The Nineteenth Sunday after
Trinity
D. G. Phillips
Holy Communion
Petite Riviere,
Cherry Hill, LaHave – October 14 AD 2007
Ephesians 4:17-32
Matthew 9:1-8
When the multitudes
saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God,
who had given such
power unto men.
We are in the final
weeks of Trinity season. We have been ascending the ladder by grace
through the readings that have been set before us by the ancient
Church.
We have been shown that
to enter the kingdom of heaven we must take an inward journey,
inward and upward.
We have seen before in
Trinity season that there are obstacles in that movement inward and
upward. We can think back to that initial hesitation of St. Peter
to begin that journey with Jesus – who, after seeing the miraculous
catch of fish, falls to his knees before Jesus and says, Depart from
me for I am a sinful man. [Trinity 5] St. Peter did not yet know
the mercy of God, the forgiveness of sins, and he was paralyzed with
fear in the face of the Almighty. And, like St. Peter, we heard
gladly Jesus’ words to him, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt
catch men. Here the obstacle to ascent, to drawing nearer to
Jesus, was rightly seen by Peter to be his sins, and he had to wait
for the gracious words of our Lord before he could leave all and
follow Him.
Several weeks later we
again encountered a man who was unable to act – he could not open
his mouth in speech. [Trinity 12] Jesus took him aside from the
multitude, put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and
touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith
unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. ...And he charged them
that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much
the more a great deal they published it. The mute man
heard for the first time the word of God's mercy inwardly, and his
tongue was loosed to sing forth His praises. He, like us, couldn't
help himself, there was a holy compunction, he was moved by joy to
praise.
This morning, in our
Gospel, we again encounter a man unable to act, sick of the
palsy, in other words, he was paralysed. He is brought by
friends to Jesus, and Jesus, seeing their faith said unto
the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven
thee.
Today we are considering this Gospel in the light
of the highest stage of the Christian life – the contemplation of
God, the entering into God’s promised rest, the perfection of the
soul – and we are still being told to be concerned somehow with the
forgiveness of our sins.
As we move inwardly,
towards that Kingdom of heaven, we are so wary, so hesitant to stay
there, to rest in our souls, we immediately want to leave that place
and engage again in activity. I think we all know this experience.
Many of us live by ourselves, or if you have a spouse, you know what
it is like when your spouse is not there. When all is quiet in the
house – we find it hard just to sit there. Why? It’s not just
because we are distracted by the world, the flesh and the devil. If
our souls were a perfect image of God, spotless mirrors of the
Divine, we could just sit there in inactivity and marvel at the
beauty of God shining in us. But we do everything to avoid that
moment of being still. All of us like Marthas, troubled by many
things – we turn all too quickly to entertainment, to food, TV, to
work, sleep, something to occupy us. Is it because we have some
discomfort, we can’t see God well, so we return to outward
activity? Do we have some discomfort with what we see inwardly –
still some hypocrisy, some dark motivations, uncleanness of heart,
we don’t like to see it, we don’t like to see ourselves even as we
are seen by God, some things still make us uncomfortable with
ourselves. And so we return to outward activity all too soon –
maybe running a bit too quickly even to good works – and if the good
works are motivated still by trying to make up for sin, the true
motivation is not love of our neighbour.
But Jesus says, like he
said to us when we first started this journey of faith, Fear not.
In fact he says, Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee…
Arise, take up thy bed, [you who are unable to love] and
go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to
his house.
Now why does Jesus say
to this man go into thine house? This is an important detail
in the account of this miracle – all three Gospel accounts of this
miracle include it. It is because this miracle is about far more
than Jesus’ ability, his power, to heal one paralyzed man. It is a
story recounted because of its eternal significance for all
Christians.
Understand this miracle
in the light of Jesus’ telling us that the kingdom of heaven is
within us. Understand this miracle in the light of the whole of
God’s intention to bring about the recovery of His image and
likeness in our soul. Understand this miracle in the light of the
promise of entering into God’s rest, in the light of the hope of
entering into the promised land, that is, the possession of our own
souls. And also, in the light of the promised entrance of God into
our souls – having been made by Him a place fit for His presence.
Let’s not run away,
let’s not distract ourselves – let’s enter into our house and
stay there – and when we see something uncomfortable, don’t flee but
face it, and remember that the Son of Man power on earth to
forgive sins.
I’ve always loved
architecture – especially the design of houses. This week I saw on
an architect’s website
a house
with a room in the middle of it, an inner chamber. And I was
trying to think of what was so pleasing about it. The roof was
supported by pillars. In the middle of the room was an opening to
the sky, and below the opening a pool with a fountain in it. It’s
not the first time I’ve seen such a design, it is found in many
palaces, and also in monasteries. Surely what is pleasing about the
design is that it is an image of our soul that God is preparing.
Inwardly, in the inner man, a place of rest from which we might look
up upon the heavens and see further into the beauty of God.
Inwardly also a spring, that fountain of living water welling up to
eternal life promised by Jesus, God’s Spirit renewing us inwardly,
making us ready from within. [John 4:14]
This is why Jesus says,
Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee… Arise, take
up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
---------------
This call to be renewed
inwardly, while we are in that place of rest, is what is at the
center of the Epistle this morning:
Put off concerning the former conversation the
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and
be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and (that ye) put on the
new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness.
We’ve put off the old
Adam, all of that outer activity that we were entangled in,
distracted by, and we have entered inwardly into our souls. And we
wait there in God’s presence, looking upon Him and being lightened
by His light; drinking from the well of life and being filled with
desire on desire – being renewed in faith, hope and love. We see
also now from that inner place of rest our neighbours – friends,
enemies, family members – see them in this new light, recognizing
more and more our common humanity, our common failings and need of
forgiveness, and our love for them grows – that is God’s activity in
us changing our hearts, renewing us in our minds. Then when
necessity draws us from that inner room into outer activity, it is
all from a different perspective, we engage in the world from that
place of rest, with a renewed mind.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man
truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
Why does he have to say this? because we so quickly forget. Be
ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath;
neither give place to the devil. We have now a new way to deal
with our emotions – it is according to the way of love. Let him
that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with
his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him
that needeth. And now whatever our activity, our doing, it is
related directly to the love of God and our neighbour, because we
have been renewed in the spirit of our minds, having put on the
new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true
holiness.
We can go in and
out, and find pasture, even as our Lord did, because of the
forgiveness of our sins. [John 10:9]
This morning we all
come here still with some dis-ease about entering into the inner man
and staying there. We are all avoiding looking at ourselves and
resting in our own souls. But in the Holy Communion of Christ’s
Body and Blood, Jesus will soon, as it were, enter into a boat,
and pass over, and come into His own city – into our church,
into our very souls – that we might depart forgiven, and we can
enter into our own houses, more fully possessing the gift of our own
souls.
Let us not allow this
opportunity of grace to pass us by, but rather, let us receive him
in faith and then marvel and glorify God, who has given such
power unto the Son of Man, and not just to Him, but to each of
us likewise, the power to forgive our neighbours.
Amen.
_________________________
from De Quantitate Animae, St. Augustine,
Bishop and Doctor, Translated by Joseph M.
Colleran, C.SS.R., PhD
(Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the
Fathers in Translation The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland,
1950), Chapter 28, paragraph 55.
"Therefore, although here one thing led us to
another, still I do like to spend some time on a discussion which
serves to teach the soul the lesson that it must not fall back on
the senses any more than necessity demands; but it should rather
retire into itself, away from the senses, and become a child of God
again. This is what it means to become a new man by putting off the
old. To undertake this is absolutely necessary because of the
neglect of God's law: Sacred Scripture contains no greater truth,
none more profound. I would like to say more about this point and
tie myself down while I am, as it were, laying down the law to you,
so that my one and only concern might be to render an account of
myself to myself, to whom I am above all responsible, and thus to
become to God, as Horace says, like "a slave who is his master's
friend." This is an achievement that is utterly impossible unless
we remake ourselves in His image, the image He committed to our care
as something most precious and dear, when He gave us to ourselves so
constituted that nothing can take precedence to us save He Himself.
"But to my mind this calls for action than which
is none more laborious, none that is more akin to inaction, for it
is such as the soul cannot begin or complete except with the help of
Him to whom it yields itself. Hence it is that man's reformation is
dependent on the mercy of him to whose goodness and power he owes
his formation."
