Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Trinity – 2nd July 2023delivered in Belgium – in the morning to the Anglican congregation in Knokke, and in the evening to the Anglican congregation in Bruges.

Fr Leonard Doolan.

I thank Fr. Augustine sincerely for inviting me to preach. We have known each other many years now.

Addressing the Christian community in Rome, the Apostle Paul puts a stark challenge to the believers that sounds dissonant to the modern ear. Are you an instrument of wickedness or an instrument of righteousness?

It is beyond the boundaries of this sermon to begin to explore all the implications of the application in St. Paul’s theology of sin and righteousness – and it is not just about being a good person going through life without harming anyone and giving to charities, or bad person going through life inflicting hardship on people,   because he is also contrasting the antithesis of living under the law – namely the Law of Moses which Paul now understands as a form of slavery and life in Christ which Paul now understands as freedom in the Spirit. ‘The letter kills but the Spirit gives life’ if you put it succinctly.

So when we consider what St. Paul means by wickedness and righteousness the distinctions are not straightforward, nor what they appear to be on the surface. However he does introduce well an approach to understanding the other two scripture readings this morning. His words act for us almost as a commentator on two other related, but not so easy passages of scripture.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks to the priests and the people in the House of the Lord. This is the Temple in Jerusalem. He is addressing the people who were left in Jerusalem after the fall of the city to the Babylonians in BC587. The temple is destroyed a year later. It is the time of the Exile. Just a word about this. Contrary to what we imagine, when the Babylonians under the King Nebuchadnezzar, carried off the people of Israel to slavery in Babylon, it was the better educated Israelites who were taken into captivity – not the people who for example, worked the land, who were ethnically and socially of a lower social standing.

So the prophet Jeremiah refers the priests and the people to the prophets of the past generations – the prophets who spoke of wars and famines and pestilences. Such prophets are easily credible in our own rather dark times.

If we consider the war between Russian and Ukraine as it develops we begin by seeing envy between one nation and another, patriotism, greed, self- protection and self – serving military and political action. One nation begins to seek domination over another, and to possess land to protect peoples who ‘speak our language’. It has created chaos – a chaos that has not just been contained to two nations, but globally, because the nations of the world are intertwined, they are interdependent.

So what happens in Ukraine causes hardship in Africa because, for example, the world needs grain from fertile Ukraine. So we can’t put our heads in the sand and say it has nothing to do with us.

In the last few days we have seen the chaos deepen, as mercenaries who were fighting for Russia in Ukraine are now suspects of treason against the Russian political leadership. Chaos begets chaos.

They knew of these prophets at the time of Jeremiah, and it was easy enough to believe them because they were vindicated by the conditions experienced by the people. It would have been so easy for Jeremiah to join in the cacophony of doom-mongers. Yet, this is what he says,’ As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.’ (28, 9).

Jeremiah begins to supplement this statement with some beautiful prophecies – prophecies of restoration, of prosperity, of homecoming, of security and of certainty. His letter to the exiles in Babylon is full of the promises of God’s faithfulness. God has never deserted his people and in images of return there is joy, a new covenant between God and his people, assurance and healing.

Jeremiah’s words are addressed to a particular and real situation, but he is also, as with all the faithful prophets, foretelling something of the coming of the Prince of Peace, Jesus, the Christ. When we know his peace, then truly we know that the prophet has come among us. So Jeremiah is both in his own time, but also in the time to come. The images he uses of the return of the Exiles, are images that speak of the future return to God of his people in Jesus Christ – our return to Father, who stands on the balcony watching and waiting for our homecoming.

So St. Matthew’s gospel this morning contains words of Jesus that take a bit of serious thinking about. When seen alongside the words of the prophet Jeremiah we can begin to see the message Jesus is presenting to us. We also self-refer to the sharp choices presented by St. Paul – are you a person of wickedness or a person of righteousness.

Our Lord is presenting to us a living model – a model of not just of Christian life, but of Christ-like life. One of the problems with cerebral Christianity – that is, Christianity that expresses itself in some intellectual or rational acceptance – is that it fails to provide a model of living life ‘in Christ’ which is one of St. Paul’s favourite little sayings – en Christo – in Greek.

The truth of our faith rests not in agreeing the words of the Creed, but how the words of that Creed have an application to Christian living; not just in behaviours but also in our very being. Jesus presents to us not just a ‘do as I do’ model of belief, but also and ‘abide in me’ model for each human person.

‘Whoever welcomes the prophet becomes the prophet’s reward; whoever welcomes the righteous person becomes righteous his or herself; whoever gives a cup of cold water reaps the reward of that life –giving action.’ Whoever seeks Christ becomes Christ-like is the basic message. Through the mystery of the Cross we share in, we participate in the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. We don’t stand at foot of the cross – I’ve always struggled with this little phrase – we are invited into its mystery, to share in its weakness in order to discover our divine strength as the daughters and sons of God.

It is in this way that we are able to speak of the Church of the ‘Body of Christ’. We are not called to be groupies of a religious leader, nor blinded devotees of a particular politician, or a slave to trend or spirit of the age;  we are called to be the Body of Christ. As his body the Church is ‘sacrament’ – an outward and visible sign of the very nature of the grace of God in Jesus.

As a sacrament to and for the world, it is our bounden duty and joy, always and everywhere to witness to unity in Christ; to represent Christ in God’s world; to act, speak, reconcile, heal, restore the brokenness of God’s world which gets fractured by us and our sin. Are we righteous people or wicked people? We are beginning to get a sense of the challenge of what St. Paul’s is speaking about.

Chaos begets chaos. As a sacrament we are called of be a sign of unity – a sacrament that can witness to the world how to be one. When we ourselves are divided the sacrament is in danger of being non-valid, and no sacrament at all. When we cease to be a sign people cannot read it and find a direction.

When the church descends into chaos through disagreement then we have no place to preach peace and unity to anyone else. We have a vocation to restore – even to restore when people disagree – to be a sign to all that we can disagree well without participating in a world that knows enough about chaos, and not enough about ‘life together  in Christ’.

Our three readings this morning challenge us, challenge us right here and right now – are we to recognize that Christ is ‘that prophet’ who has come and is to come into our world; are we to conform our lives on the pattern of the mystery of his holy cross; wickedness or righteousness – a stark choice, but the choice is ours.