Trinity XIII Sermon 2025

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.
He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one,
And to thy seed, which is Christ.
(Gal. iii. 16)
 
         As we have said, Trinity Tide is all about the application of God’s goodness to the heart of man. Our Collect for today insists upon the fact that God’s gift alone comes so that His faithful people might do unto Him true and laudible service. (Collect: Trinity XIII) The point of faith in God’s Grace is that we might praise Him. But our obligations to God don’t end with our relation to Him. The Collect continues to pray that we might faithfully serve Him in this life, that we fail not finally to attain His heavenly promises. We aim to translate our praise of God into virtue. The heavenly promises can only be fulfilled by those who have faith in God’s Grace praising Him and embracing His goodness.
        
So, we must turn to St. Paul for an explanation of faith in God’s Grace. Turning to the Old Testament, St. Paul reminds us that promises were made to Abraham and his seed. (idem) Seed means offspring. And Abraham was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. When he was first called, he was named Abram, which name meant exalted father, shield, and protector. Abram lived around 1900 years before the birth of Christ. He was married to Sarai, who was barren. He was called by God’s Word to leave Ur of the Chaldees.

Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:  and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. (Gen. xii. 1,2)
 
God’s Word promised to Abram that if he had the faith to leave behind his blood family, in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The Word of God calls Abram to have more faith in God’s Word than in family relationships and ties. Abram’s faith was to be rewarded spiritually by God’s Grace. His relationship with God would mold and define his relationship with all other men. Abram’s spiritual wonder made him a wanderer, more determined to find truth not in hearth and home but in spiritual pilgrimage. Abram was the first to interact largely with Gentile nations for the purposes of establishing relations in anticipation of a future in Christ where there would be neither Jew nor Greek. (Gal. iii. 28) So, Abram believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (Gen. xv. 6) His righteousness was the effect of his faith in God’s Grace. Abram’s name was soon changed by God to Abraham, which means the father of all nations or humanity. The alteration of his name would mean that the exalted father would become the father of all men.
        
What concerns St. Paul most in this morning’s Epistle is that we can become the sons of Abraham, in his son Jesus Christ, and heirs of His eternal kingdom, through faith in God’s Grace. The process is always initiated by God, lest we think that such a destiny can be achieved by our own good works. So, St. Paul says Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. (ibid, 16) God’s promises were made to Abraham in his offspring, one human family. The promises would be fulfilled and perfected through one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of St. Mary.
        
St. Paul emphasizes that the Law, given by God’s Word to the Jews 450 years after Abraham, could not disannul or cancel God’s covenant with Abraham. The Law was given to Moses for the purposes of disciplining the Jews, whose faith was to hope in the future coming of Messiah. If Abraham was to become the father of all nations, by faith, God’s children would not become heirs through the Law but by Grace. The Law was added because of transgressions or, as Monsignor Knox suggests, to turn our sins into transgressions, making us conscious of them as a breach in the divine law, and thus to show our need for redemption. (Knox Bible, Galatians iii) The Law was given to Abraham’s descendants to make them conscious that they were handicapped by the Original Sin that ends in death. Without faith in God’s Grace, in Jesus Christ, man could never hope to be saved by God’s love. St. Paul tells us then that the Law was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator, following the Jewish tradition that the angels gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. (idem, Knox) Moses was the mediator who carried the Law of God through angels to men. Since the Law came by angels to Moses, it was of less dignity than God’s Word of promise made directly to Abraham. If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. (ibid, 21) But God hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. (ibid, 22) The point is that the promises made to Abraham would be fulfilled only by the work of God to save us from the Law of Sin and Death through faith in the Grace of Jesus Christ.
        
In this morning’s Gospel, we find the theme of faith in God’s Grace continued and enlarged. Jesus says, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. (St. Luke x. 23) Faith is a kind of vision into God’s power, wisdom, and love. Faith in God’s Grace was sadly misunderstood by the Jews, the children of Abraham. Christ says that

many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them. (ibid, 24)
 
Christ blesses those who have the faith to see the true spiritual nature of how He is the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham. But the temptation is always, with the Jews, to think that the Law can save us. The lawyer in today’s Gospel tries or tests Christ with the question of what he must do to inherit eternal life? (ibid, 25) Christ asks him what is written in the Law since, as a lawyer, he would have been an expert in the law.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. (ibid, 26)
 
Christ says, this do and thou shalt live. But the lawyer, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? (ibid, 27)
Christ clearly knows that no man can perfectly obey the Law and is a sinner in need of the Saviour.
He reveals this truth in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
 A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. (ibid, 27)
 
Jerusalem is a symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, where we all come from. Jericho is the sinful kingdom of this world. Man has fallen into the grips of the Devil and his friends, among thieves, who, as St. Augustine says, have robbed us of our immortality. They strip man of the clothing of God’s righteousness, his virtue. They wound him and ruin the gift of free will. And leave him half dead, pressed down with the death that sin brings. (Catena Aurea, Thomas Aquinas) That the Law and the Prophets do not love their neighbor as themselves, the man in the ditch, is symbolized in the fact that the Pharisee–the Law, and the Levite–the prophets, respectively pass by on the other side. (ibid, 31) The Law and the Prophets had long since forgotten about Father Abraham’s faith in God’s Grace. St. Augustine says that by the Law came the knowledge of sin but not its doing away. (idem) Christ continues.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. (ibid, 33-35)
 
Father Abraham would have found himself as the man left half dead in the ditch. The whole of his life was the story of how God’s Word, the good Samaritan, came to him with both miracles and promises. God’s Word prophesied that those who love their neighbors as themselves would be repaid in the end for their charity.
        
After telling the parable, Christ asks the lawyer,
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?  And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. (ibid, 36,37)
 
We can only and ever allow Christ the Good Samaritan to save us if we, like Abraham, have faith in God’s Grace. We cannot live up to the Law, and we cannot save ourselves. We find our salvation only in Jesus Christ, Abraham’s seed and offspring. As Prebendary Scott reminds us, Christianity was a reversion to the primitive type of religion, that of Abraham, and not the Law. Abraham had faith in God’s Grace. So, too, must we. Then too you and I, with Abraham, shall not be at home in this world but will prefer to join him as spiritual pilgrims and wanderers intent upon finding our way home to heaven.

Amen.
©wjsmartin