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Today’s Gospel has Jesus teaching the disciples about the heart and the conscience before God. In essence, He most profoundly exposes the Law as both a necessity (That mirror) and it’s loopholes that the Evil One works upon to have us stumble. I believe that Jesus is calling us to reconciliation, acceptance and accountability as His disciples. This seems to be the strongest theme coming through today’s Gospel. We strive willingly towards this goal as we journey in growth as His children of Grace and promise.
As I read these
wonderful teachings of Jesus, from the Sermon on the Mount, once again my heart
is reminded and troubled where the world has been going these days. Perhaps it
started as early as the beginning of the week taking the elderly man I have
been providing spiritual care for, through Visiting Angels, to the daily 11am
Roman Catholic Mass, he regularly likes to attend. The priest there, actually really gives good “mini-messages.” This particular week, he preached on Genesis
and the creation story. The Catholics
have, for the most part, a completely different lectionary than what the
majority of Protestants follow. What
struck a spiritual cord for me in his message was the thought that we have
utilized culture to not only change our identity (needing faith, etc.) but to
in essence begin to erase the image of God from our spiritual awareness.
Awareness is a key concept here—for we are all too aware,
way too often of that microcosm the Ego forms around the self… The Old Nature loves the comfy,
self-justifying, self-righteous cocoon that the Ego (with Satan’s help) builds.
Which when I was meditating around some of the Old Testament Commandments, Laws
some of which Jesus was carefully going through—I saw three key things:
Reconciliation, Acceptance and Accountability.
Each one of these concepts are beautiful and radical
goals that are dependent upon owning up to the reality of Spiritual
Formation. One of the things I greatly
enjoyed when I had transferred to finish my seminary studies at an Evangelical
school, was that they most certainly taught how to incorporate, reflect and
share not just Biblical truths but Spiritual Formation truths on how we are to
“develop” as disciples of Jesus. Today’s texts seem to speak to the notion of:
Do you have the right stuff? Do you have
what it takes? In fact, each and every
pastoral care and ministry related practicum courses I had at TEDS, focused
upon what has been diminished and nearly lost: Our spiritual reality!
Having recently served as a Spiritual Formation pastor to
a pair of successful church plants, let me tell you, it IS very important. If you indeed ARE, being led and fed by your
pastoral guide in a given congregation, you truly LIVE into naturally reaping
the New Nature. This is that New Creation planted within you by the Grace of
Christ. You naturally begin to bear
gracious fruit—that slowly and surely centers in service beyond the self, and
is prayerfully, most powerfully delivered as Love to both God and neighbor.
This is the righteousness and justice God seeks from us. It is an altruistic, “works in progress,” it
is a transformed heart—made pure by the Holy Spirit shaping you spiritually to
say YES to God!
Reconciliation is one of those beautiful fruits born out
of this intentional, inner motivation to Know Jesus, Know Peace. You heard me mention this a sermon or two
ago—Know Jesus, Know Peace and No Jesus, No Peace. It takes two to tango as the saying goes and
perhaps we’re more often challenged to the point of sitting back like
Michelangelo’s David with his finger apathetically reaching to touch the tip of
God’s finger… It is in those areas of
challenge that we have developed, patented, homogenized and justified
convenient loopholes in the natural “Law” and Gospel that Christ call to us to
be accountable to.
One such “inconvenient” truth is a word, a word that I
have prayerfully come to spiritually despise—Tolerance. "Tolerance"
is nothing more than a spiritual loophole and an empty, worldly promise. Basically it does and says two things—I am “conditional”
around the ego and its justification, its own Gospel alone, as well as I am not
willing to even strive towards working, growing, learning how to incorporate,
reflect, confess and share acceptance as a means of Grace to create peace,
forgive and work together! In fact it is
a word that rejects God’s will to strive for peace and merely justifies the
heart to willfully protest and condemn what it sees fit for the sake of the
self, not God or neighbor. But then these are one of those scary, radical
concepts coming from the Beatitudes of Jesus that perhaps our humanity just can’t
handle or won’t handle!
The word Justice has suffered being “spiritually battered,”
as well, since we more often than not, use it as a political tool to social
constructs and self-oriented agendas. The kind of Justice that both Jesus and
St. Paul illustrate in this week’s Epiphany texts is to CHOOSE the New Life
path lying in wait before us all as God’s children of Grace and promise. The
New Nature given to us by the sacrifice and offering of Christ on our behalf,
is the ‘Genesis’ of the Kingdom of God within us to bear! It is life abundant—a
gift of Grace and the promise of God’s Kingdom.
It is an image of God upon our souls to look upon, take in willingly and
share—being a blessing to others, because you yourself, have realized at
moments on your journey that God has not only BEEN there with you, but has
blessed you. He has blessed you through
many things, little things daily—these are the mysteries of our faith, our life
together as His disciples.
When Jesus discusses some of the commandments and the
sources of sin, I think it is interesting how He basically talks about the
spiritual surgery we need to do to cut it out of our lives. I immediately thought of wonderful Cursillo
song called: ‘Here’s my life, I lay it on the Altar…’ It’s truly an oldie, penned one year before I
was born! Google however was not
successful in finding its lyrics but from what I little I remember, they were
profound and carried on the whole of teaching, the Sermon on the Mount was to
impart to us. Here is my life (& all Old Natured ways) given up to You,
God. I lay it on the altar as a spiritual
sacrifice in order to grow—transform.
That very first Cursillo I made, in 2003, is where I heard this Gospel
hymn. I don’t really remember any of its
words but I do remember how it moved my heart to say YES to God!
Isn’t that a funny thing?
Ok, so you don’t remember hardly any of the verses at all… but the
moment—a time with God in worship and reflection left a profound imprint upon
you, motivating you to persevere through your faith journey. The Gospel of
Jesus sometimes does and doesn’t use words but like that other popular church
wide statement goes—never put a period where God has placed a comma. So, are our lives more or less like long,
run-on sentences? It depends on what you’re
“running-on.” Do you feel your faith is moving forward, if not, what is really
the cause? Are we gazing into that
spiritual mirror of the Law, but perhaps not really seeing what’s actually
there?
Being, living as a disciple of Jesus is complex
stuff. We make it even more complicated
when we internally battle with the image of God imprinted on our souls as His
children and the image of the world that the Evil One tempts us to build upon.
That exactly was a part of the many dysfunctions, at the Corinthian church St.
Paul had to mediate and instruct upon as their pastor. Getting that kind of humility that St. Paul
preaches and teaches upon, not just to the Corinthians, but to many of the
churches he was encouraging, takes reconciliation and being, becoming
prayerfully accountable.
Forgiveness and Accountability are the spiritual Brussel sprouts
our worldly selves shrink from. Ok, I’m
sure someone out there just LOVES Brussel Sprouts, I’m sorry but I guess,
speaking for myself, no amount of butter, bacon or spirits are going to improve
the taste for me! To build upon, grow that ever-slowly transforming heart
dedicated—laid at the Altar of God… We must prayerfully seek to reconcile. It is a beautiful thing, to reconcile within
the soul—where it first, should begin—is finding and building upon an inner
peace. I have laid aside the Old Nature—it’s
on-going, this is true, but I am striving to reap, the New Nature! This is the
heart saying YES to God by confessing our natural problem—we are both saint and
sinner. This is our tension, our
challenge that we continue to do battle with.
Reconciling ourselves to God yet alone reaching out in
love to reconcile with neighbor is divine Justice. It is truly making right with God in the
heart and truly serving neighbor in a prayerfully accountable way that imparts
the truth of the Gospel: LOVE. The kind
of Justice God seeks for us to reflect upon, incorporate, share and renew from
is all New Nature stuff. It is living a
cross-shaped life built by faith through the Grace of God to be gracious
children. What you do in this life needs to come from a genuine awareness of
self, growing from the New Nature being reaped—this is what Jesus keeps grating
upon when He mentions Gehenna. Gehenna is an understanding of hell—a graceless
wilderness, filled with empty promises, lacking in missional purpose. As mentioned before, living a life curved
inward bears no fruit.
Instead of laying the treatise of Christ aside and merely
“tolerating” what He needs us to own up on—how about accepting His challenge,
willingly, prayerfully and most beautifully? It is an inconvenient truth to
what the Gospel is calling for us to DO and BE but this is the reality of the
Kingdom of God.
Let us Pray,
Gracious and Loving Lord Jesus,
Every day You teach our hearts beautiful things
We must lay aside our willfulness and self-seeking
tendencies
If we are to become a people of Peace with a purpose grounded
in Love
May we daily strive to become a people of reconciliation,
acceptance and accountability
You have poured out upon us grace upon grace—an indelible
image of You
To be incorporated within our very selves
May we thank You Lord for each and every day—AMEN
February 12th, 2017;
Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 119:1-8;
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
Below is a link to this sermon's delivery at the 5pm Grace Hub's service
https://youtu.be/Zq7KLUQ4RsA
https://youtu.be/Zq7KLUQ4RsA
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