Month: August 2016

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Your Greatest Promotion

Text: Proverbs 25:2-10
Date: Pentecost XV + Proper 17 + 8/28/16

At first it would seem that today’s readings are aimed only at good advice or wisdom concerning an aspect of leading a God pleasing life in this world. And that it is. Jesus was being serious if not also a little critical before the Pharisees of the danger of ungodly pride and the need for true humility as we prayed for in today’s collect. With the words, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled” and vice versa, He certainly had the principle of the proverb in mind that we heard today, “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great, for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble” (Prov 25:6-7). Continue reading “Your Greatest Promotion”

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All Flesh Shall Worship

Text: Isaiah 66:18-23
Date: Pentecost XIV + Proper 16 + 8/21/16

Today St. Luke reminds us that Jesus is continuing on His journey “toward Jerusalem.” Jerusalem! It’s the place where God dwells. It is the place of divine worship. It is the place of God’s salvation. So it’s not surprising that a nameless “someone” asked Jesus about salvation. It is interesting that the question was not, as many ask today, whether everyone is going to be saved in the end. Among the Jews there has always been an awareness that salvation will be the possession only of a faithful remnant chosen by God. In the apocryphal book of 4 Ezra it is written, “The Most High has made this world for many, but the world to come for few” (4 Ezra 8:1). This is simply because, while salvation is the totally free gift of God, it is possessed only by faith. Did God make forgiveness of sins and salvation available to all people? Yes, He did. Could all people be saved in the end? Yes, they could. Yet the Bible tells us that it is because of our fallen, sinful nature, our inbred spiritual blindness and deadness that many will reject God’s proffered salvation by unbelief. So if you change the question asking “Will all people be saved in the end?” The clearly unhappy answer is “No.” Continue reading “All Flesh Shall Worship”

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Climate Change

Text: Jeremiah 23:16-29
Date: Pentecost XIII + Proper 15 + 8/14/16

What’s all this? Casting fire on earth, distress, no peace but division, divided against each other? ‘Sounds awful. Today’s lessons sound like reading the newspaper with all the world’s daily tragedies, turmoil, desperation and death. Then Jeremiah’s report of false prophets and the threats of “the storm of the Lord,” wrath, a whirling tempest, the anger of the Lord. “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” It’s bad enough having to endure the criticism and persecution of the world each day, but in line with the Gospel, today’s Introit says we will continue to have troubles and divisions even within our closest relations, even in the Church of all places. “It is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng” (Ps 55:13-14). Continue reading “Climate Change”