Saturday, November 07, 2015
Sermon for Pentecost 24
Proper
27 B ~ November 8, 2015
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
…
whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the
devil…
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity,
“Whoever saves one life saves the world, entire.” Perhaps you remember this central theme of Schindler’s List. It is a quotation from
the Talmud – the collection of
commentary on the Hebrew Scripture. I thought of it as analogous to the Widow,
who contributed to the Temple everything
she had, all she had to live on. Let me explain.
I think our Lord’s observation is more than an endorsement of
the principle of progressive taxation. I think it has to do with His whole
mission to destroy the works of the devil,
and that is why it is paired with today’s Collect. The works of the devil are
what we call Sin. Separation and alienation and death, which comes with it. One sign of that separation is
possession – our insistence that we own things. One ancient Church father went
so far as to say that is the essence of sin. The first sense of mine vs. yours is the Fall! Jesus has come to destroy that – to destroy destruction
and to re-create the world in love. That means self-sacrifice. In our Lord’s
case, the Sacrifice was perfect, that
is He sacrificed everything.
So did the widow, didn’t she? Everything she had, all she had to live on. Her sacrifice was more
than the percentage-tithes of the rich, who gave out of their abundance, but
kept most for themselves. Her gift was more because it was complete; unlike the
wealthy givers, she was all in. THAT destroys the works of the devil, just as the
one who saves a single life saves the
world entire. The Widow’s perfect
sacrifice is one with Christ’s. The devil is powerless against her willingness
to give all she had, her whole living – that is her very life. Her all in gift destroys the works of the
devil. Anyone who does likewise joins in that liberating work.
Every act of complete self-sacrifice is the same moment of
redemption, the re-creation of the world by the Death and Resurrection of Christ.
Our Lord’s remark invites us to think in new dimensions – or rather outside the dimensions of ordinary
consciousness, beyond the confines of time and space. In space, we seem to be separate
individuals; and ordinary consciousness cannot escape the sense of time – past,
present, and future. But both these categories – time and space – are in a
sense illusions. Space and time exist within God – within the eternal
present. In the mind of God, every
moment and every event in history is the same present moment. At least, so we
are assured by theologians. For that reason, Whoever saves one life saves the world, entire, and this poor widow has put in more than all
those who are contributing to the treasury.
Last Thursday, we commemorated one of our own, Anglican theologians,
the Christian socialist and wartime Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. Touching
this Mystery, he wrote:
We are led of necessity to believe in an eternal
knowledge, to which the whole process, endless though it may possibly be, is
present in a single apprehension. For the omniscient mind, every episode is grasped
as an element in that glorious whole of which it is a constituent part.
Everlastingly in the life of God, death is swallowed up in victory. It is in
the absolute perfection of that eternal experience, in which the whole process
of time is grasped in a single apprehension that the ultimate ground of all
that happens in history is to be found. To those who have seen in the life,
death, and resurrection of Christ the manifestation of the eternal omnipotence,
this experience can already be in a small measure shared through faith.
AMEN
MARANATHA
COME, LORD JESUS!
O God of light and love, you illumined your Church
through the witness of your servant William Temple: Inspire us, we pray, by his
teaching and example, that we may rejoice with courage, confidence, and faith
in the Word made flesh, and may be led to establish that city which has justice
for its foundation and love for its law; through Jesus Christ, the light of the
world, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for
ever. Amen
