​
 
For the very beginning of [wisdom] is the desire of her discipline; and the care
of discipline is love. And love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed
unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption. And incorruption
maketh us near to God.
(Wisdom vi. 17-20)
 

The Book of Wisdom is traditionally ascribed to Solomon, son of David, and King of Israel. He lived some nine hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, and he is known for his wisdom. The First Book of the Kings tells us that he prayed for wisdom, so that he might have an understanding heart to judge [his] people…[to] discern between good and evil. (1 Kings 9) Solomon was granted his wish and became so full of God’s Wisdom that the rulers of the world came to sit at his feet in order to learn. Solomon was not wise in his own conceits; rather he knew that true Wisdom is a gift from God. And he reminds us also that without God’s Wisdom we cannot hope to be saved. So, he exhorts his readers and listeners to pursue the instruction and discipline of Holy Wisdom. It is given to man to instruct him in the ways that lead to eternal life. Instruction is understood as the work of a loving God. When a man allows himself to be instructed in Wisdom’s ways, he realizes that he is being led forward into the reality of incorruption, and so he begins to love Wisdom as a Divine Attribute and virtue which is generated in the human heart. God’s gives his Wisdom to us to reveal His love for us and our own desire for Wisdom increases.

Now you might be saying to yourselves, well this all sounds all well and good, but what does it have to do with my life? The answer is everything because we were made to know, to understand, and to love. For this Man was made and not merely to know and understand the surrounding creation, nor to love our fellow men. All of that is important enough. But the point is that we were made for knowledge, love, and discipline. Solomon knew all of this, and this is why he goes to all the trouble of explaining it to us! Indeed, we were made not only to know but to love God because He is the source, origin, and cause of all knowledge and love. And His knowledge and love are given to us that we might find the discipline that leads to incorruption and brings us near to God. (Wisdom vi. 20)
So, we wonder, but how do I find this knowledge and love? Well, if you are an inquisitive and conscientious student of the natural world, you can find a lot of God’s knowledge and love at work there. In nature, you will find substances, qualities, quantities, relation, place, time, position, having, acting, and being acted upon. The principles of order and arrangement reveal truth, beauty, and even goodness that you neither create nor control. If you take the time to be quiet and still enough, you will find God’s mind and heart at work. And what you should come away with is a deep sense of awe and wonder at the marvels of the created universe. Such an endeavor starts a man on the journey after Wisdom. The Wisdom that is found is clearly Divine. No man’s reason has made the vast universe that surrounds him or painted it with beauty and goodness. No man’s reason has combined minute particulars into one harmonious and majestic whole. Nature itself, if we would only contemplate it, leads our minds to the fount and wellspring of God’s Divine Wisdom.

And yet there is more. While we are contemplating nature and discovering the principles of truth, beauty, and goodness in it, we might wonder next how we do it. We do it through the operation and activity of the soul. The 17th century Anglican Bishop William Beveridge tells us that we ought to marvel at this fact also. He says that he comes to know that he has a soul because he can reason and reflect. (W. Beveridge: Thoughts on Religion, 1) Other creatures have souls but don’t know it. They act and know it not; it being not possible for them to look within themselves, or to reflect upon their own existence and actions. But this is not so with me, the good Bishop says. I not only know that I have a soul, but that I have such a soul which can consider and deliberate on every particular action that issues from it. Nay, I can now consider that I am considering my own actions and can reflect upon [my own] reflecting. (Ibid, 2) The same soul with which the Bishop reflects upon his own reflecting, then moves out of itself to examine and study the whole of the universe, mounting from earth to heaven, from pole to pole, and view all the courses and motions of the celestial bodies, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars; and then the next moment returning to myself again, I can consider where I have been, what glorious objects have been presented to my view, and wonder at the nimbleness and activity of my soul. (Ibid, 2,3) The good Bishop reminds us that we can move out of ourselves to consider the whole of the universe with our souls, and then return into our souls, and still reflect upon and study all that we have seen and heard, though not present to it through our remembering and recollection. What a marvel! Have you ever considered it? And more than all this, the same soul can move the body and all its parts, and even understand, consider, argue, and conclude; to will and nil; hope and despair, desire and abhor, joy and grieve; love and hate; to be angry now, love and appease.(Ibid, 3) What a miracle is this man that each of us is! And what does all of this mean if not that we are made to know and to love and to discover finally that God’s Wisdom is the source and cause of it all?    

And yet there is this difficulty. Bishop Beveridge reminds us that we are not merely souls or spirits like angels but are souls who inhabit bodies. And our bodies always tend towards corruption, disintegration, and death. Our souls and spirits are spiritual and incorruptible. But they are joined to flesh which decays, fades, and passes away. The place of the soul’s trial and testing, in the here and now, is with the body. The way the soul and body cooperate will determine the eternal and incorruptible state of the whole human person, body and soul, in eternity. Should the soul seek God’s Wisdom, apply it to the whole person, then in the end times man will be saved. Should he refuse the rule and governance of God’s Wisdom in this life, he will be damned.

This brings us back to the Wisdom of Solomon. In our opening quotation we read that the application of Wisdom to the soul and body demands our submission to instruction and education. God’s instruction and education reveal the love and care of Wisdom for every human being’s ultimate welfare and wellbeing. To submit to this Divine labor, the human soul must lovingly receive the instruction that Wisdom enjoins. Wisdom desires to direct the soul to order, tame, and discipline the body. St. Paul says in this morning’s Epistle reading that we must not be debtors…to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if [we] live after the flesh, [we] shall die. But if [we] through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, [we] shall live. (Romans viii. 12, 13) When Wisdom is applied to the body, the whole man is right with God, for he is then moved and defined by the Spiritual Truth that God intends for the body and the soul. If Wisdom is not applied, then man faces spiritual death in which both soul and body shall live alienated and separated from God forever. St. Paul says that They that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Ibid, 8-10) He says in another place that Christ [is] the wisdom of God and the power of God. (1 Cor. i. 24) Living by God’s Wisdom, is to live in Christ. This means to accept the loving instruction and discipline that His Spirit brings to man’s life. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (Romans viii. 14) 

Life in Christ is an invitation to become the sons and daughters of God, whereby we [can] cry, Abba, Father.(Ibid, 15) This opens us to a relationship with God whose Wisdom will enable us to love to keep [His] laws…bringing us near to incorruption…[with a] desire for [the] wisdom [which] brings us near to [His] kingdom. (Wisdom vi. 18-20) We find God’s Wisdom in nature and then in the life of Jesus Christ our Lord. In submitting humbly and adjusting our lives to Christ, we can be moved by the Divine Wisdom and reveal it to others. 

In this morning’s Gospel Christ tells us that by [men’s] fruits, ye shall know them. (St. Matthew vii. 20) A man’s spiritual worth are measured by the thoughts, words, and deeds that issue forth through his body from his soul. But Man must beware lest his soul does not embrace Christ’s indwelling presence. False prophets who come to us, appearing as sheep are often ravening wolves, (St. Matt. vii. 15) who desire to confound God’s Wisdom and sever us from eternal happiness. To them, the Cross is foolishness. (1 Cor. i. 18) We must be vigilant against them so that Christ, the Crucified Wounded Healer, can overcome us with His Sacrificial Love. We reach our end only if we pray that God will put away from us all hurtful things and give us those things which be profitable for us. (Collect Trinity VIII) Solomon knew that hurtful things sever us from the sacrificial life that surrenders to God’s Wisdom, as he looks forward to the Cross of Jesus Christ, which is God’s Wisdom made flesh. Christ reminds us, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven. (Ibid, 21) So, with Bishop Beveridge, [let us] resolve…in the presence of Almighty God, that from this day forward, [we] will make it our whole business…to look after [our] happiness in Heaven, and to walk circumspectly those blessed paths, that God appointed all to walk in, that ever expect to come to Him. (Ibid, 4)

Amen.  
©wjsmartin

 Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name, increase in us true religion, 
nourish us with all goodness, and keep us in the same…
(Collect Trinity VII)

You must have noticed that in addition to our Scriptural lessons appointed to be read each Sunday, we pray something called a Collect. A Collect is a short general prayer of a particular structure used in Christian liturgy. (Wikip…) In the tradition of Common Prayer, the Collect sums up into one prayer the theme of the day or the focus of any given Sunday’s readings. You will have noticed that our Collects are poetically worded and beautifully crafted expressions of theological truth. Yet there is always a danger in them. One might be so swept up with the form that one forgets the substance. Their melodious meter might sweep up such aesthetic appreciation that we miss the theological truth that they contain. We might liken it to the harmony of a song that stirs us with melody devoid of meaning. Countless numbers of people have enjoyed certain songs or choruses, only to realize that, on closer examination, the ideas they express are evil. We love the music, the sound, the beat, and the combination of notes, and yet, if we examine the meaning, we are appalled to find their meaning!

But our Collects were formulated to do exactly the opposite. Their beautiful forms were crafted to lead a man into the truth. From there, they are meant to lift the soul into the powerful presence of God. Listen, again, to the opening words of this morning’s Collect: Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things.... The words flow so beautifully that they are music to our ears. And yet, what are they arranged to do? They lead and guide our minds into the truth about God. God is omnipotent. He is the Creator and Giver of all good things. He is the author of primal goodness and meaning and is the giver of that supplemental goodness that yields salvation. He makes all things and because they are made by Him, they are good. He offers to redeem certain things also, namely the hearts and souls of one part of creation that has rejected His goodness and preferred their own. The goodness He desires to effect for man is the redemption of his fallen nature. Beyond the goodness that He creates, is a goodness that will conquer, subdue, and overcome man’s rejection of it. His added goodness promises to carry us out of bondage to the elements of this world (Gal. iv. 3), which, as St. Paul reminds us, He gives in response to our Fall. His added goodness is offered to us so that we might conquer evil.
         
So, God’s power and might were present in the creation and are present to us now in redemption. His unchanging desire and intention for us is to continue to make all things good. Having claimed and confessed that His power and might alone make all things noble, right, and true, we pray that what God intends for us to receive through love or an act of the joyful will. Graft in our hearts the love of Thy name. God does not force or compel us to love Him. We must desire and long that God’s power and might might enable us to love [His] name. (Idem) Thus, we long to be infused with a love for Him that excels and surpasses all other loves – loves that tempt and distract us from the source and origin of our true and lasting joy. We yearn for that love that opens our hearts and souls to the power and might of God’s Grace.
Acknowledging that this power and might alone can generate goodness in us, we see that its first effect must be love. We know that goodness for man is salvation and reconciliation with the same God. We know too that we cannot have it unless we love and will Him from the ground of our hearts.

Yet, we cannot end here. We know that our love for God must never be a fly-by-night, temporary, occasional, impermanent feeling, or emotion. So, we pray, Increase in us true religion. True religion is the flower and fruit of that instinct, passion, and desire for the rule and governance of God’s goodness in our own lives. Without the Spirit of Divine Love, we shall never become accustomed or habituated to the virtues of truth, which are the only means to our salvation. William Law tells us that the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. (The Spirit of Love) The Spirit of Love must be translated into the spirit of our lives with the increase of true religion. True religion is a reflection and imitation of God’s holiness and righteousness – of His goodness, truth, and beauty. St. Paul tells us in this morning’s Epistle that when [we] were the servants of sin, [we] were free from righteousness. (Romans vi. 20) What he means is that before we woke up and came to our spiritual senses, we were in bondage, or slavery, to the elements of this world. Because of that, we were headed for trouble, sin’s reward – spiritual death, to be bereft of God’s enduring good things for ever. But now, he says, we are being made freed from sin, [and are becoming] the servants of God. ( Ibid, 22) Our Collect for today echoes Paul’s desire and hope for his flock. Increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness…. If we are defined by true religion we must be fed and nourished with God’s goodness, [having our] fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. (Ibid, 22) Desire for the love of God in our hearts moves us to find that true religion that conforms to the pursuit of salvation. What we are praying for, then, is the love of God that leads to godly discipline. Through discipline, we find liberation from bondage to all that is unclean, unholy, and unrighteous. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Ibid, 23) If the love of God is to be ordered in us as true religion, God’s goodness must nourish our hearts in the victory over evil.
         
At the end of our Collect, we pray that God, of his great mercy might keep us in the same. Perhaps, here, we come finally to the hardest part of the whole Collect for this Seventh Sunday after Trinity. We pray that God’s holiness and righteousness might become permanent habits in our knowing and willing. And this leads us to our Gospel for today. In it, we read of God’s ongoing response to man’s desire for Him. In Jesus Christ, we find the one who is with us and for us every step of the way on this hard journey. Just as Jesus had compassion on the multitude then, so He continues to have compassion on us now. Then He fed a multitude of four thousand men with seven loaves and two small fishes. (St. Mark viii) We read that he had compassion upon them because they had a desire for the kind of life that our Collect encourages. He has mercy always upon those who follow Him first and foremost, for the long haul, and from afar. The multitude has now been with me three days, and if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way; for divers of them came from afar. (St. Mark viii. 2,3) Jesus will meet the needs of those who follow Him faithfully. At that time, He took a little food – seven loaves and two small fishes and multiplied them so that they could feed a multitude of people. Jesus is one with the Father. He is the Lord of all power and might and is the author and giver of all good things. Through His compassionate love, He begins to graft in [the multitude’s] heart the love of [God’s] name. They have put God’s Word in Jesus Christ first. Then, they desire to increase in true religion since they have traveled long distances and have now been with Him for three days. (Idem) Now, He will nourish [them] with all goodness as a reward for their faithfulness and thus keep those who are faithful in the same. (Idem)
         
Jesus will answer our prayers today as well. What we pray for in our Collect, Jesus provides. He knows that we grow weary and faint as we journey after salvation. He knows that we struggle to leave far behind our slavery to sin and the elements of this world. (Idem) He understands that our feeble powerlessness always threatens to overwhelm and possess us. He understands even that the music and beauty of our Collect might not be enough to increase in us true religion. So, He ministers to us. Even today, He takes a few morsels of bread and a small portion of wine and makes them into His Body and His Blood. In receiving the miracle of Christ’s Real Presence with us and for us, we are welcomed into the summation of all good things. In them, because He is the author and giver of all good things, what He says they are, they must become for us.
         
In the Holy Eucharist, we come to believe that Christ offers us all of Himself. In it, He offers to us the substance of His sacrificial love. In our frail souls, we must understand that when we pray, Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, we are praying for the indwelling of Jesus Christ. This indwelling is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, who desires to heal us with that love that has given Himself to us completely on the Cross of Calvary. Christ is like a Surgeon who grafts His perfect Body onto our frail, sickly flesh and fills us with His Blood so that in Him and through His Spirit we might be able to love God the Father’s holy name once again. T. S. Eliot provides the image:

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart. (The Four Quartets: East Coker, IV)

Christ grafts in our hearts His love of God’s Holy Name. The wounded surgeon has bled for us in His death and lifts us into the healing balm of His Resurrection. True religion feeds on all manner of His love and goodness. Christ the Surgeon enters our sinful systems with the sharp compassion – the tough love of His Divine cure. The sharp compassion of the healer’s art demands His Cross and ours. Here, God’s Holy Word lovingly invites us to feed on Him and sing the song of salvation, to keep us in the same. (Idem) 
Amen.

©wjsmartin

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance
​without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without
personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the 
cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
                                    Dietrich Bonhoeffer  The Cost of Discipleship
 

We begin today’s sermon with a quotation from Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the 20th century’s great Christian witnesses and martyrs for the faith. Bonhoeffer, as many of you know, was a Lutheran pastor and theologian, who was a key mover in the German Christian resistance to Hitler during the Second World War. Bonhoeffer was born into a prominent German family, studied at the University of Berlin, and trained for the ministry in Barcelona, Spain, and then at Union Theological Seminary in New York. While in New York, he began to realize the power of God’s Grace in a radical new way. He spent much time at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, where, he would later say, I moved from phraseology to reality. He moved from believing in the words that constitute doctrine to living it out practically. Bonhoeffer’s life was cut short. Accused of being an accomplice in the plot on the Fuhrer’s life, Hitler hanged him. He was 39 years old when he died. But up until his death, he left the world with remarkable reflections on the Gospel and the understanding of God’s truth. He suffered many things, but chiefly he suffered to live in Jesus Christ, and his writings led men to embrace not cheap but costly Grace that comes to man only through the Sacrifice of God’s own Son.
         
Cheap grace, of course, is easy enough to fall into. Fallen man is lazy and cowardly when it comes to suffering. Cheap grace pleases the soul that cannot bear to keep his eyes on the Cross. Cheap grace is found in just persons that have no need of repentance (St. Luke xv. 7) or forgiveness. Cheap grace characterizes those who irrationally presume that man should neither play any part in redemption nor have a relationship with God the Father, through the suffering of the Cross, by the hard discipline of the Holy Ghost. And while cheap grace might make many feel good about themselves, the fact of the matter is that cheap grace can’t save us. Cheap grace makes a mockery of Our Lord’s suffering and crucifixion. Cheap grace is a fraud and a lie that proves costly to those who embrace it.  

Christians believe in costly grace. Costly grace involves serious confrontation with the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace, of course, is freely given. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. ii 3,4) God gives His Grace to save all men, but on His terms. His terms involve the Cross and every man’s relation to it. It is never forced; through his free will man, can either accept or reject it. Man must play a part in his redemption. He does this by using his free will to embrace God’s Grace. Following the decision to embrace it, either it lives on or it dies. God’s costly grace is offered to the soul freely, requiring that constant vigilance that wills to grow spiritually through suffering.  
         
In this morning’s Epistle, we are invited to contemplate costly Grace. Grace, as understood by St. Paul, requires surrender and suffering. The costliness of Grace is first found in the price paid by God to save all human beings. The cost paid by God the Father was the death of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The cost paid by Christ was His life, freely and lovingly given to us all on the Cross. The cost paid by the Spirit is the incessant loving determination to incorporate us into this life of Grace. The Spirit, alive and well in the heart of Jesus, reveals His Yes to God, and thus a life that suffers perfectly to do the Father’s will. For Christ, to be moved by God’s will through the Spirit meant that it would cost Him His life. Grace is not cheap. It is purchased with the lifeblood of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Christians are called to embrace the costly Grace that flows into human life through the death of Jesus Christ. Christians must enter the death of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Yes to God, and Yes to God means death, real death. But how can we enter death before we die? Can we die before our physical natures give up the ghost? On the face of it, it seems implausible. Death is death, and we die when we have breathed our last. So, what does it mean to enter Christ’s death?
Death is a cessation, an ending of life as we know it. Death leaves life behind. Death is an end, which most think is final. Christians must disagree. Death for Christians, in addition to being something that we shall all endure in a physical way, is also a spiritual virtue ­– a habit in time that will ensure our journey into a new kind of life. Christians believe that spiritual death is an inward and spiritual virtue. Of course, man dies to things every day. The cost of pursuing what he loves demands that man must die to whatever threatens his betterment and well-being. In the Christian sense, the cost man pays is dying to his old sinful self. And this is precisely what St. Paul is talking about in today’s Epistle. 

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans vi. 3.4)
 
Grace is costly, not cheap. Grace comes to us through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Grace comes to us in Christ’s Yes to God, which Yes demands death – first His, and then ours. Death is needed, spiritual death, our deaths to ourselves, the cost we must pay for Grace to abound. This is the cost of Grace. It is the death of Jesus Christ shared with us. It must mean our spiritual death to sin in Him. Death is linked by St. Paul to baptism. He teaches that we are initiated into the death of Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus Christ is God’s response to our sin. Christ brings sin to death in Himself. The Father gives Himself to us completely in his Son’s Yes. He sends His Holy Spirit to us that we too may say Yes to Him and die. Grace is costly, it requires nothing less than everything. If we desire the Grace of God, we must say Yes to God and die to ourselves in Christ’s death.
         
Imagine it if we took Jesus’ Yes to God seriously. Imagine if in the face of sin’s determination to destroy us, we continued to say Yes to God. Imagine if we found that Grace is not cheap, but costly. What would happen? Again, it will cost us everything. It will cost us our families, our friends, our riches, our possessions, and all else. What is significant, though, is that it will cost us ourselves. Grace is not cheap. It comes at a price. Our Yes to God demands all of ourselves, our souls, and our bodies. Sin’s aim is to kill life, both physical and spiritual, and to convince us that this life’s death is final and conclusive. But if we say Yes to God in the face of sin’s temptations, we shall die to the lie that sin will forever enslave us. We shall die to the lie that we cannot rise up out of death, here and now, by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. When we say Yes to God in the face of sin, we deny sin any power over us at all. When we say Yes to God, the unchanging love of God’s power will surround and envelop us. We become alive, alive to God and all the potential for eternal life with Him. Suddenly, the true, the beautiful, and the good will enter our hearts. The power of God will generate new life out of our old sinful selves. Our Yes to God will become the birth of His life in us, through Christ, and by the Spirit.

The perfect and persistent Yes to God of Jesus is crucified by man – by us. Death is sin’s end, and Jesus embraces it in His Yes to God. Jesus doesn’t respond to sin but only to God. Even His wrongful and unmerited death can become a reality where man says Yes to God. In Jesus’ death, we find the pattern and model that can say Yes to God. Our baptism into Christ’s death calls us to suffer the cost. His death is our Yes to God and is summarized in today’s Collect.
O God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man’s understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, that exceed all that we can desire. 
 
When we say Yes to God in Jesus Christ, our old Adam needs never again be the slave of sin. Our Yes to God in Christ means that we can love Him above all things, dying to ourselves, with a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (St. Matthew v. 20). God’s Grace in Jesus Christ is justice and righteousness that exceeds and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It will cost us everything not to render evil for evil. Grace is costly but God’s justice is Christ’s loving Yes to God and the forgiveness of our sins. It will cost us ourselves if we love Him above all things to obtain His promises, which exceed all that we can desire. (Idem) Costly Grace leads to true and unending life with God because we cooperate with our Master, Jesus Christ, as He works His redemption into our souls. Costly grace is Christ’s work in us. Let us persevere with the aid of Christ’s healing Sacrament, Broken Bread and Poured out wine as Broken Body and Poured out Blood for our suffering souls’ refreshment and encouragement.

Amen.
©wjsmartin

 
 
 

…The people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God…
(St. Luke v. 1)
 

​Trinity Tide, as we have said, is all about growth and fertility. We wear Green Vestments during this season to symbolize harvest, growth, and fruitfulness. In this season we learn how to love and obey our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, His Eternally Begotten Word and Logos for us made flesh, through the indwelling of our Lord the Holy Ghost. Our spiritual exercise is illustrated in the Gospel lesson as we see how the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the Word of God. Today, we learn that hearing the Word of God is one thing, and doing something about it is quite another. St. James tells us to be…doers of the Word, and not hearers only. (St. James i. 22) This is where most well-intentioned Christians get caught up. Hearing God’s Word and saying, I agree with that, is one thing, doing it or applying it to human life is quite another. Today, let us see if we might press upon Jesus to hear God’s Word so that, being caught up in the Net of His doing, our lives might begin to be transformed by God the Holy Trinity. 

Prior to this morning’s Gospel lesson from St. Luke, Jesus had been thrown out of His hometown of Nazareth, barely escaping with His life. No prophet finds acceptance in his own country. (St. Luke iv. 24). So He traveled into Capernaum where His teaching was acknowledged as authoritative. Here He cast a demon out of a possessed man, healed St. Peter’s mother-in-law who had been gripped with a fever, and restored others who were diseased physically or spiritually. Finally, He retired to a desert place and prayed. But crowds of people caught up with Him because they wanted more. But the more that Jesus was preparing to give them –God’s Word and Will for man, would require some doing by Jesus.

So, we find Jesus moving down into the fishing village of Gennesaret. We read that Jesus entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. (Ibid, 3) If we would press upon [Jesus] to hear God’s Word, we must thrust out a little from the land (Ibid, 3) away from the hustle and bustle, confusion and noise of human life, to free us from those earthly preoccupations that would distract us. Over and against the usual course of human affairs, God’s Word must stand alone with men of prayer to address them from a place of concentration, that they might serve Him in all Godly quietness. (Collect Trinity V)

Notice that in today’s Gospel, some are on shore and some are in the boats with Jesus. Some will hear the Word, and some will experience its Power in human life. Peter, James, and John have accompanied Jesus in the ships.  And while both groups are intended to be caught up in the net of Christ as his spiritual fish, as Archbishop Trench reminds us, the Apostles must be converted first so that they may then become Christ’s doers of the Word and, thus, fishers of men. I think that Saint Peter, in particular, and then Saints James and John, represent in this story the Church and her ministers. The people on the shore represent the fish that will be caught up on land once the Apostles have been caught up in Christ’s Net from the deeper spiritual waters of the sea. There are different levels and stages of faith, trust, and obedience that pass first from Christ to His Apostles, and then from His Apostles to all others who would be saved. Some men are ready to hear but not yet digest. Others will hear the Word and then experience the Power of its Love.

​First, the faith of the Apostles, who have thrust out from land and onto the sea with Jesus, must be tested. We read: Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.  (Ibid, 4) Simon, like his fellow fishermen, and unlike the crowd, has had a long and unsuccessful night of fishing. Most of the other fishermen are on the shore, exhausted, cleaning their nets, licking their wounds, and perhaps downcast at another night of failing to catch any fish. Matthew Henry tells us that One would have thought this should have excused [the Apostles also] from Christ’s sermon; but it was more refreshing and reviving to them than the softest slumbers. (Comm. Luke V) The fishermen on shore did not see much sense in thrusting off onto the waters again with Jesus. But the Apostles did. While others slept, the Apostles would use their powerlessness, failure, and fatigue as a trigger for turning more faithfully from themselves towards Jesus. The Apostles worked their bodies hard to catch fish, but when they failed, fully spent, they turned to Christ for the reviving of their souls. Christ knows our weakness, and it is when we feel this most truly that He will draw out new and vibrant faith. Simon Peter responds to Jesus: Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. (Ibid 5,6)

Peter faithfully obeys. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. (Ibid, 6,7) Peter, James, and John were overwhelmed by the catch. They called on their partners to help to relieve the weight of the treasure trove of fish that was sinking their boats. Where the Apostles had failed, Jesus would succeed. We read that 

when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: and so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. (Ibid, 8-10) 
 
St. Peter is overwhelmed by the Power and Love of God in Christ the Word and nature’s response to it. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. i. 24) effects what might happen in nature on a favorable day but is accelerated now with supernatural intervention. Human ingenuity is one thing, but to be caught up in the provision that God’s Word yields is quite another. Peter feels his own deep sense of unworthiness as radically other than the Power and Love of God in Jesus. He falls down as one undeserving of such a gift. Archbishop Trench tells us that the deepest thing in a man’s heart…is a sense of God’s holiness as something bringing death and destruction to the unholy creature. (Miracles, 102) Peter’s faith and obedience yield a miracle greater than the draught of the fishes. Peter knows himself as an unholy creature in the presence of an all-loving God. The Love of God in Jesus Christ must always startle us with a Power that confounds all our expectations.

The first step towards a right relationship with God is the fear of the Lord. It is the beginning of wisdom that learns humility in the presence of the all Holy God. Father Mouroux reminds us that man must realize that [he] is dust and ashes before his God; however much he abounds he is always a poverty-stricken thing hanging on the Divine Mercy, and however much he may be purified he is still a sinner face to face with Holiness. (The Meaning of Man, p. 217) The fish which the men have caught are still alive, flailing, thrashing, and thwacking with all their might to return to life in the sea. Peter, on the other hand, rendered dead to himself, is still, and falls down and endures a spiritual undoing that he cannot resist. He finds himself the chief of all sinners in the face of an all Loving and Powerful God who promises him new life.

Christ catches Peter, James, and John in His Net. They find themselves 
 
in a state of Grace, in which all the contradiction is felt, God is still a consuming fire, yet not anymore for the sinner, but for the sin…[for they are in] the presence of God…[whose] glory is veiled, whose nearness…every sinful man may endure, and in that nearness may little by little be prepared for the…open vision of the face of God. (Trench, Idem)  

Jesus says, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. (Ibid, 10) Jesus intends that Peter, James, John, and the other Apostles should come alive as fishers of men.
So, what does it mean to be caught up as spiritual fish into Christ’s Net and to become fishers of men? 

Our Gospel concludes: When the [Apostles] had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him. (Ibid, 11) The Apostles were called to be fish out of water  –to forsake the world, the flesh, the devil, and themselves. They were called to be all of one mind, having compassion one of another, loving as brethren…pitiful…courteous; not rendering evil for evil…but contrariwise blessing…eschewing evil, ensuing good, seeking peace and ensuing it. (1 Peter iii. 8,9) Forsaking all is a spiritual disposition that zealously puts Christ first, hears, obeys, and follows Him into the New Life that He brings from above. Forsaking all will also mean following Jesus to His Cross. We press upon Jesus to hear the Word of God (Idem) to become doers of [it]. (Idem) We leave our earthly occupations and thrust out a little from the land. (Idem) We launch into the deep with Jesus and cast our nets out for a draught. Trusting with faith in the Word of the Lord, which alone can sink the ship of our sinfulness, we shall be caught up in the catch of Christ’s Net. Faith in God’s Grace can flourish and bloom [only if] it is welcomed; it can act [only if] it is activated, [for] all the infinitude of its power comes from the adoring passivity in which it lies open to God. (Mouroux, p. 217) The Apostles could have returned to fishing for fish. But another miracle is at work here. God’s Power and Love will overcome fallen men and bring them into His dying life on the Cross. 

​The Son of God alone, wholly removed from His natural glory and bliss in Heaven, is the real fish out of water. We can become fish out of water also as Christ catches us up in the Net of His death for our future in Heaven. Being caught up into Christ’s Net, He will enable us to be followers of that which is good…suffering for righteousness’ sake…so that happy we may be (Idem), serving Him in all godly quietness (Collect) and fishing for men.

Amen.
©wjsmartin

​…The people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God…
(St. Luke v. 1)
 
Trinity Tide, as we have said, is all about growth and fertility. We wear Green Vestments during this season to symbolize harvest, growth, and fruitfulness. In this season we learn how to love and obey our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, His Eternally Begotten Word and Logos for us made flesh, through the indwelling of our Lord the Holy Ghost. Our spiritual exercise is illustrated in the Gospel lesson as we see how the people pressed upon Jesus to hear the Word of God. Today, we learn that hearing the Word of God is one thing, and doing something about it is quite another. St. James tells us to be…doers of the Word, and not hearers only. (St. James i. 22) This is where most well-intentioned Christians get caught up. Hearing God’s Word and saying, I agree with that, is one thing, doing it or applying it to human life is quite another. Today, let us see if we might press upon Jesus to hear God’s Word so that, being caught up in the Net of His doing, our lives might begin to be transformed by God the Holy Trinity. 

Prior to this morning’s Gospel lesson from St. Luke, Jesus had been thrown out of His hometown of Nazareth, barely escaping with His life. No prophet finds acceptance in his own country. (St. Luke iv. 24). So He traveled into Capernaum where His teaching was acknowledged as authoritative. Here He cast a demon out of a possessed man, healed St. Peter’s mother-in-law who had been gripped with a fever, and restored others who were diseased physically or spiritually. Finally, He retired to a desert place and prayed. But crowds of people caught up with Him because they wanted more. But the more that Jesus was preparing to give them –God’s Word and Will for man, would require some doing by Jesus.

So, we find Jesus moving down into the fishing village of Gennesaret. We read that Jesus entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. (Ibid, 3) If we would press upon [Jesus] to hear God’s Word, we must thrust out a little from the land (Ibid, 3) away from the hustle and bustle, confusion and noise of human life, to free us from those earthly preoccupations that would distract us. Over and against the usual course of human affairs, God’s Word must stand alone with men of prayer to address them from a place of concentration, that they might serve Him in all Godly quietness. (Collect Trinity V)

Notice that in today’s Gospel, some are on shore and some are in the boats with Jesus. Some will hear the Word, and some will experience its Power in human life. Peter, James, and John have accompanied Jesus in the ships.  And while both groups are intended to be caught up in the net of Christ as his spiritual fish, as Archbishop Trench reminds us, the Apostles must be converted first so that they may then become Christ’s doers of the Word and, thus, fishers of men. I think that Saint Peter, in particular, and then Saints James and John, represent in this story the Church and her ministers. The people on the shore represent the fish that will be caught up on land once the Apostles have been caught up in Christ’s Net from the deeper spiritual waters of the sea. There are different levels and stages of faith, trust, and obedience that pass first from Christ to His Apostles, and then from His Apostles to all others who would be saved. Some men are ready to hear but not yet digest. Others will hear the Word and then experience the Power of its Love.

First, the faith of the Apostles, who have thrust out from land and onto the sea with Jesus, must be tested. We read: Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.  (Ibid, 4) Simon, like his fellow fishermen, and unlike the crowd, has had a long and unsuccessful night of fishing. Most of the other fishermen are on the shore, exhausted, cleaning their nets, licking their wounds, and perhaps downcast at another night of failing to catch any fish. Matthew Henry tells us that One would have thought this should have excused [the Apostles also] from Christ’s sermon; but it was more refreshing and reviving to them than the softest slumbers. (Comm. Luke V) The fishermen on shore did not see much sense in thrusting off onto the waters again with Jesus. But the Apostles did. While others slept, the Apostles would use their powerlessness, failure, and fatigue as a trigger for turning more faithfully from themselves towards Jesus. The Apostles worked their bodies hard to catch fish, but when they failed, fully spent, they turned to Christ for the reviving of their souls. Christ knows our weakness, and it is when we feel this most truly that He will draw out new and vibrant faith. Simon Peter responds to Jesus: Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. (Ibid 5,6)

Peter faithfully obeys. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. (Ibid, 6,7) Peter, James, and John were overwhelmed by the catch. They called on their partners to help to relieve the weight of the treasure trove of fish that was sinking their boats. Where the Apostles had failed, Jesus would succeed. We read that 
when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: and so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. (Ibid, 8-10) 
 
St. Peter is overwhelmed by the Power and Love of God in Christ the Word and nature’s response to it. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor. i. 24) effects what might happen in nature on a favorable day but is accelerated now with supernatural intervention. Human ingenuity is one thing, but to be caught up in the provision that God’s Word yields is quite another. Peter feels his own deep sense of unworthiness as radically other than the Power and Love of God in Jesus. He falls down as one undeserving of such a gift. Archbishop Trench tells us that the deepest thing in a man’s heart…is a sense of God’s holiness as something bringing death and destruction to the unholy creature. (Miracles, 102) Peter’s faith and obedience yield a miracle greater than the draught of the fishes. Peter knows himself as an unholy creature in the presence of an all-loving God. The Love of God in Jesus Christ must always startle us with a Power that confounds all our expectations.

The first step towards a right relationship with God is the fear of the Lord. It is the beginning of wisdom that learns humility in the presence of the all Holy God. Father Mouroux reminds us that man must realize that [he] is dust and ashes before his God; however much he abounds he is always a poverty-stricken thing hanging on the Divine Mercy, and however much he may be purified he is still a sinner face to face with Holiness. (The Meaning of Man, p. 217) The fish which the men have caught are still alive, flailing, thrashing, and thwacking with all their might to return to life in the sea. Peter, on the other hand, rendered dead to himself, is still, and falls down and endures a spiritual undoing that he cannot resist. He finds himself the chief of all sinners in the face of an all Loving and Powerful God who promises him new life.

​Christ catches Peter, James, and John in His Net. They find themselves 
 
in a state of Grace, in which all the contradiction is felt, God is still a consuming fire, yet not anymore for the sinner, but for the sin…[for they are in] the presence of God…[whose] glory is veiled, whose nearness…every sinful man may endure, and in that nearness may little by little be prepared for the…open vision of the face of God. (Trench, Idem) 
 
Jesus says, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. (Ibid, 10) Jesus intends that Peter, James, John, and the other Apostles should come alive as fishers of men.

So, what does it mean to be caught up as spiritual fish into Christ’s Net and to become fishers of men? 
Our Gospel concludes: When the [Apostles] had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him. (Ibid, 11) The Apostles were called to be fish out of water  –to forsake the world, the flesh, the devil, and themselves. They were called to be all of one mind, having compassion one of another, loving as brethren…pitiful…courteous; not rendering evil for evil…but contrariwise blessing…eschewing evil, ensuing good, seeking peace and ensuing it. (1 Peter iii. 8,9) Forsaking all is a spiritual disposition that zealously puts Christ first, hears, obeys, and follows Him into the New Life that He brings from above. Forsaking all will also mean following Jesus to His Cross. We press upon Jesus to hear the Word of God (Idem) to become doers of [it]. (Idem) We leave our earthly occupations and thrust out a little from the land. (Idem) We launch into the deep with Jesus and cast our nets out for a draught. Trusting with faith in the Word of the Lord, which alone can sink the ship of our sinfulness, we shall be caught up in the catch of Christ’s Net. Faith in God’s Grace can flourish and bloom [only if] it is welcomed; it can act [only if] it is activated, [for] all the infinitude of its power comes from the adoring passivity in which it lies open to God. (Mouroux, p. 217) The Apostles could have returned to fishing for fish. But another miracle is at work here. God’s Power and Love will overcome fallen men and bring them into His dying life on the Cross. 

The Son of God alone, wholly removed from His natural glory and bliss in Heaven, is the real fish out of water. We can become fish out of water also as Christ catches us up in the Net of His death for our future in Heaven. Being caught up into Christ’s Net, He will enable us to be followers of that which is good…suffering for righteousness’ sake…so that happy we may be (Idem), serving Him in all godly quietness (Collect) and fishing for men.

Amen.
©wjsmartin