| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| THE LAST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 20 November, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
| Previous Sermons |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
What a great Gospel lesson to end the year with! One of my favorite, that I always look
forward to reading and to preaching! But it also always makes me wonder: what did Jesus
have against goats?
I mean, why were the goats the bad guys? Why not the sheep? Are any of you familiar
with goats? A couple of our members have just returned from their first visit to an island
country – one not unknown to a number of our parishioners – that has more of both
sheep and goats than it has people, and where they both, for the most part, have the run
of the island (and I mean, they are ALL OVER THE PLACE).
Having lived on that island of Tortola for quite a few years, I must say I, personally, have
long preferred goats to sheep. I think nowadays people tend to like sheep because we’
re so used to them in nursery rhymes, (Mary had a little lamb; Bah, bah, black sheep…),
but that doesn’t explain Jesus’ preference – since I really don’t think Mary had a little
lamb, back then! Actually, I’ve always found goats to have much more personality, and be
MUCH more interesting creatures.
Well, obviously Jesus wouldn’t agree with me, or he wouldn’t have used them both as he
did in today’s allegory of the Last Judgment. (And I’m not even going to begin to get into
the left versus right hand thing!)
The sheep are those who, when confronted with human need, responded with kindness
and caring—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving the thirsty to drink,
welcoming the stranger, comforting the sick and the imprisoned. They will be rewarded
at the Last Judgment: they’re “saved.”
The goats are to be cast out of the Kingdom because they failed to do all those things –
failed to react to human need with acts of kindness. They are condemned.
The story is familiar to all of us, and, in fact, I suspect it’s the source for most of us of our
understanding of what happens at the end time – the “Judgment Day,” as we call it. On
that day, at the end of the age, everyone stands before the throne of judgment, and the
determination is made: if we have done good in our lives – like the sheep – we go to
heaven. If we’ve failed to do good – or if we’ve done evil – we go to hell. And for most of
us, the symbol of the judgment we carry in our minds is a balance scale, where the good
we’ve done is weighed against the evil, and we see which way the balance tips.
Unfortunately, that image has little to do with Christian doctrine, and this morning’s
lesson, like last week’s parable, can be misleading if not properly understood.
Approaching 5 centuries ago, now, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses on the
door of the castle Church at Wittenburg, officially beginning the Reformation. The Theses
covered a lot of things, but they, like all of Luther’s radical thought, arose, essentially
from one great realization that Luther had had, that he believed pointed to a failing of the
Church, and a real misunderstanding by the Church.
He had discovered in the writings of St. Paul, and described for the first time, with a
unique and explicit emphasis, the doctrine of salvation by faith alone; the idea that we
cannot earn our way into heaven, any more than we can buy our way in; that NOTHING WE
DO can bring us eternal life. Rather, eternal life has already been won for us by the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, having been won for us by Christ, salvation
becomes ours by simple faith. Sola fide. By faith, alone. Good deeds won’t do it. A life of
virtue won’t do it. Sola Fide. Faith alone. A gift of faith. That’s the Good News!
It wasn’t exactly a novel idea, completely original with Luther, but he put it with a clarity,
and simplicity, and an emphasis the doctrine had never had, before. And it stuck. Then,
though the religious revolution that began a couple of decades later, in England, was not
really part of the Continental Reformation, Luther’s ideas did hold weight, and this one
registered with the Anglican reformers. When you get a chance, you might take a look at
the section in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, where you’ll find the 39 Articles of
Religion – those distinctive tenets of the faith meant to define our faith. And if you look at
Article number XI, on page 870, entitled “On the Justification of Man,” you’ll read: “We
are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings….”
And more than 4-1/2 centuries after Luther’s Theses and Article XI, the Roman Catholic
Church has clarified it’s position to the point where the Lutherans and the Vatican a few
years ago signed an agreement, mutually reaffirming the doctrine of Justification by faith,
alone. It really is the faith of the Church.
You can’t buy your way into heaven. You can’t earn your way into heaven. You can’t pray
your way into heaven. It’s free, it’s already won for us, it’s a gift, and it’s ours for the
asking, by faith – and faith alone. So goes the doctrine of the Church.
So what in the world are these parables and allegories all about, making the best of our
abilities and doing good?
Last week I told you that the parable of the talents was not really about some imaginary
abilities or “talents” which we may or may not have. Rather, I said, it was about who we
ARE. We have nothing, I said, of our own – only what God has given us. And what God has
given us is our selves, our very beings. And he is not so much interested in what talents
or abilities we may have as in who we are, and who we are becoming; in what we have
done and what we are doing with the raw materials of our selves which he’s given us,
the potential with which he’s created us.
So it is with today’s lesson. Not a literal description of what will happen some day, at the
“judgment,” – if Jesus had meant to be taken literally, he would not have spoken to us of
sheep and goats -- but a word-picture our Lord paints to guide us: the picture of the kind
of person our God and father wants us to become.
Christianity simply is not a religion about a bunch of laws telling us what we aren’t
supposed to do, and it’s not a bunch of rules pushing us toward what we are supposed
to do. Jesus and St. Paul, both, take great pains to tell us that Jesus came to free us from
the rules, and to complete the law so that we no longer need to be bound by them.
What our faith is, is a call. But it’s a call not to DO this or that – or anything at all -- but a
call to BE God’s people. A call to each of us to become that unique person whom God
created each of us to be. A call to grow into the fullness of the potential that he has
given us, as the free and beloved children of our Father.
And much of that book we call the Bible is intended to do nothing but guide us into the
kind of persons God would have us become, each in our own way, to present us, if you
will, with a TARGET.
Jesus does not mean to tell us that we MUST use our abilities in the service of our Lord,
or be cast out from his presence; that we MUST feed the hungry, under pain of
punishment; that we MUST clothe the naked, house the homeless, or visit the sick or
imprisoned, or suffer the consequences. Rather he is telling us that we are called to
become the KIND OF PEOPLE who DO these things. To grow, every day , more and more
into the kind of people who love and care for others, and who work for their well-being.
In the knowledge that we are justified and saved by faith and faith alone, that what we DO
will not win for us our salvation, why would we bother to do the kinds of things Jesus
describes in his story of the Judgment?
It’s simple. We “bother” simply because it seems the thing to do. We “bother” because
we can’t picture ourselves doing otherwise. We “bother” because we’re our Father’s
children, and that’s the kind of people he’s called us to become. We “bother” because
that is the kind of people we are, and the kind of people we’re becoming!
In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, this is the last thing Jesus tells us in the course of his
ministry, through his parables and allegories, culminating with this last, greatest one. In
the next chapter, Jesus and his disciples share in their Last Supper, together, as Judas
betrays him to the officials, and the end is near. So this is, in a very real way, Jesus’
summation of his own teaching about the life he calls us to.
Next week we begin the new Church Year, and the new year in the Lectionary – our
study, in Year B, of the Gospel According to St. Mark! In Mark we’ll find a different look at
the Christ; a different understanding. But the same story; the same Good News, and the
same call: the call to live our lives as authentically as Jesus lived his; to become the
persons God calls each of us to be, as fully as Jesus fulfilled the Father’s call to him! And
we’ll find the same challenge: to ask ourselves, each of us, whom did God create me to
be? How well have I fulfilled, not my, but His image of me? And what must I do to continue
becoming the person he wants me to be?
In the meantime, I leave you with some questions I hope you will ponder in your hearts
during the coming weeks. Please spend a few moments in your busy week, as Advent
arrives, and before we enter the mad rush to Christmas, to ask yourself: Who DID God
create me to be? How well HAVE I fulfilled, not my, but his image of me? And in this
coming year, as in every year: what must I do to continue becoming the person He wants
me to be?
In Jesus Name, Amen.
forward to reading and to preaching! But it also always makes me wonder: what did Jesus
have against goats?
I mean, why were the goats the bad guys? Why not the sheep? Are any of you familiar
with goats? A couple of our members have just returned from their first visit to an island
country – one not unknown to a number of our parishioners – that has more of both
sheep and goats than it has people, and where they both, for the most part, have the run
of the island (and I mean, they are ALL OVER THE PLACE).
Having lived on that island of Tortola for quite a few years, I must say I, personally, have
long preferred goats to sheep. I think nowadays people tend to like sheep because we’
re so used to them in nursery rhymes, (Mary had a little lamb; Bah, bah, black sheep…),
but that doesn’t explain Jesus’ preference – since I really don’t think Mary had a little
lamb, back then! Actually, I’ve always found goats to have much more personality, and be
MUCH more interesting creatures.
Well, obviously Jesus wouldn’t agree with me, or he wouldn’t have used them both as he
did in today’s allegory of the Last Judgment. (And I’m not even going to begin to get into
the left versus right hand thing!)
The sheep are those who, when confronted with human need, responded with kindness
and caring—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving the thirsty to drink,
welcoming the stranger, comforting the sick and the imprisoned. They will be rewarded
at the Last Judgment: they’re “saved.”
The goats are to be cast out of the Kingdom because they failed to do all those things –
failed to react to human need with acts of kindness. They are condemned.
The story is familiar to all of us, and, in fact, I suspect it’s the source for most of us of our
understanding of what happens at the end time – the “Judgment Day,” as we call it. On
that day, at the end of the age, everyone stands before the throne of judgment, and the
determination is made: if we have done good in our lives – like the sheep – we go to
heaven. If we’ve failed to do good – or if we’ve done evil – we go to hell. And for most of
us, the symbol of the judgment we carry in our minds is a balance scale, where the good
we’ve done is weighed against the evil, and we see which way the balance tips.
Unfortunately, that image has little to do with Christian doctrine, and this morning’s
lesson, like last week’s parable, can be misleading if not properly understood.
Approaching 5 centuries ago, now, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses on the
door of the castle Church at Wittenburg, officially beginning the Reformation. The Theses
covered a lot of things, but they, like all of Luther’s radical thought, arose, essentially
from one great realization that Luther had had, that he believed pointed to a failing of the
Church, and a real misunderstanding by the Church.
He had discovered in the writings of St. Paul, and described for the first time, with a
unique and explicit emphasis, the doctrine of salvation by faith alone; the idea that we
cannot earn our way into heaven, any more than we can buy our way in; that NOTHING WE
DO can bring us eternal life. Rather, eternal life has already been won for us by the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, having been won for us by Christ, salvation
becomes ours by simple faith. Sola fide. By faith, alone. Good deeds won’t do it. A life of
virtue won’t do it. Sola Fide. Faith alone. A gift of faith. That’s the Good News!
It wasn’t exactly a novel idea, completely original with Luther, but he put it with a clarity,
and simplicity, and an emphasis the doctrine had never had, before. And it stuck. Then,
though the religious revolution that began a couple of decades later, in England, was not
really part of the Continental Reformation, Luther’s ideas did hold weight, and this one
registered with the Anglican reformers. When you get a chance, you might take a look at
the section in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, where you’ll find the 39 Articles of
Religion – those distinctive tenets of the faith meant to define our faith. And if you look at
Article number XI, on page 870, entitled “On the Justification of Man,” you’ll read: “We
are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings….”
And more than 4-1/2 centuries after Luther’s Theses and Article XI, the Roman Catholic
Church has clarified it’s position to the point where the Lutherans and the Vatican a few
years ago signed an agreement, mutually reaffirming the doctrine of Justification by faith,
alone. It really is the faith of the Church.
You can’t buy your way into heaven. You can’t earn your way into heaven. You can’t pray
your way into heaven. It’s free, it’s already won for us, it’s a gift, and it’s ours for the
asking, by faith – and faith alone. So goes the doctrine of the Church.
So what in the world are these parables and allegories all about, making the best of our
abilities and doing good?
Last week I told you that the parable of the talents was not really about some imaginary
abilities or “talents” which we may or may not have. Rather, I said, it was about who we
ARE. We have nothing, I said, of our own – only what God has given us. And what God has
given us is our selves, our very beings. And he is not so much interested in what talents
or abilities we may have as in who we are, and who we are becoming; in what we have
done and what we are doing with the raw materials of our selves which he’s given us,
the potential with which he’s created us.
So it is with today’s lesson. Not a literal description of what will happen some day, at the
“judgment,” – if Jesus had meant to be taken literally, he would not have spoken to us of
sheep and goats -- but a word-picture our Lord paints to guide us: the picture of the kind
of person our God and father wants us to become.
Christianity simply is not a religion about a bunch of laws telling us what we aren’t
supposed to do, and it’s not a bunch of rules pushing us toward what we are supposed
to do. Jesus and St. Paul, both, take great pains to tell us that Jesus came to free us from
the rules, and to complete the law so that we no longer need to be bound by them.
What our faith is, is a call. But it’s a call not to DO this or that – or anything at all -- but a
call to BE God’s people. A call to each of us to become that unique person whom God
created each of us to be. A call to grow into the fullness of the potential that he has
given us, as the free and beloved children of our Father.
And much of that book we call the Bible is intended to do nothing but guide us into the
kind of persons God would have us become, each in our own way, to present us, if you
will, with a TARGET.
Jesus does not mean to tell us that we MUST use our abilities in the service of our Lord,
or be cast out from his presence; that we MUST feed the hungry, under pain of
punishment; that we MUST clothe the naked, house the homeless, or visit the sick or
imprisoned, or suffer the consequences. Rather he is telling us that we are called to
become the KIND OF PEOPLE who DO these things. To grow, every day , more and more
into the kind of people who love and care for others, and who work for their well-being.
In the knowledge that we are justified and saved by faith and faith alone, that what we DO
will not win for us our salvation, why would we bother to do the kinds of things Jesus
describes in his story of the Judgment?
It’s simple. We “bother” simply because it seems the thing to do. We “bother” because
we can’t picture ourselves doing otherwise. We “bother” because we’re our Father’s
children, and that’s the kind of people he’s called us to become. We “bother” because
that is the kind of people we are, and the kind of people we’re becoming!
In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, this is the last thing Jesus tells us in the course of his
ministry, through his parables and allegories, culminating with this last, greatest one. In
the next chapter, Jesus and his disciples share in their Last Supper, together, as Judas
betrays him to the officials, and the end is near. So this is, in a very real way, Jesus’
summation of his own teaching about the life he calls us to.
Next week we begin the new Church Year, and the new year in the Lectionary – our
study, in Year B, of the Gospel According to St. Mark! In Mark we’ll find a different look at
the Christ; a different understanding. But the same story; the same Good News, and the
same call: the call to live our lives as authentically as Jesus lived his; to become the
persons God calls each of us to be, as fully as Jesus fulfilled the Father’s call to him! And
we’ll find the same challenge: to ask ourselves, each of us, whom did God create me to
be? How well have I fulfilled, not my, but His image of me? And what must I do to continue
becoming the person he wants me to be?
In the meantime, I leave you with some questions I hope you will ponder in your hearts
during the coming weeks. Please spend a few moments in your busy week, as Advent
arrives, and before we enter the mad rush to Christmas, to ask yourself: Who DID God
create me to be? How well HAVE I fulfilled, not my, but his image of me? And in this
coming year, as in every year: what must I do to continue becoming the person He wants
me to be?
In Jesus Name, Amen.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Previous Sermon |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |