That ye receive not the Grace of God in vain.
(2 Cor. vi. 1)
     
On this First Sunday of Lent, we confront the reality of sin. If we don’t take sin seriously, we cannot move to the Cross of Christ on Good Friday to find meaning in it. Sin as a concept that troubles men in all ages. The ancient Greeks and Romans were mostly embarrassed by it and chalked it up to irrationality or a failure to think clearly. For the Jews, it was a palpable reality and something with which they struggled continuously. Sin emerges onto the pages of history then not only as bad philosophy but as what distracts man from serving God.
        
The problem of sin comes to a head in the New Testament. In the Gospels alone we find the baneful power of sin expressed fully. If sin is not real, if sin is only a philosophical error, missing the mark, or an absence of the good, then the teaching of Christ is useless. The purpose of the Incarnation of Christ will have no meaning unless He came down from Heaven to deal with the malignant presence and power of sin. Christ came down from Heaven to declare God’s power and judgment against sin. In so doing, He would reveal to man what sin does and then how He conquers it. If we study the life of Christ, we shall discover how sin condemns us. Christianity has no meaning if sin has no power. But in Christ, we find that its power is only as great as we allow it to be.
        
Of course, Scripture gives us a remedy for sin. But first it locates the cause in ourselves. We need not blame our genes, or our family bloodlines, since a little study of the issue will lead us to admit that we have only ourselves to blame. The root cause of sin is prideful selfishness. Our awakening is a call to self-knowledge. If the moral conscience is not awakened, we cannot diagnose sin as a real problem. If we do not grow up to the extent that we claim and confess our own role in our sinning and in the damage that it does to us and others, Christ cannot help us. Christ comes down from Heaven to awaken in us that integrity of character that knows itself, confesses its sin, and then finds its remedy in Him.
        
In this morning’s Gospel, Christ reveals to us the origin of sin’s problem in His own temptations. That He was tempted as we are to sin is a revelation that should be endearing to us. The Son of God made flesh comes down from Heaven to redeem and save humanity by becoming one of us. He comes into our condition and gets under our skin to tackle the problem of Original Sin. That Christ was made man is no magical remedy against sin. Christ exposes Himself to what every fallen man endures each day and puts Himself into our predicament. What Christ does in His temptations is to bless and sanctify, make good, the necessary battle which we must wage against sin if we would be saved. Because nothing can be too hard for God, even the battle against sin can reveal God’s power to conquer it.
        
The temptations that Christ endures are, respectively, temptations for the body, soul, and spirit to prefer some subjective good to God. The Devil tempts Christ after he had fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and he was hungry. (St. Matthew iv. 2) Fasting in a wilderness separates Christ from all things. Imagining that the fast might be over, Christ is tempted to put earthly hunger before God and to forget that God has supported him with spiritual power. The first temptation is to perform a miracle to secure immediate comfort by rushing into the satisfaction of earthly hunger. If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. (ibid, 3) Christ the Son of God made man is tempted to secure our salvation by making stones into bread. Christ is tempted to prove that He is the Son of God by performing a miracle that violates the laws of nature. No man makes bread from stones. No man should expect it from God either. The fast, which depended only on God’s power, must continue until Christ situates Himself correctly with His Father. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness (St. Matthew v. 6) is the Son of God’s first business. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. (St. Matthew vi. 33) Christ as man will redeem us by putting the nourishment of the soul before the body, so that we too might do the same. Christ rebukes Satan and says, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (ibid, 4)
        
Christ is tempted a second time.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,  and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. (ibid, 5,6)

If Christ does not come into time and space to make fleshly nourishment and comfort into a god, perhaps the Son of God might be tempted to win our salvation by rejecting the body altogether.
Now, Christ is tempted to threaten his body by throwing Himself off a skyscraper to prove that He is the Son of God. Here, the soul is tempted to reject the body in a vain attempt to provoke God to rescue Him. But Christ knows that God will redeem human nature in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, and in fastings. (2 Cor. vi. 4,5). Christ will not prove that He is the Son of God by provoking God to perform another irrational and unnatural miracle. Christ is still fasting and hungry! He can only prove that He is the Son of God by putting first things first. If Christ is to redeem human nature, He must suffer. Christ is still suffering hunger pangs! No good is ever achieved without suffering and sacrifice. Every farmer, craftsman, and artist knows the same. Earthly hunger is good and must find its proper place in relation to fasting. Christ still fasts to resist temptations to false gods. He must suffer in body and soul to perfect our union with Him. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. (ibid, 7)
        
Christ is tempted a third and final time.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worhip me. (ibid, 8,9)

The Son of God is still fasting and suffering. Finally, He is tempted to prove Himself by becoming another god in this world with a kingdom that competes with His Father’s in Heaven. In other words, He is tempted to be the Son of God without redeeming man, without submitting His spirit to the Divine Will but by severing and detaching from God, altogether worshiping the Devil, only to become another fallen angel. Thus, as Man, Christ, in spirit, was tempted to become His own god. But Christ responds,

Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. (ibid, 10. 11)
        
As Fulton Sheen reminds us, all the Devil’s temptations are shortcuts to salvation, tempting Christ to circumvent the path that alone leads to our redemption. For man to be saved, his body, soul, and spirit must be redeemed for God. Had Christ neglected to endure suffering, sacrifice, and death, He never would have taken on the punishments for sin and made them good. Suffering, sacrifice, and death are the greatest obstacles to God and His purposes. Christ, the Son of God, would be most tempted to become unfaithful to God in the face of the sin that demanded His suffering, sacrifice, and death. But especially here, Christ the Son of God will transform sin into righteousness and death into new life.
        
In taking on our nature, Jesus Christ identifies with the longer and harder way home to God. That fallen man must journey on a longer and harder path, learning to order comfort, tame pride, and learn proper detachment, does not make it either sinful or wrong. Longer and harder journeys after any form of goodness are always more rewarding than what comes to us by instant gratification. Hard work need not be a punishment but a gift. That Christ was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews iv. 15) remains His most appealing draw since He alone consecrates a natural necessity to supernatural ends. Christ did not sin but suffered and died at its hands. Christ rejected any kind of diabolical freedom from God, and because of this, He knew that redemption could only be won once He had defeated Satan in the final battle, the last temptation, from the wilderness of the Cross, where He, wholly innocent, wholly pure, would be most tempted in body, soul, and spirit to surrender. For it was on the Cross that Christ would prove that He was the Son of God, and we believe that there, at last, the angels came and ministered unto Him. (idem)
Amen.
©wjsmartin
 
 
 
 
        

 
For he knoweth whereof we are made : he remembereth that we are but dust.
(Psalm 103, 14)
 
        
Ash Wednesday inaugurates the season in which we are invited to come to our spiritual senses. Our tradition of smearing ashes on our foreheads commences a time in which we remember who and what we are and how God in Jesus Christ responds to it. The ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us whence we came. In one account, from the Second Book of Genesis, we come from clay, the earth, and are thus reminded that we are but dust. The other account is a theological conclusion drawn from the First Book of Genesis indicating that we all are made out of nothing, ex nihilo in the Latin. Our second summary is no more promising than the first. It turns out that we are but dust that has come from nothing. What it means is that before God began to create all things, and man in particular, since he can think about it, mankind didn’t exist. God alone is I Am, forever and eternally Himself. All else was nothing until God commenced the creation.
        
The thought of coming from nothing and being qualitatively no more than dust or ashes is a real challenge. It runs against the grain of our self-worth and self-integrity. We like to think that we have some meaningful substance and that our bodies and souls comprise an entity that is of some worth. But Mother Church would have it otherwise. We begin Lent with the thought of where we came from and that we might never have been, never have existed, but for God’s desire to create and make us.
        
The thought turns us then to God. Why did he make us in the beginning? Nothing forces God to do anything. So, we conclude that it was His desire and love to make and create all things with meaning and substance. As freely as our Heavenly Father wills to think, likewise He wills to put His thinking into a tangible reality other than Himself. We conclude that God loves to express Himself in creativity, the creativity of His creation.
        
Having said this, we do well to remember that while we are reminded of coming from dust and ashes once a year, God remembers or knows it always. This is part and parcel of who we are in the mind of God. And coming from dust and ashes reinforces our tendency to be moved and defined by nothingness. Within our natures, because we are created out of nothing, we have a propensity to move towards it. All men, made out of nothing, sin. Sin is nothing or has no meaning or substance to God. But for us, having contracted Original Sin, we are subject to its pull, the pull towards nothingness in relation to God.
              
Our ashes are made out of the dead and burnt palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. Once they were something beautiful and good. Now they are a stark reminder of death, spiritual death, and our sin as spiritual death to God. The burnt palms, now ash, remind us of our eventual death to this world. They should remind us also of our need for an ongoing spiritual death as we come alive to the reality of our sin, the pull towards nothingness, which might well be rewarded in Hell, a place reserved for those who preferred their own dust and ashes, their own nothingness, to all the potential reserved in God’s will for our lives in Heaven.
              
Claiming, confessing, repenting, finding sorrow, and purposing amendment of life cannot come without the humility that remembers that we are but dust, created out of nothing. We have not made ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. Christians believe that without the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, our destiny will be Hell, a real nothingness in comparison to what we could find in God’s Heaven.
              
Lent is a wakeup call for all Christians. In today’s Epistle the prophet Joel writes,
turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God:
for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
                                                               (Joel, ii, 12, 13)
 
Lent is all about acknowledging that we are but dust and ashes, who have come from nothing, and all too often have returned to it in sin. We are encouraged to be honest with ourselves and from where we came. Weeping and mourning over our sins is an honest and adult approach to God. We are encouraged not to tear up our garments, but to break or tear open our hearts as we come to our Lord. The cause of our serving sin, in dust and ashes, making ourselves into nothing of any spiritual value or worth, comes from our inward man, from the heart, from our free will choosing to serve ourselves rather than God in Jesus Christ. God, for His part, is always the same, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. God knows what the pull of dust and ashes into nothingness has done for us. He welcomes our return always.
              
The importance of Lent as an inward and spiritual exercise is emphasized by Jesus in today’s Gospel. He insists, When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. (St. Matthew vi. 16) Returning to God is not an occasion for public pride and arrogance. Our fasting and abstinence in Lent is between us and God. We are dust and ashes and, thus, not worthy to boast of any good works or pious endeavors. We came from nothing and should be quiet and humble as we undertake a serious and holy Lent. Jesus tells us to anoint our heads. The head is the seat of our knowledge and free will. Our souls must be anointed to do the Lord’s work. We are to wash our faces; the seat of the human personality and character must be cleansed for our Lenten fast. We need not appear unto men to fast. Our Lenten discipline is not for show, not for the stage of human applause and approval. Our fasting needs to be known only to God, for from Him alone can our dust and ashes, our nothingness be made into something beautiful, true, and good. If we do this, God who seeth the soul in secret will reward us openly. (St. Matthew vi. 17, 18)
              
The most common question asked in Lent is what are you giving up? It really is nobody’s business but mine and God’s. Our dust and ashes cannot emerge from the nothingness of sin unless we engage in a serious spiritual work with God and His Grace. We have much to do in Lent. Again, with Joel, we must pray, spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach that the heathen should rule over them. (ibid, 17) The heathen are content to be as dust and ashes enslaved to the nothingness of sin. If we are private and conscientious in our working out of sin and the working in of righteousness, the heathen will have no reason to say, where is now thy God but might actually see that He has been making us into something substantial and meaningful for His Kingdom.
Amen.
©wjsmartin
 

Gesima Tide ends by inviting us onto another beginning. 

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. (Matt. 20. 18) 
 
Christ invites us to go up to Jerusalem on this last Sunday in Gesima Tide, up to the Jerusalem of His Cross. There, we shall come to see and know our sin for what it truly is, no longer hidden, as what crucifies the Word of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. We shall discover also what the hidden nature of God in Jesus Christ will do for us men and for our salvation. With this newfound knowledge, I pray that we might discover a newfound spiritual foundation that readies us for Lent.
        
Of course, discovering this kind of knowledge is not easy. The Christian whose faith seeks understanding soon discovers problems. On our first Gesima Sunday, in the Parables of the Workers in the Vineyard, we learned that understanding is the reward or crown bestowed upon those whose faith submits to God’s Grace with all humility and meekness. We struggled to learn that God’s singular gift is an incorruptible crown is just and for those who labor for what they neither desire nor deserve. Through the parable, Christ intended for us to struggle intellectually in the spirit for the Grace that is always unmerited. Last Sunday, we learned of the prudence and perseverance that enable us to reach the end.

Today, we discover that as we labor and toil to embrace the truth, all our doings without charity are nothing worth. (Collect, Quinquagesima) Our prudent work in the vineyard of the Lord must be conditioned by charity. First, the work must be a gift received as God’s charity for us. Second, the work must be done in the same spirit of charity and love. Last week our faith learned the wisdom of humility and meekness from a parable. Today, our faith discovers power and love from a miracle. Finding the charity or love that God gives will prove key to our salvation.

We turn to today’s Gospel lesson. Christ has prophesied his betrayal at the hands of the Jews into the hands of the Romans. He foretells how he will be mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted on, scourged, and put to death in anticipation of rising again on the third day. (idem) By His own example, the journey to salvation, the race that we run, requires courage also. That the Apostles understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken (Ibid, 34) should not surprise us. They are flummoxed and frozen in fear because of cowardice. T. S. Eliot reminds us, humankind cannot bear very much reality. (Four Quartets, Burnt Norton) In general, we do not like to suffer pain with difficulty. Christ knows this. He will condition His prophecy about the reality of His life with the charity that always nourishes faith.

Our Gospel continues.

And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging: And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.(Luke 18. 35-37)  
 
Last week the seed of God’s Word in Jesus Christ fell on the obstinate and hardened road of the human heart, the wayside. Today, an eager heart whose heart is soft and ready for the same Word jumps onto the same road. The man’s blindness has nearly undone him. He knows himself. The surrounding world is alien and hidden from his eyes. His problem is quite simple. He desires to see that he might know and understand. He seeks a cure to fulfil his desire or love. He does not stop to imagine that he might be better off without his vision. Unlike the Apostles, he is not afraid of reality or the truth. Sight and knowledge will open a door into reality, no matter what suffering he might be called upon to see and endure. Anything is better than blindness to this man.

The Apostles cannot bear to know that Christ must be delivered unto the Gentiles. 
(Luke 18. 31) The blind man wants desperately to see and know all things. The Apostles not wish to see that their Lord shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on. (Luke 18. 32) The blind man has already endured something of what Christ will suffer. But the Apostles are uninterested in the blind man’s spiritual vision. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. (ibid, 39) They consider the blind man nothing more than a nuisance. The Apostles have no faith in the charity or love that must suffer to see and to know. Calvin says that those who profess the name of Christ often hinder and delay those who cry out to Him in earnest. (J. Calvin: Harmony of the Gospels, xvii) The blind man has been suffering his whole life. The blind man, who wants to see and know for the very first time should be a model for our own faith’s desire to see and obtain the reality of God’s charity in Jesus Christ.

The Apostles are wounded and fearful; their faith is blind, and they fear to see and know the truth. But the blind man has spiritual vision. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. (Luke 18.38) What he could not see with his eyes, he saw with the eyes of his soul. His knowledge moves him to secure Christ’s love. He knows his need and would secure the cure that Christ alone brings into the world. This blind man sees the hidden truth in Jesus Christ. He knows God’s Love is in Jesus, and so he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. (Luke 18. 39) Let the Apostles wallow luxuriously in philosophical fear. This man sees plainly and will obtain the Love of God in Jesus come what may.

Behold we go up to Jerusalem.  Man is fallen, in dire need of healing, and seeks out the cure from God’s own Son. Faith must seek to uncover the hidden truth of our sorry state and God’s response to it. We read on.

And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. (ibid, 40-42.) 
 
The courage in Christ will never quench His love for man, even on His way up to the Cross. Love does not cease to love because it must suffer. Love dies to Himself and will come alive to God in the life of the blind man. Jesus rewards the faith that longs to see more of His charity on the Cross of His love. Charity says to the blind man, Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe. (John 20. 29)
St. Paul tells us this morning that 

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth. (1 Cor. xiii. 4-8) 
 
God is love. (1 John iv. 8) Love suffers for the Good, envies no one, is not proud, and is selfless. God’s Charity for all men endures whatever He must to save us. Charity never ceases to be benevolent and magnanimous. Charity is consumed with God’s goodness and the means to establish it anew in the hearts of sinful men.

Today, let us admit that we have been blind to God’s Goodness. Let us cry out to Jesus for vision. Let us know that we will need courage to go up with Jesus to His Cross and to suffer what His love will require of us. Let us go up to Jerusalem to see what God’s Son must do to save us. We must go up to Jerusalem to see, know, and confess what our sin does to God’s own Son, God’s Word, in Jesus. We must go up to see and know how God’s most excellent gift of charity responds to it.
Amen
©wjsmartin

And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
(St. Luke viii. 9)

Last week we learned that the Gesima Season is all about embracing the Cardinal Virtues. For starters, we began to look at the virtue of temperance or moderation. Moderation, we learned, situates the soul in a place of thankful content and reasonable expectations. Jesus’ Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard brought home the point. Moderation in all things is a healthy partner to hard work and its rewards. If we hope to reach God’s kingdom, we must use last week’s moderation and discipline to compel this week’s virtue of prudence.

So today we move from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard to the parable of the sower. St John Chrysostom says that ‘Jesus uses parables to draw men unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would covert, he would heal them” (Idem, cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2). Parables encourage us to think about virtue, what it is, and how we perfect it. Parables stir intellectual curiosity. Because the truth they teach is at first hidden, we must take some time to think about them. In the parables, each of us is given the opportunity to discover God’s goodness and to put it into practice.

Last week, it took a bit of time for us to discover how moderation moves us to pursue God’s goodness or justice. If everyone one of us accepted the gracious invitation to work in God’s vineyard, did his job, minded his own business, and worked for one reward, which no sinful human being ever deserves, he would reach the end. Today, we are reminded that the same moderation and self-discipline is no easy business. This morning, St. Paul takes up the point as he addresses a community of new Christians in Corinth who are being swayed by false prophets to believe that no moral effort or self-discipline is needed at all. They were telling St. Paul’s Corinthian converts that he was exaggerating what is required to earn our reward. True Christianity, they insisted, involves a mere assent to the truth without application to human life. True Christianity, they insisted, involves nothing more than what Christ did for us. The human component is missing entirely.  

But St. Paul respectfully disagreed. St. Paul had digested the Parables of Jesus. For Paul, the life of Jesus Christ itself was a Parable intended to be imitated by men. Far from wishing to justify himself, St. Paul even desired to use his life as a kind of model for following Christ. St. Paul’s life is used as a parable to teach his flock what Christian conversion and sanctification entail. He shows us that true discipleship is hard work that must be cherished and cultivated with prudence. St. Paul insists that the work of the Chrisitan will even include much suffering. Criticizing the false teachers who taught otherwise, he asks, 

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck…in perils of robbers, in perils of waters, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen…in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…(2 Cor. 23-27) 
 

St. Paul’s conversion and discipleship involved running the race with temperance in all things to obtain an incorruptible crown. In other words, true conversion and discipleship will demand the prudent submission to hard and difficult labor. Paul knew that the world and its pleasures threaten the presence of Christ within. Who is weak, and I am not weak (Cor. xi. 29), he asks? This business of becoming a Christian requires practical wisdom or prudence, which knows what the work entails. He concludes that the end justifies the means. If we all are to work for one reward, we must labor prudently and with humility. If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) Paul’s experience teaches us that our hard work will always be accompanied with suffering and weakness. With prudence and in humility our work will be successful only through Christ’s Grace, an inner power at first hidden but progressively revealed to us.   

St. Paul’s life and witness are an imitation of Christ. But why were his Corinthian converts so easily swayed by new teachers with a message of comfort and ease? I think that we can find all or part of the answer in this morning’s Gospel Parable of the Sower. Jesus tells us that A sower went out to sow his seed. (St. Luke viii. 5) At first, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. (Idem) Some of the Corinthians had heard God’s Word superficially; the soil of their souls was like the wayside, trodden down by the ongoing traffic and business of this life so that they could not hear the Word. Though they were called to be workers in God’s vineyard, they were so influenced by evil desires that their hearts became hardened like the wayside, or the hard beaten path of this sinful world. Such men are members of the Church, like Paul’s Corinthians, who are Christians in name only but never in deed and in truth.

Next, …some [of the seed] fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. (Ibid, 6) Others had hearts like gravely rock. For them, the Word of God in Jesus Christ was first received with joyful expectations because it seemed so full of immediate gratification. They prematurely anticipated its benefits without prudently counting the cost of growing the seed in the soul. They fell away because they would not work out [their] salvation….with fear and trembling. (Phil. ii. 12) Salvation, they soon discovered, will be full of pain and suffering, doubt and confusion, hard labor and effort. Prudence reveals a painful and costly work.

Now, we read that some [of the seed] fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. (Ibid, 7) Perhaps not a few of the Corinthians honestly received God’s Word but choked and killed it with cares and concerns of this life. Here the Word grew for a season but only alongside inner anxiety and fear over the cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life (St. Luke viii. 14) that killed the growth of the Word within the soul. They were crushed, as the Gospel says, because the old sinful man was not dead in them. It might have seemed dead for a season, but until it was put down with prudence and earnest effort, it would reemerge with a vengeance. Thorns and briars are earthly temptations that promise short-term gain but long-term pain. If they are not banished from the soil of the soul, the Word will not grow. If we do not prudently assess their natures and detect their false promises, we might lose the one reward of our salvation.

Finally, today’s Parable concludes with, And other [seed] fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. (Ibid, 8) In earthly life, seed can grow up effectually only in deep, dark, rich soil that has been prudently cultivated by a farmer.  Thus, in the soul, the seed of God’s Word can grow in our hearts only with much care, cultivation, and determined effort. Like St. Paul, we must expect both punishment from without and suffering from within if the Word of God in Jesus Christ is to spring up and bear fruit in our souls. With prudence and humility, each one of us can see the temptations that threaten us and work to resist them effectually. With St. Paul, we must proclaim, If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) To will the good against all temptations is to find the glory of God in Jesus Christ beginning here and now.

Prudence and humility teach us that we are weak if left to our own power and ability. God has made the soul; God plants His Word in it to save us. If we begin to hear God’s Word, to clear our souls of briars and thorns, to cultivate its soil with sorrow and repentance, to tend the seed with carefulness and devotion, and not superficially and carelessly, by God’s grace we shall bring forth fruit with patience. (St. Luke viii. 15)

In this morning’s Collect, we pray that the soul might be defended against all adversity. (Collect) We are protected against all adversity when our souls, in all humility, embrace the Cardinal Virtue of prudence. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that prudence is right reason in relation to action. (ST, II, ii, 47. 8) Prudence first searches out and finds the truth. , it makes a judgment about our human situation: we are fallen and in need of Christ’s aid if we hope to be saved. Prudence learns from counsel what must be done, and commands it, by finally submitting to Christ, knowing that suffering and hardship perfect us for the Kingdom.
Amen. 
©wjsmartin
 

 
Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So, the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
   
We have just completed our journey from Advent through to Epiphany tide, in which we contemplated Christ’s coming to us and manifesting Himself as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John i. 14) Now we turn to the period spanning between Septuagesima Sunday and Ascension Day. Septuagesima Sunday is the beginning of our short Gesima season; Gesima means days. Septu means seventy. So today is the 70th day before Easter. On these three Sundays, we prepare for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Sunday. It is a season for self-discipline as we actualize the Four Cardinal Virtues of temperance, prudence, justice, and fortitude.  

The Four Cardinal Virtues come to us from the Latin word cardo, which means hinge. These virtues are the hinge virtues, which lay a foundation for the three Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Just as the Gesima Sundays form a hinge that opens the door to Lent, the Cardinal Virtues comprise the hinge that opens the door to deeper union with God. The Cardinal Virtues are derived from Plato’s Dialogues. The early Church Fathers named them as Cardinal Virtues and acknowledged their indebtedness to Plato, whose philosophy prepares us for the coming of Christ.
The goodness that they encourage establishes a moral foundation in our lives. 

Today, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter IX, St. Paul introduces us to the first Cardinal Virtue for our consideration, that of temperance or moderation. He tells us that our pursuit of the Good or God is like the physical fitness that prepares ancient Greek runners for competition in the Isthmian Games. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? (1 Cor. 9. 24) Using an example drawn from Greek culture, St. Paul inspires us to run so that we might win a prize. His illustration shows that Greek athletes concentrate on their end or the laurel wreath, the crown of victory. The means to it is running to win. St. Paul knows that all men run to obtain some reward. And no man can run without hope. So, with hope we must run to obtain whatever crown we seek. So run, that ye may obtain. (Ibid, 24) Running to win must be conditioned by discipline. Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. (Ibid, 25) Temperance or moderation must condition our running in hope towards our end.

But our end is not the corruptible crown of the laurel wreath of the ancient Greek games. Our end is incorruptible and lasting. For the Greeks, the Cardinal virtues led only to corruptible and impermanent goods. For Christians, moderation and temperance are to be used because we hope for a greater reward. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. (Ibid, 26)

Like the ancient Greek runners, our temperance and moderation must be applied to our souls as well as our bodies. The runners in the Isthmian Games kept to a strict diet and discipline. They refrained from food, drink, and sex to stay focused. How much more, then, should we Christians keep to a strict diet and discipline as we condition our bodies to serve our souls with hope of obtaining the incorruptible crown? Thus, the Apostle warns us against immoderate indulgence of our passions and appetites that is always enmity with God and likely to distract us from running the spiritual race. Just as too much food, drink, and sex would threaten physical fitness for ancient athletes, the same threatens the spiritual race that we run.

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away. (Ibid, 26, 27) 
 

Paul’s spiritual race is not pointless or without meaning. He doesn’t merely beat the air. He runs a spiritual race as an example to those of us who will follow him. His moderation should inspire us. He brings his body into subjection to his soul; he moderates its passions and orders them to a higher end. He does this to give his fellow Christians an example of how we should run and work if we hope to reach the Kingdom.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus invites us to run or to labour, but he uses the illustration of workers in a Vineyard. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.(St. Matthew xx. 1) The offer to work in the Vineyard is like the image of running in a spiritual race. God offers it to all men at all times of life, whether we come in the morning when young, noontide when middle aged, or in the evening of life when old. Those who come first to work in the morning of their lives come early to run the race. They are promised one penny, or one reward. Others are roused or stirred later in the day. No matter when they agree to run or work, God promises one spiritual reward or what is right. Those who wait until the end of their lives are even rebuked for sloth, having spent most of their lives devoted to their flesh. Why stand ye here all the day idle? (Ibid, 6) Nevertheless, God’s desire for man’s running or working in His vineyard never changes. It is never too late to accept God’s invitation, provided we are in possession of our reason and senses.

In the Parable, at the end of the day, all are paid. The last to come are paid first, and the first to come are paid last. The newfound moderation or temperance that conditions the running and working of the Johnny-come-latelies is of equal value and worth to the first in the heart of the householder. Every man receives a penny. All are called to work for one reward. 
        
But what do we read next?

But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. (Ibid, 10-12)


Unlike the race run by Greek athletes, here everyone who runs or works receives the same reward. By running or working, everyone wins no matter when they started and how hard they have worked. The reward is based on accepting the offer to run, which is a gift with a promise. No one is disqualified because they are not spiritually unathletic. Everyone can be spiritually athletic; everyone can run in this race. This is an unusual kind of race that welcomes all men to run. The runners are called to focus on the generosity of God, who would reward all men who start the race and have their eye on finishing for one reward. Each runner must work out his salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil. ii. 12) Because each runner is running to finish, he will not begrudge others of their reward or resent them because they started later in the day.
                           
Listen to how the owner of the vineyard responds to those who murmur against him and think that their reward should be greater.
Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?  So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Ibid, 13-16)
        
The runners and workers in the parable are called to remember that God does us no wrong. We must remember that God has promised us one penny and that God gives to us what he gives to those who came last. We must be so thankful for the ability to run and work. Because we didn’t deserve it, we must count ourselves last and least. The gift of being asked to run and finish for one reward must always be accepted as greater than anything we have desired or deserved. The soul must never be greedy for more than what God offers. The soul must finish in a good spirit. No matter how long we have been running and working, we should be overjoyed when others join us to finish and receive what is God’s own to give. The work itself must be so cherished and treasured that we then wait on God to reward us with what belongs to Him and is His only to reward! That the last should receive their reward first will surprise them with joy, a joy we share because the gift of God’s Grace wants many for salvation if we are generous.
    
Dear friends, let us be willing today to accept God’s gracious invitation to run and work in the vineyard, or God’s church. Let us gratefully acknowledge that the one penny, or one reward, is God’s own to give. By reason of our sin, we don’t deserve it at all. But God’s Grace in Jesus Christ is greater than our sin. As we run and work, let us pray that many more will join us in the Church as we journey for salvation. For, if we begrudge late-comers their share in the reward, we might have been called, but won’t be chosen.
Amen.
©wjsmartin