Sermon preached at St. Augustine's Church, Wiesbaden on February 16, the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Deuteronomy
30:15-20, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, Matthew 5:21-37, Psalm 119:1-8
Having elected a new
church leadership, and awaiting the appointment of a new minister, wouldn’t it have
been nice to have had readings this morning about new beginnings, about
starting afresh? Something from Paul perhaps: “So if anyone is in Christ, there
is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become
new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Or perhaps even one of those lovely images from
Revelation: “And I saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” (Revelation 21:2) But in
our tradition the readings are not mine to choose, and rightly so. Just like with
prayer, it seems that we often get what we need, rather than what we want. And I
think these readings really are just what we need here right now, as they tell
us that we have some unfinished business before we can truly start anew.
For a while now our Sunday
Epistle has come from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. The church in
Corinth was very diverse, it included Jews and pagans, rich and poor, men and
women, slaves and free, philosophers and tradespeople, so it generated a
greater diversity of opinions and problems for Paul than any other church. We
have two long letters in our Canon, there were probably more. As Tony mentioned
in his last sermon a few weeks ago, the community was divided into factions;
people were taking sides. They were divided over their leaders, over how to
deal with conflict, over moral issues, over the right way to worship, over the
value of different spiritual gifts, and over some basic doctrine. In fact one
of the few things they did not disagree on was their building – because they
didn’t have one. At that time churches met in their members’ homes, sometimes
outside, and occasionally even as guests in the synagogue if the head was
sympathetic.
Over the course of his
letter to the Corinthians – which we will only be looking out one more time in
this season, next week, Paul deals with all these issues one by one. But here in
the early chapters of his letter, he tells the Corinthians what in his opinion
the basic problem is: they are not mature Christians because they have not
grasped the nature of authentic community. I suspect they were surprised to
hear this. They thought they were clever and intellectual and must therefore be
very mature indeed. But as Paul makes clear, faith is not primarily about
knowledge or wisdom, but about the heart. True and mature faith must show up,
must be reflected in people’s lives. And what showed up in Corinth was a group
of people driven by all too human impulses, who were focused on getting their
own way, and who were either not attentive to how God’s Spirit was working in
them or even actively resisting the Spirit’s work. Instead of acting as
spiritual people, to use Paul’s term, they were behaving as people of the flesh,
driven by human impulses.
Human impulses, and
what they can lead to, are also Jesus’ theme in the section from the Sermon on
the Mount we heard from this morning. These particular teachings have sometimes
been seen as contradicting the Old Testament commands, because of the phrasing
“you have heard” on the one, and “but I say” on the other hand. But if we look
at what he actually says, then Jesus does not contradict or reject the Old
Testament teaching; instead he deepens and intensifies it. His command is not
just do not murder, but do not be angry, not just do not commit adultery, but
do not show lustful intention, and not just, do not take God’s name in vain or
bear false witness, but do not swear any oaths at all: just say what you will
do and do it.
But let’s focus on the
issue of anger – and leave lust and swearing for another day! This is a tough
one for me too. I can get quite impatient at times, as my children would gladly
tell you. I’m not good in traffic jams or queues, I have been known to get very
angry with computer printers that keep on jamming, and I can get a more than a
little upset about politicians who say things I do not agree with. In fact I
may well have taken the Lord’s name in vain once or twice.
And last week at the
AGM there was a lot of anger in this room too. It’s not something we can always
avoid and there is such a thing as righteous anger too. But if we want to be a
truly Christian community, the spiritual people Paul was referring to, and if
we want to profess our faith with our lives as well as with our lips, then we
cannot let anger stand. If we leave our anger to fester and grow then, just
like a fire inside us, it may eventually become all that is left of us – it can
take us over completely. It is not enough to just keep to the rule of not
murdering someone, our intentions and our feelings matter to. To quote from another sermon I have read on
this particular passage: “We can follow the rule and still kill relationships,
still treat people as if they were dead to us.”[1]
As Christians we are
supposed to make love the center of our lives: the love of God and the love of
the other. This is a practice - and practice is a word that indicates that we
will not manage it without a lot of attempts – attempts that form our hearts
and minds, so that both when we wrong and when we are wronged we seek
reconciliation. What Jesus is telling us here, using some very drastic images –
judgment, hell of fire, prison – is that when we damage our relationships with
others, we also damage our relationship with God. We cannot love God if we do
not love the other. That is why he tells his listeners that they must first be
reconciled to one another, before they can offer God a gift at the altar.
This is still part of
Jewish tradition today, especially at the great feast of Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. Tradition dictates that
forgiveness can be sought from God only for transgressions of the laws between
a person and God. For transgressions between people forgiveness must first be
sought and obtained from the one who was offended, and then – and only then –
from God. There must be no unfinished business with one another when we go to
God in repentance to seek God’s forgiveness.
In some Jewish communities
worshipers will walk around the synagogue during the service on the Day of
Atonement, speaking with each other and asking forgiveness from each other for
offenses committed during the past year.[2]
They are taking the service seriously and not treating it as an empty ritual or
as a rule we can follow without the right intention and feelings – without our
hearts.
For Christians, every
Eucharist is a service of Atonement and reconciliation when we celebrate and
commemorate Christ’s sacrifice for us. So let us take this service seriously
too, or even more seriously than you normally do. When we come to the Prayers
of the People in a moment, please take time to think of and pray for those you
have hurt and for those who have hurt you, and ask God for the strength to
forgive.
When we come to the Confession,
repent sincerely. Remember that we confess not only that we have sinned against
God, but also against others because we have not loved our neighbors as
ourselves. I will leave plenty of time between the invitation and the actual
prayer of confession for us all to think about whom we have offended, insulted,
or just not loved as we should do.
At the Peace let’s copy
that Jewish practice I mentioned earlier. We walk around the church anyway at
that time so seek out those you think you have hurt, or feel hurt by, to ask
for and offer the peace of God which is forgiveness.
Then we will be ready
for the feast of reconciliation, we will be ready to offer God the gift of
ourselves and to receive Gods’ gift of new and unending life in God’s Son. As
our catechism tells us: “What is required of us when we come to the Eucharist?
It is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in
love and charity with all people.”[3]
Let us use our worship
to start dealing with our unfinished business and ensuring, especially when we
approach the altar, the Lord’s Table, that there is no anger between us and our
neighbor. This will be an ongoing process, so the sooner we start, the better.
Nor is it something we can manage without God’s help, without the strength and
guidance of God’s Spirit in prayer and the spiritual food of Christ’s Body and
Blood that we will soon share. As we prayed earlier in the Collect for the day:
“in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, so give us the help of
your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will
and deed.”
Amen.
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