St. Matthew's Sermons

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, given at St. Matthew’s on October 15th, 2023, by Dcn. Andrew Masters

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.+

In the Epistle, St. Paul is describing the difference in the two communities, one that remains characterized by their dedication to corruption and the other community characterized by their dedication to righteousness. St. Paul says, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind…” (Ephesians 4:17) On the surface, we can see that St. Paul has set up an “Us vs. Them” homily to whip the church in Ephesus back in line. However, I believe this is a misinterpretation of the argument St. Paul is trying to convey. St. Paul is not vilifying those outside the church in order to get good behavior from the members in the church. He is instead stating a fact about the reality the church is living in. In the first century world, the values of the church did not match the values of the society of the day. St. Paul gives us a glimpse of how these values are different. In many ways, we find the church in the 21st century is beginning to grapple with some of the same struggles as that of the 1st century church. St. Paul identifies and validates these observations in his time, and perhaps, even for our time. St. Paul is not intimidated by this reality; and we also should not be intimidated by our own place in God’s plan. St. Paul’s observations give us an example of what sin looks like in the every-day common society of the day. To be clear, St. Paul is not giving us ammunition to vilify or even to condemn our neighbors. The whole book of Ephesians really is not about the differences between church and societal values. The book of Ephesians is more concerned with showing the nature of sin and the nature of righteousness. Today’s epistle is just a small-scale version of the full argument.

Sin is a complicated concept and as such there are many ways of thinking about it. One way that some think of sin, and I believe is perhaps the most popular, but also the least nuanced, is that a sin is an action that is bad and when we do bad things, God gets mad at us. In Ephesians, St. Paul wants us to think of sin as choosing death over life, even if one is not aware that the choice is life or death. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Roman 6:23) All sin in some way leads one towards death in some degree. Murder is an obvious example where sin leads to the death of another person, but being angry at your neighbor leads down this path as well, drawing the wrathful person closer to death and further from life. Telling lies leads to the decay of reality, because by its nature, lying is a rejection of the truth. Lying harms one’s soul, and eventually, the more lies that are told, the more that person detaches themselves from reality, leading closer to death. St. Paul describes the chilling and compounding effect of sin on us. We grow more corrupt when we sin…“according to the deceitful lusts.” Sin darkens our hearts and alienates us from the life of God. Sin literally hurts and damages our souls. It paralyzes us spiritually.

The opposite choice of sin is toward Jesus and eternal life. In today’s gospel, Jesus heals a paralytic man. When Jesus saw the faith of the man and the man’s friends, he says, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” (Matthew 9:2) The scribes who were present, blinded by the evil in their hearts, accuses Jesus of blasphemy. In the gospel, we have an image of what St. Paul is describing. On the one end you have the scribes, whose hearts are blinded by evil. They do not see the faithfulness of the paralyzed man and his friends. They have lost the ability to give to the faithful anything but condemnation. On the other hand, there is our Lord who sees the faithfulness of this cohort, addresses the paralyzed man as “Son,” and immediately offers forgiveness of sins, and therefore extends to him everlasting life. This overflowing love from the Father to Jesus the Son, is shared by Jesus to the paralyzed man. The healing miracle that follows the forgiveness of sins not only shows the authority of Jesus to forgive sins, but also to show the life-giving healing nature of faith and righteousness. It is through their faithfulness that makes them capable of accepting Jesus’ grace of forgiveness, health, and everlasting life. There is an order to this, the sins are forgiven first, then comes the healing. This is true for us as well, we receive forgiveness first and then healing. This is important because there is a misconception that we must be perfect first in order to receive forgiveness second.

The church receives this same grace of forgiveness and healing through our faithfulness to Jesus. We receive this grace when we are attentive to our life of prayer, we receive this grace when we come to the altar for eucharist, and we receive this faith through confession. We are very close to the end of this long Trinity season, meaning the grace of Easter, our yearly celebration of Jesus destroying death and handing out everlasting life to the faithful is well behind us now. And along with it, the enthusiasm of Easter. We may be finding areas in our lives where we are becoming paralyzed by our inattentiveness to prayer or the sacraments. Like the paralyzed man, we must seek Jesus through faith to receive the health and life that he gives. “…be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God…” (Ephesians 4:23-24) We are refreshed in and made new in Jesus. St. Paul says we put on the “new man.” We are literally a new creation. St. Pual suggests to us that we ought to “put off the old man” and put on the “new man.” And this would imply, I believe correctly, that we have a responsibility in accepting the gift of the “new man” to put on. St. Paul writes, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4: 30) This would imply that we can say no to the Holy Spirit. This makes sense, if we cannot say no, this is tyranny. If we must bring forth righteousness on our own, that is futility.

There is a cooperation between God and us, we must accept the gift God is giving us, we must allow God to forgive and heal us, we must, like the paralyzed man, approach him and allow him to touch us in those hurt and vulnerable parts. This is done through sitting with God in prayer and practicing being in his presence and holding onto our prayer. Through prayer, if we give space for it, we are able to hear God as well. It is the Holy Spirit that is the agent of this cooperation between God and humanity. The Holy Spirit is the shared love between the Father and the Son, that overflows onto the paralyzed humanity, to heal us from our ailments and raises us to life. The Holy Spirit is our seal, our guarantee, that our sins will be forgiven and that we will be raised from the dead in the resurrection. The Holy Spirit begins this work now. St. Paul asks that we do not resist the Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to his holy word. We must cooperation with the Holy Spirit, putting off the old man and putting on the new man that has been given to us. It is, therefore, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and our cooperation with him, that we are made new creatures, not just individually but more importantly corporately as a larger body, the body of the church. We are the community that is the Body of Christ. Our community, the church, becomes the presence of Christ in the world. It is not our job to be the Scribes in today’s gospel, only offering condemnation to those outside the church. Instead, we must be the community known for our closeness to God and known for the miracles of changed lives so that others who are paralyzed by the dark things of this world may come to find forgiveness from God first and healing second. The Church has been given the ministry of reconciliation. Forgiveness is only found in the church and everlasting life is only found in the church. We are the only community in the world that can offer life. “Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” (Matthew 9:2)

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.+