The Episcopal Church of the Incarnation
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 6](A)
Genesis 18.1-15,
21.1-7 Psalm 116.1, 10-17
Romans 5.1-8 Matthew 9.35-10.23
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)
Last week we spoke of faith as involving trust as well
as assent.
a)
Trust comes first, and involves our personal
relationship with God.
b)
Assent is important:
What we believe matters.
2)
Despite the intellectual and rhetorical language used
in Romans, Paul remains focused on relationship when he says, “[W]e are
justified by faith.”
a)
Let’s not worry about the old debate over whether we are justified by faith alone, and focus instead on what
being “justified” has to do with our relationship with God.
3)
Religious scholars debate what being “justified” means.
a)
Is this a forensic usage, meaning that we can stand
before God and not be condemned?
b)
Is the concept one of reconciliation?
c)
Regardless of how we want to define justification, what
matters is having a right relationship with God.
i)
That we have not separated ourselves from God.
4)
We separate ourselves from God by sin.
a)
But God pays the price of that sin, to restore us into
relationship with Him.
i)
And what we are called to do is to believe that God has
paid the price, and that we are restored into right relationship, by and
through Jesus Christ.
(1)
When we truly do confess Jesus as Lord with our lips,
and receive Him into our hearts as Lord and Savior, it is in this faith that we
are justified.
5)
Let’s look at relationship.
a) The Lord appears to Abraham mediated by three “men” (or angels).
b) Abraham, like any human, cannot apprehend the true visage of the Lord, and so the Lord appears to him in a form he can understand.
i) Note, however, that Abraham addresses the three men by the singular title, “my lord,” but uses a plural pronoun (‘yourselves”).
ii) Note further, that when the Lord speaks there is one voice, and that in v. 14 He refers to Himself by proper name (the Lord) using the singular.
6) Despite the age of Abraham and Sarah, the Lord is faithful to His promise, and brings forth the son, Isaac.
a) Sarah laughs at the promise of a son, and when the son is born Abraham names him Isaac, which means “May God laugh in delight” or “May God smile upon”.
i) Having met the Lord personally, Abraham can understand better that God delights in His creation; in His creation being in right relationship with Him.
(1) This delight is expressed as love.
7) We in fact say that God is love.
a) But let’s be careful. Love is not just a feeling or sentiment.
i) In the case of God love is an event; it’s something that happens.
(1) The event of love is our redemption.
(a) Our redemption by the incarnation, birth, life, ministry and teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign on high of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(i) As expressed best in the words of our Lord Himself: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3.16).
8) Love is an event and love is a verb. Love does something. It saves us.
a) And we are called to be part of this love, part of this action.
b) We are called to “... love the Lord [our] God with all our heart, and with all [our] soul, and with all [our] mind; ... and [our] neighbor as [ourself]” (Matthew 22.37-39).
i) We are called to be part of the love which is God, to embody this love; again, not as a feeling or sentiment, but as something which acts.
(1) That in this love all may come to faith and all may be justified.
9) Think of examples in your own life in which love has acted.
a) When you have done evil and been forgiven.
b) Or when someone has helped you, when there has been no part of self-interest in their action.
i)
Story example from the life of Bl. Titus “Shorty”
Brandsma (substituting himself for another prisoner, in a “medical
experiment” at
http://saints.sqpn.com/saintt57.htm
ii) “... while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8).
10) Love acts, and when we accept this action and live in it, we live in faith and so are restored to a right relationship with God.
a) We don’t split hairs over what it means to be justified.
i) Rather, we live in right relationship with God, experiencing His love as something to be lived in and shared.
In the Name of
the Father, and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.