He freely and completely forgave those who sinned against Him. Jesus gave all that He had, down to the last drop of His own precious blood, as a ransom for the world.
And precisely because you, dear Christians, share in His baptismal everlasting life you become merciful, even as your Father is merciful. His Father is your Father. As He is, so shall you be. As He was in this life, so you are now. Delight in the Law of the Lord in which you are blessed. It may accuse and condemn your old Adam, but it is the true and perfect, holy and beautiful Word and will of your heavenly Father who loves you in mercy. Study it. Meditate upon it. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. Keep it before your eyes. Set it before your children in love.
For though the Law always accuses. The Law does not only accuse. It also guides. It instructs and informs your life of fervent love toward your neighbor. You are saved and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ alone. By the One who was sold into the Egypt of your sin, who was strung up on the evil Cross, but which God meant for good as the way to keep alive you and your little ones. He saved you. Christ alone. He did not save you from the Law, but for the Law. You are placed, by the good and wise Law of the Lord into your various vocations: father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker. There you are called to bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Repay no one eve for evil. In short, to become merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful. To do as Joseph did: forgive those who sin against you.
For you have been freely and fully forgiven of all your sins in the shed blood of Christ, who suffered for you, in your place, the full penalty of the Law on your behalf. He was accused for you. By faith in Him you are set at liberty; made free to live in the love of Christ for the good of your neighbor. For you are His child and catechumen. He your Father and Teacher. He measured out the full righteousness of the Law, pressed it down, shook it together, and pours it over in abundance upon you. This is how He measures toward you. Without measure. In super abundance. This then is the way of righteousness and generous measurement He exhorts for the sake of your brethren.
Do not be fearful of your sins, dear Christians, come forward to your Joseph, Jesus Christ, who is not only in the place of God, but is God; for He is here in forgiveness and mercy, in blessing and love. He speaks kindly to you and comforts you. He provides for you and your little ones. You are not His enemy. You are hungry, so He feeds you. You are thirsty, so He gives you to drink. His own Body and Blood, the very incarnate mercy of your Father, the superabundance of His grace, measured to you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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