Christopher Thomas
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A – 2/16/2020
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 119:1-8
1 Corinthians 3:1-9
Matthew 5:21-37
Because in my weakness (really, it’s my humanness), I can do nothing (nothing good, that is) without you. Give me the help of your grace, that I may keep our covenant, thereby pleasing you in both my intention and in my action. Amen.
Intention, and action, and grace.
So, as I have said before, it is my great privilege to go, to use Tom Long’s metaphor, to the well of scripture, week after week, to see what the Great Good News, the Word (Capital W, Logos) has to say to us, for you and my individual lives and contexts, and also for the wider setting of our communal life that we can and will live together here not only on our corner of Inwood and Mockingbird, but even more importantly, out in the world beyond us to which God beckons us.
And as you will learn, I’m not a heavy academician. I am what I like to think of as a “practical theologian.” I’m interested in the places, the touch points where the Gospel rubber hits the road, so to speak, more of a common sense meets theology approach. And so, my personal homiletic style is not overly complicated. In fact, I’ll give you the recipe, so you will know what you’re looking and listening for!
There’s typically some main point that I’m hopeful to drive home, some point that I would love it that you take with you when you leave, and go to Luby’s, or the Dallas Country Club, or wherever you go after St. Thomas. I usually present that point three ways, first through some personal experience of my own, that I hope allows you to find your own way into the story, followed by some contextualization of the scripture and what it meant for Jesus and/or the folks in biblical time. And then I try to bring it all together with the grand theological question, the one that transcends all time and space, and that I spent years and lots of money and resource learning, the age old question of…
“So what?”
So what does any of this mean to you, and to me, and to us, and to we, today, as individuals, and as a community, and as a community of faith that works and struggles to figure out how God wants us to live faithfully, and “faith-filled-ly” in this hurting, torn, broken world. Because we covenanted with God, long ago, to do just that. We covenanted with God, we and our ancestors before us, to be in relationship, across time, with God, and therefore, and very importantly, with each other. And not just with the “each others” that we like and that look like us, but more importantly, with the “each others” who don’t.
And so, there you have the secret sauce, the recipe, for a Fr. Christopher special. One idea, presented three ways, with a helping of the ever-theological question, “so what?” (Well, that’s positively Trinitarian – One in three, three in one, but I’ll save that for another day!)
Intention, and action, and grace.
I can do nothing good, I cannot keep our covenant, God, without you, without your grace, the grace to do your will in all that I intend and all that I action to undertake. I will, with God’s help.
I think Jesus is God’s grace personified, God’s gift to help us keep the covenant which we made with God. Why only last week, Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the Prophets; Quite the contrary; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them!” It must have been apparent to God, and surely to the people, that humanity was having a significant issue with this keeping of covenant, and so, grace personifies, God dwells among us, Immanuel. “Let’s see if I can come help you with this.”
Today’s portion of the Sermon on the Mount stands as testament to the role of grace, unmitigated grace, in human relations and relationships. People intend one direction, and human action invariably takes us in another, and grace is the amazement (maybe that’s where the idea of “Amazing Grace” comes from?), grace somehow holds us together in committed covenant.
“You have heard, ‘You shall not murder.’”
“You have heard, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’”
“You have heard, ‘You shall not divorce.’”
“You have heard, ‘You shall not swear falsely.’”
“You have heard, ‘You shall not…’”
“You have heard, …”
“But I say, ‘Look for grace. Seek grace. Give grace. Be grace. Find ways to honor the covenants you make, and commitments, and relationships, and each other.’”
Jesus is not negating the law, or superseding the law, or abandoning the law. Far from it! Murder and adultery and divorce and swearing aren’t the best things for building relationship, for building community. But things happen. Life happens. The best of intentions intersect with actions.
And so, Jesus gives us the prescription, grace, for being able to live within the law, so that we can fulfill our covenantal relationship with God in our everyday lives. In that way, grace becomes transformation, transformational, because grace transforms us, and it transforms those with whom we extend the grace. Grace has a mutuality and a reciprocity that builds upon itself. It is a catalyst. And it is an ignitor for change.
AND grace is a choice. It is a choice that is birthed in intention and moves through its own action, action that all along the way is bathed in, well, grace.
“Moses said, ‘See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you love the Lord your God, walk in God’s ways, and observe God’s commandments, then you shall live and God will bless you.’” “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving God, obeying God, and holding fast to God; for that means life to you and all that you love, those who come after you.”
The choice made to live a life steeped in grace is one that opens up a richness and fullness beyond what we can ask or imagine. Let’s face it. We’ve all been on both sides of the prodigal child/parent story at some point in life. There is no greater relief than grace received when we are the child who realizes the stench of the pig sty; and there is no more glorious feeling than receiving the returned child home, enveloping them within the loving bosom of grace.
It works out wonderfully when grace is a circular, reciprocal process, that real mutuality, grace given, grace received. So satisfying. So fulfilling. The process is complete.
But what happens when that isn’t the case. What happens when grace isn’t so neat and tidy?
God gives us a choice. And some people aren’t going to choose grace. Or they have a different view or definition of grace. Or the pig sty doesn’t yet smell to them, or to us. Then what?
This is going to be important for the work that God is calling us to do within and particularly beyond the walls of St. Thomas the Apostle Church, and so I need you to start thinking about this now, so that you are prepared and ready. The hard work of social justice ministry is a combination, a double-edged sword of justice and mercy/grace, meted out in equal parts, but in varying amounts. Sometimes it involves a little more justice and a little less grace, and sometimes it’s a little less justice and a lot more grace. And quite often the grace isn’t reciprocal. The other side isn’t the prodigal child returning home repentant.
What does grace look like for the murderer, or the adulterer, or the abuser, or the whatever, in the face of justice, because we all want justice. That’s easy. Does it look like the death penalty? I don’t know, but we need to start thinking about these things before we set out on the path of being a social justice congregation so that we are ready when the questions and the situations and the circumstances come up.
How do grace and justice coexist?
Because in my humanness I can do nothing good without you. Give me the help of your grace, that I may keep our covenant, thereby pleasing you in both my intention and in my action.
Intention, and action, and grace.
Amen.
