A Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Everyone who is perfect shall be as his master.
The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Jesus says, "Everyone who is perfect shall be as his master."
Usually, the word "perfect" is used in the King James Version to translate
a Greek word that means "in accordance with its end, fully suited to its
purpose"; but here, in the sixth chapter of Luke's Gospel, the word "perfect"
is used to translate a Greek word that means "repaired, restored, reformed,"
or even "fully trained." A contemporary translation of this sentence,
for example, renders it: "a fully trained disciple will be like his
teacher."
The juxtaposition of this sentence with the Epistle lesson
from Paul's letter to the Romans reminds us of the purpose of Jesus's earthly
ministry and teaching.
In the beginning, God created all things; and last of
all he created human beings in his own image and likeness. He made
on the earth a paradise of delight, in which human beings would live in peace
and happiness. Into the earthly paradise came sin. Human beings
sinned in response to this temptation: if you defy God, if you do what
God has forbidden, then you will become gods yourselves--you can decide for
yourselves what is good and what is evil. And when human beings sinned,
the whole creation became subject to vanity and to the bondage of corruption.
God's
In the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son came into this
fallen world to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of
godly life. Through faith in Jesus Christ, by baptism, we are given
grace to become what God meant for human beings to be from the beginning.
Human beings were not created to to live out their threescore years and ten
in misery and suffering and then to die; we were created to live forever
and to be happy with God.
In this present world, we, and all of creation along with
us, are subject to corruption and death, to suffering, pain, and misery;
but in the world to come, we shall live in the glory of God himself.
In spirit, by virtue of our baptism, we already have our life in Christ--we
reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ
Jesus. But in body we still dwell in the corrupt world.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul contrasts our spiritual
life with our carnal, bodily life. He writes that those who allow themselves
to be governed by carnal desires, and who attend to the things of this world,
seeking bodily gratification, have nothing to look forward to but death.
Our human nature is disordered--fallen--and therefore opposed to God, and
incapable of pleasing God.
Those who belong to Christ are governed by the Holy Spirit.
By the power of the Spirit, they can overcome the domination of bodily cares
and desires. Those who order their lives according to spiritual things
need not fear death, because the same God who raised Jesus Christ from the
grave will give life to our body.
That is why Paul can say with confidence that the sufferings
that we endure in this present world are nothing compared with the glory
that is to come. By the power of the spirit, we can become "perfect,"
in the sense of the word used by Jesus in today's Gospel lesson. By
our baptism into the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we are restored
to the original state for which we were created, a state of peace and joy
and life.
In between being saved and going to heaven, we have still
to live in this present world, we have still to contend with the devil, the
world, and the flesh. We have still to face temptation. But how
do we know that we are living according to the teaching of the spirit, rather
than in subservience to our bodily desires? We must learn to shape
our lives according to what God intends for us to be. And God's intention
from the beginning was that we should be the image and likeness of God, the
children of our heavenly Father.
In between being saved and going to heaven, we have to
live as befits the children of God, even as we endure suffering and hardship.
How, then, ought we to behave?
In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus gives part of his moral
teaching for the children of God; he tells us something of how God expects
us to behave. He tells us to be merciful, as our Father is merciful--it
is his property always to have mercy. He tells us to give, when our
fallen nature would rather be trying to get. He tells us to forgive,
when our fallen nature would rather be seeking revenge.
In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus warns us especially against
self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Too often, when we are critical of
other people, we are overlooking some fault in ourselves. He tells
us that we must first examine our own conscience, confess our own sins, and
try, with God's help, to amend our own lives.
We are warned that our behavior is not without consequences.
Jesus says that God will treat each of us as we treat others. The same
standard that we use to measure others will be used to measure us.
If we condemn others for their behavior, we risk condemnation for our own
behavior. "Judge not," he says, "and ye shall not be judged; condemn
not, and ye shall not be condemned."
The business of judging and condemning others does not
belong to our life in the spirit, but to the desires of our corrupt human
nature. It is a way of making ourselves feel superior by comparison
with other people. It is a way of setting up ourselves in place of
God.
What does belong to our spirit-led life is to be merciful,
as our Father is merciful; to forgive others and so to obtain forgiveness
for ourselves. To give, confident that God in due time will good things
to us--not as gifts are measured in this world, but pressed down, shaken
together, and running over.
This is the earnest expectation of the whole creation,
this is what creation is waiting for: for the manifestation of the
children of God, for the Glory of God that shall be revealed in us.
It is God's intention, revealed in Jesus Christ, that our human nature shall
be perfected (restored, repaired), and creation will be as it was when God
saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene
Orange, California
23d June 2002
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