Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Trinity – 5 July 2020: Romans 7, 15-25; Matthew 11, 16-19, 25-end.
Revd Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
Over these last few months and seemingly endless weeks, Deacon Christine and I, between us, have provided worship on Facebook, printed and recorded sermons, a Zoom service on Sunday, followed by a Liturgy at Noon since May 17th, a mid-week Zoom Evening Prayer, a Friday bible study by Zoom, and phone calls and emails to try and stay connected with our widely spread congregation.
We have done our best! I know that a good number of people have expressed their thanks already. If there have been any failings, we seek your understanding. These have been times that have impacted on everyone, and at all levels, including our emotional and psychological well – being.
There have been surprising successes and achievements during this time, and there have been deep disappointments. The pandemic has brought out the best in some people and the worst in others. It shows the differences in our human characteristics. For some, the strain of the pandemic just reached out to their baser instincts.
We have all tried to negotiate this season to the best of our mixed abilities – and more will be demanded from us, for ‘normal’ is a long way off, and anyway, people speak of a ‘new normal’, realizing that things will not be exactly the same again – indeed some things we must try to ensure are not the same as before., since some human patterns have given the oxygen that this virus needed in order to thrive so dramatically and tragically.
We will all want things to be different, yet we will all want things to be the same. It is a dilemma – a human dilemma. St. Paul approaches this dilemma in his letter to the Romans. Paul is surprisingly perceptive, if not shockingly frank, because in addressing his own ethical decision making processes he touches each one of us. What he experiences and describes is what we all experience, and we can each describe it in our own way, with our own narrative.
Paul frames the human dilemma around the law (that is the law that is inherited around the Ten Commandments), the spirit, flesh and the spirit, our human actions and sin.
To try and put it bluntly – no matter how I try to do good, which would always by my first choice, because I am a sinful human being, I will often do something that turns out to be the opposite. I would love always to do good – but there are times when despite my intentions – I will end up doing the opposite.
Can you and I relate to that? I think we probably can, because basically we are good and well intentioned human beings, but it is because we are human beings that we will often fail ourselves. We can hear that phrase that we dread – ‘he meant well’. This usually means that the person has let himself or herself down quite seriously.
St. Paul hits it on the head – it is the human condition, capable of aspiring to great and kind things, but capable also of terrible atrocities and cruelty. We can’t always control our own will, so we are dependent on the gracious action of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Shortly afterwards Paul extols life in the Holy Spirit of God, and says, ‘When we cry “Abba”, Father! It is the very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.’ (Rom 8, 16-17).
It would be all too easy for us, who perceive the presence and power of sin with us – and who can identify with that very human dilemma as Paul describes it – to feel that we just can’t win, so why try. You could be lying down in the mud, and you would be facing the wrong way for someone.
Clearly when comparing John the Baptist and Christ we experience this human ambivalence. Jesus tells us that John lived an ascetic life, a life of personal disciplines, and he neither ate nor drank. This evoked the response that he was possessed in some way – so that particular model of life didn’t endear itself to the people. Jesus, on the other hand, referred to in the gospel reading as ‘the Son of Man’ engaged in wedding parties, was invited to dine with people, ate with the ‘low-lifes’, joined in with wealthy pharisees’ supper parties. In some ways he was the life and soul of a party, yet the people wanted to brand him as a glutton and a drunkard.
Neither one model nor the other seemed to satisfy the opinions and prejudices of the people. Neither John nor Jesus could win. So what should we do if we feel the constant inner conflicts that are the natural partners of being human. Easily we could feel crushed and despondent. But no – we cry out ‘Abba, Father’ a cry in the Spirit, for the Spirit.
Words of comfort in this human dilemma ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ We are not alone; we are never alone; we don’t have to face the dilemmas of frail human life alone, for all our life is lived within the life-giving fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cry out Abba – we invite the Spirit – we turn our burdens in the direction of the Christ who lived and died for us.
So – take heart. Hold fast to what we know is good about our faith. Live as much as you can in the Spirit and the Spirit will give life. But when we want to do what we would wish to do, but don’t do it because of the sin that is in us – to use St. Paul’s language – walk humbly to Christ and he will receive us as we are, and in his love and grace we will be transformed into the people that God wills us to become.
