The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 12](A)
Genesis 29.15-28 Psalm 105.1-11, 45b Romans 8.26-39 Matt. 13.31-33, 44-52
May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that
I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen.
Outline of a
Sermon Delivered Extemporaneously
1) “Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts.” Those of us old enough to remember the
long-running TV show “Dragnet” remember the tag line of Sgt. Joe Friday, the
hard-bitten police detective who with his partner, Officer Bill Gannon, never
encountered a crime in Los Angeles that they couldn’t solve.
a) And when did Sgt. Friday use
this line?
i) He’d say this when he was
getting a lot of emotion from a witness or victim; emotion mixed with
extraneous speculation.
b) Joe Friday was always
focused on what he needed to know to solve the crime; not on how the witness or
victim felt.
i) In other words, he was
focused on events: what happened, when,
where, and who was there? He was focused
on behavior.
2) In today’s Gospel, the
kingdom of heaven is compared to a dragnet:
“The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and
throw them into the furnace of fire ...”
a) The angels will separate
those who have followed Jesus’ call to repent from those who have not.
b) So the question becomes,
does God want “just the facts”–is He focused on our behavior only–or is
something beyond behavior involved in how we will be judged?
c) At issue is how we relate to
God.
i) Do we relate to God in
objective terms, in terms of how He has chosen to reveal Himself, and how we
conform ourselves to this revelation?
ii) And/or do we relate to God
in subjective terms, in how we experience God?
(1) The answer is? Both!
3) The answer is both because
while God is unchangeable, every time we seek to relate to Him He relates to
us; He reaches out to us.
a) We may seek to conform
ourselves and our behavior to how God has revealed Himself to us:
i) In how He has revealed
Himself as a God of righteousness who has prescribed norms for our behavior.
ii) And in how He has revealed
Himself as a God who says, “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8.11) when we but
turn once more to Him.
b) But whenever we seek to
relate to God what happens?
c) In
4) Notice what is going on
here. No matter if we have been
unfaithful, God is faithful, and He is faithful to the point where He Himself
comes to us to help us in how we grow in faith.
a) Just as he Himself came to
us in human form, to die on a cross for our failings, for how we had turned
away from Him.
b) He comes to us and “...
helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”
5)
... all things work together
for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son ...
a) Predestination is a scary
word and a thorny issue for many. But
let’s listen again to what
i) Let’s consider those words
in light of what else God foreknew.
(1) We recall that at Genesis
1.26 God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness ...”
(a) In other words, being
conformed to the image of God’s Son is part of His plan.
(2) We also recall that God
knows not only humanity, but each one of us, as written in Psalm 139 (vv.
12-15):
12 For you yourself created my inmost parts; * you knit me together in my mother's womb. 13 I will thank you because I am marvelously made; * your works are wonderful, and I know it well. 14 My body was not hidden from you, * while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth. 15 Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;all of them were written in your book; * they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.(a) In other words, God foreknew each one of us as an individual, for He created each one of us.
b) And it is each one of us who is predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
i) It is each one of us for whom the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
ii) It is each one of us for whom God sent His only Son, that as we believe in Him we shall not perish but have eternal life.
6) The angels with their dragnet who want “just the facts” will thus be confronted with what facts?
a) With the facts of our behavior, yes; with how we have fallen short of the mark.
b) But with the facts, the fact, that “If God is for us, who is against us?”
i) And that is what St. Paul is getting at in his famous confession:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. c) Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord except our own rejection of God, and we have to work very, very hard to make that rejection stick.
7) Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon always got their man. No fish was slippery enough to slip through their dragnet.
a) And God has His net set for you, that as He knows you and loves you He can catch your heart, your love, your soul, to conform you to the image of His Son.
In the Name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.