A Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity
So many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death.
—Epistle to the Romans 6:3
Before addressing this morning’s Scripture lessons, let us take a moment to consider something we all take for granted.
Each of us is here this morning because we chose to be here. No government agency compelled our attendance. By the same token, none of us was followed here by secret policemen. There are no soldiers outside the door. There is no government spy taking down the names of everyone present—or of everyone absent.
This morning’s homily was not pre-approved by any government committee. Our liturgy, an adaptation of the liturgy used by the Christian Church for two thousand years, was prescribed for us not by a parliament, but by a Church convention. Our bishops were not appointed by a queen, but elected by the clergy and communicants of each diocese.
Our worship this morning is neither compelled nor proscribed by any government authority. Our membership here neither entitles us to nor disqualifies us from any position of public trust. And what is true for us is true for all our Christian brethren, Catholic, Orthodox, and protestant; for our Jewish and Muslim neighbours; for Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs; even for Mormons and Scientologists.
This has been true in this country for 229 years. There is no other place in the world where this has been true for so long. In most places in the world, it is not true today.
God has blessed this country, and blessed us by setting us here. And tomorrow, as we celebrate the 229th birthday of American independence, amid all the picnics and fireworks, we must not fail to pause for awhile and give thanks to that Divine Providence in whom our forefathers firmly relied when they mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honour.
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On this Independence Day weekend, we may well boast that we are citizens of no mean country. And yet, grateful as we are for this our country, our primary allegiance is not to her. We have, as you might say, dual citizenship; and we are, first and foremost, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, willing subjects of Jesus Christ, our King and Lord.
We acquired our citizenship in his kingdom when we were baptized. As Jesus himself said to Nicodemus: Unless a human being is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Today’s epistle lesson affords us an opportunity to review what we know and believe about the sacrament of Baptism.
Baptism is a sacrament, that is, an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace, ordained by Christ himself, both as a means whereby we receive God’s grace and as a pledge to assure us that we have received it. We must always remember that in a sacrament it is God who is acting, and not we.
The outward visible sign or form in Baptism is water; wherein the person is baptized, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; the inward and spiritual grace is death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness: for, being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are by baptism made the children of grace.
In the creed of the universal Church, we “acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.” In the catechism we affirm that in baptism each of us “was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”
Saint Paul links the sacrament of baptism with the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. According to the Apostle, in this sacrament we share in his death and burial, and, rising from the font we rise with Jesus Christ to eternal life in God. Saint Paul tells the Romans (and us): “If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”
The first covenanted grace of baptism is remission of sins. In the waters of baptism, all of our sins are washed away, both the actual sins which we may from time to time have committed before we were baptized, and also the condition of original sin, the inherited tendency of our fallen nature to rebel against God.
We know that death came into the world because of sin. Everyone and every living thing on earth must die. Does it follow, therefore, that the remission of sins carries with it the abolition of death? It does not, because sin has come into the world and death with it. What baptism brings about is regeneration, that is, a new birth into everlasting life.
Even Jesus Christ, who alone was without sin, had to suffer death. But death could not hold him. He suffered, died, and was buried; but on the third day he rose again and, having risen, he then ascended into the heavens.
Saint Paul explains what happens in baptism this way: in baptism we die with Christ on the cross and we are buried with him in his tomb. And then, rising from the font, we rise with him in his resurrection to new life.
Our old life, the life subject to sin and death has ended. Our new life has already begun. In due course, each of us will suffer death in the body. But that will not be important, because all that is lost in that earthly death we have already cast off. When our time comes, we will continue in the new life which we have already begun.
And the new life that begins in baptism is life in Christ, which is to say, life in the Church. Because in baptism we are made very members incorporate of the mystical body of Christ, which is the Church. The Church is the body of which Jesus Christ is the head, and all baptized people are the limbs and organs.
Saint Paul exhorts us to live as becomes our vocation as members of the body of Christ.
Baptism does not deprive us of our free will. Baptism infuses us with God’s grace to enable us to live as Christians, and to fight manfully against the ancient enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh; but our wills must co-operate with that grace. Even those who have been baptized can reject God’s grace and become servants of sin. That is why Saint Paul says that we should walk in newness of life.
In the Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us what is expected of us: what we must do to walk in newness of life. “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
The scribes and the Pharisees are usually thought of as among the bad guys in the New Testament. After all, they followed Jesus around during his earthly ministry trying to trap him with trick questions or to confound him in debate; and then, in the end, they conspired with the Temple authorities and the Roman occupiers to try to do him in.
But the scribes and the Pharisees were famously righteous according to their own understanding. They scrupulously tried to obey all of the commandments of the Torah; not just the Ten Commandments, but those and another 603 commandments scattered throughout the first five books of the Old Testament. Righteousness, they thought, consisted of compliance to the law, and they complied.
But the scribes and the Pharisees had a very literal and legalistic way of reading the Law of Moses. The commandment says, thou shalt do no murder; so, as long as one did not actually run somebody through with a sword or poison his tabouleh, one was in compliance with the commandment. The commandment says, thou shalt not commit adultery; so, as long as one issues the proper divorce papers to his wife, he is in compliance with the commandment, even if he marries someone else the next day.
Jesus taught a righteousness that exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees, because he taught a less literal version of the commandments, one that depended upon the meaning and the purpose of the law, rather than the letter of the law. It is all well and good that you do not actually slay your brother, but if you are unreasonably angry or if you treat your brother with contempt, you have not achieved the righteousness that God wills for you.
But Jesus seems to impose an impossible standard. Be ye perfect, he says, as your Father in heaven is perfect. And when a young man asks what he should do, and assures Jesus that he already keeps all of the commandments of Torah, Jesus says to him, if you would be perfect, do just one thing more. With man, such perfection is impossible; but with God, all things are possible.
And in the sacrament of baptism, God provides the grace that makes the impossible possible. In baptism, the old man dies, and we are reborn in Christ, so that his righteousness—a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees—is imputed to us, if we try to walk in newness of life.
As Saint Paul wrote to Saint Timothy, it is a faithful saying:
If
we be dead with him, we shall also live
with him.
If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.
If we deny him, he also will deny us.
If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself.
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene
Orange, California
03 July 2005