In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
In last week’s Epistle, Paul exhorted us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, which he calls our “reasonable service” – or “spiritual worship” – that is, an act of worship that is in accordance with our nature as it is restored in Christ. He tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, which enables us to see things as God sees them and to act accordingly.
When we actually have our minds renewed and transformed, it becomes possible for us to live as the Apostle encourages us to live in today’s Epistle: We then realize that each of us is gifted by God in some way that will benefit our brethren, and so we concentrate, not on securing our own comfort and pleasure, but on exercising that gift, whether it is one of proclamation, discernment, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, hospitality, governance, or healing. We then become genuine people, loving without pretense, kind, diligent, hopeful, patient, prayerful, forgiving, sympathetic – the sort of people of whom it can be observed accurately that “what you see is what you get.”
We become ourselves as we focus our attention outside ourselves. The reason this is so is because we are made in the image of a tri-personal deity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – whose inner life is one in which each Person everlastingly pours himself out to the Others. The image of that is fulfilled in us – it grows into a likeness – as the quality of our own living is conformed to that great Pattern to the greatest extent possible for a created being.
The renewal of our minds produces the peace for which we have prayed in today’s collect – the peace that “passeth all understanding” – the peace which comes from recognizing the almighty and everlasting God, “who [doth] govern all things in heaven and earth.” The first step toward acquiring that kind of peace is the active recognition that it is God who governs all things in heaven and earth, not we, and that includes our own lives and environments. “Active recognition” means that we do not merely mouth the words, but that we live as if we really hold them to be true – it means that we “walk the talk,” if you will.
Indeed, merely mouthing the words will do no good at all. If there is no peace within us, there will be no peace among us. We may present an outward and visible tranquility, but inwardly and spiritually there is a seething discontent. At worst – and if it goes on long enough, inevitably – this inward dis-ease is manifested outwardly in our relationships with our fellow-men. Then even the outward semblance of peace is eroded and carried it into a wider arena, where it begins to involve and to damage others.
Just as one distempered organ can affect the health of the whole body, so it is possible for just one person who lacks both inner tranquility and the desire to do what is necessary to achieve it to affect the health and the outlook of a whole community of people, whether that is a family, a club, a town, a school, a military unit, a business, a congregation, a nation, or a world. Untreated and unhealed, the disease of one member will certainly cause the entire body to cease growing and, given time, to die. There is, in the end, no such thing as a private sin. There are secret sins, to be sure – the sort only known about by the sinner and God, but there is no such thing as a private sin, for since we are of an inescapably social nature, every act we perform shapes our character and that shapes the character of the body of which we are members.
This means that each of us carries as heavy a burden for all of us. By the same token, all of us carry a heavy burden for each of us. It is a burden that is too heavy if we do not seek the things which make for our peace, and that is a search that begins with the active recognition that it is God, and not we, who governs all things. Only by submitting to his truth can we learn that his is an easy yoke and a light burden, for he it is who walks beside us and shoulders the burden which he has no moral responsibility to bear.
Today’s Gospel tells of Jesus receiving John’s “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” He does so, not because he has any sins of which to repent, but so that we who are joined with him in baptism may have the ability genuinely to repent and not only to receive the remission of sins but also to receive the gift which his Father bestows upon him, which is the Spirit and the favor of God. He enters the waters, not to be cleansed, but to cleanse them so that they may cleanse us.
That same Spirit which descended upon Jesus will in a few moments be called to descend again to make him present in his gifts of bread and wine on this altar. We, if we receive him trusting to the fullest extent we can in his merciful governance of all things in heaven and earth, will be strengthened to live that life of peace to which he calls us, untroubled by the storms without because he who calms the storm abides within.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Fr Samuel L. Edwards
January 18th, 2009
