Sermon delivered Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017 (Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A), at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, as part six of a seven-week series on baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.
Sermon Text(s): Deuteronomy 30:15-30, Matthew 5:21-37, Baptismal Covenant Question #2
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
Moses’s speech to the Israelites in today’s reading from Deuteronomy reminds them that while God has given them a set of commandments and instructions for living, he does not make them behave in a certain way. They always have a choice whether they will follow the commandments or not.
We, too, have a real choice as to whether we will follow the commandments we have been given in our Baptistmal Covenant. Because we have free will, our obedience to our baptismal vows is by no means guaranteed. It is always a choice, and because we are human, we will mess up sometimes. We will make the wrong choice. Sometimes we choose death and curses instead of life and blessings.
This is why our baptismal covenant has built into it a vow about what we will do when that happens. In this sixth week of our preaching series on baptism, we look at the second question of the baptismal covenant:
"Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?"
Notice that the question does not say IF you fall into sin, but WHEN. The Baptismal Covenant does not assume perfection from us. It assumes we will mess up. Being faithful does not mean never sinning. It means properly making amends when we do.
Jesus’s teachings in today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount set an extremely high standard for our behavior, pretty much guaranteeing that we will always fall short! Don’t just refrain from murdering someone, but refrain from being angry at them, he says. Don’t just refrain from having an affair with a married person, but refrain from even thinking lustfully about anyone who is married.
Seriously, Jesus? How is it even humanly possible to obey these teachings completely? Maybe it’s not, but his point is that you’re not made right with God simply by refraining from certain actions. Fully embracing the ethical standards God sets means making an effort to live with integrity, purifying your inner life and thoughts as well as your outward actions. Even if you never kill someone, if you nurture anger and resentment toward that person, that in itself is its own kind of death, for you and for the person you are angry with.
Jesus encourages us to go the extra mile in the work of reconciliation and actively seek to restore relationships with our neighbors as part and parcel of what it means to be reconciled with God.
Right after the teaching about it not being enough to simply not murder someone, but not to be angry with them either, Jesus says,
“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
This is the theological basis behind the passing of the peace during our liturgy. After we collectively confess our sins, first we are reconciled with God, symbolized by the priest pronouncing absolution over us, reminding us that God forgives us, and then we are reconciled with our neighbors, symbolized by our sharing the peace with one another.
When we say “peace” to one another, we are offering a sign of reconciliation, making peace with everyone before we receive the Eucharist, as Jesus instructs us to do in this passage from Matthew: “First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come [to the altar].” Some interpretations of this passage say that we should not receive communion if we are in a serious conflict with anyone in our lives that we have not attempted to resolve. I once voluntarily denied myself communion for several months because I was in conflict with a member of my family. He did not immediately respond to my attempts to reconcile, but after I had written a letter and reached out and done all that I felt I could at that point, after I had made a good faith effort to be reconciled, I started to receive communion again. As much as we enjoy greeting one another and being cheerful during the peace, the peace is not meant to be a time to casually greet one another on a social level. It is meant to be a time to seek forgiveness from anyone whom we may have harmed and to forgive anyone who may have harmed us in the community.
While I was serving a congregation in Omaha, Nebraska, as an intern through one of the Episcopal Service Corps discernment programs for young adults, I carelessly made a remark that offended one of my parishioners. At a book study one night, I was commenting about the lack of mental health services for veterans coming back from war. My intent was to express concern and to advocate for veteran’s needs, but the way I said it – making a comment about how the military “turns people into killing machines” through basic training and then doesn’t give them the tools to undo that training when they return to civilian life – inadvertently upset one of the people in the book study, who was a veteran and didn’t take kindly to my categorization of soldiers as “killing machines.” We talked about it afterwards and were able to come to a congenial resolution. That Sunday, we intentionally approached each other at the peace, and that handshake and brief eye contact we made while saying “peace” to one another had a much deeper meaning to me in that moment than it ever had before in the liturgy.
If you have ever been through a Twelve Step program, or know someone who has, you know about the importance of Step Nine – making amends. Making amends means approaching anyone we have wronged and attempting to make things right – to apologize for what we have done and to offer any kind of remuneration appropriate to the situation, anything we can do to “make it up to them,” as the saying goes. After this initial reconciliation, Step Ten is to “continue to take personal inventory and when we [are] wrong, promptly admit it.” Since the founders of AA and the Twelve Step program were influenced by biblical teachings, it is no surprise that Steps Nine and Ten echo these teachings of Jesus and the second vow of our Baptismal Covenant:
"Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?"
In other words, this question asks us, “Will you continue to be vigilant in your resistance against evil, against sin, against addiction, against whatever it is that draws you away from God, and whenever you find yourself going astray from that, whenever you realize you have done wrong, to promptly admit it and make amends – to others and to God?”
Of course, while we may be able to right some wrongs we have done to others in this life, some wrongs are impossible to correct. An apology doesn’t bring someone back from the dead, for instance. When we come up against the limits of our ability to make amends, we are forced to acknowledge our dependence on God’s grace.
Remember in stewardship season when we talked about how we can never really “give back to God?” Well, it is also true that we can never really “make amends” to God. What could we possibly give to God or do for God that would make up for all the ways we have harmed God when we have fallen short of God’s intentions for us, for God’s plan for us to live with one other in peace? Despite the universal foxhole prayer – “Dear God, if you just save my life, if you just get me out of this situation, I’ll make it up to you – I’ll go to church every week, I’ll give up all my possessions, I’ll become a preacher, I’ll….” whatever the bargain is we’re making with God” – in reality, we can never actually “make it up to God.” If we do make it through whatever difficult situation we’re in, we know that our success or relief is a gift of pure grace.
If our relationship with God is built on trying to “make up for” all the things we have done wrong, we will only sink further into guilt and despair. The heart of the Christian message is one of pure grace – completely undeserved, unearned mercy shown by God to us, a complete gift. It is a foundation in this overflowing mercy of God that frees us, that compels us, to forgive as we have been forgiven. Knowing that God forgives us for anything and everything we have done allows us to begin to work toward forgiving others.
This is why I like the absolution from the New Zealand Prayer Book and why I’ve been using it in our liturgy for the past several months:
“God forgives you. Forgive others, forgive yourself.”
It is through fully coming to understand that God forgives you that you can begin to forgive others and yourself.
And the second part of that absolution: “Through Christ, God has put away your sins. Approach your God in peace.” – reminds us that God has ALREADY forgiven us. I, as the priest, am not pronouncing you to be forgiven in that moment. I am reminding you that, as Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.” You are already forgiven. You are free. Free to approach God in peace, without fear of retribution. Free to approach your brothers and sisters secure in the knowledge of your own acceptance and forgiveness and therefore free to offer them your forgiveness.
After this, we flow seamlessly into the exchanging of the peace. We “approach our God in peace” by approaching one another in peace, being reconciled with one another, and then coming together to share the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ “given for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins.”
Repentance, reconciliation and return. We rehearse these steps every week in the structure of our worship. It is meant to be a pattern for our lives outside these 90 minutes on Sunday mornings as well.
"Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?"
We will, with God’s help.
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