The Third Sunday After Trinity Sunday '23
A Sermon on the Third Sunday after Trinity, June 25, 2023
The Epistle, 1 St. Peter 5:5-11 - The Gospel, St. Luke 15:1-10
The Rt. Rev’d Stephen C. Scarlett
I. Two pursuers
The lessons for the Third Sunday after Trinity share the theme of pursuit. In the Gospel, Jesus said,
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? (Lk. 15:4-5).
This illustrates God’s love for the lost. As Jesus said, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
The epistle tells us about a more ominous pursuer. St. Peter writes,
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world (1 Pet. 5:8-9).
Both pursuers seek people they lost. The Good Shepherd, pursues people who have drifted away from faith and faithfulness to call them back to the Father’s house. The devil pursues people who have left his dominion. Colossians 1:13 tells us that God the Father has “delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” The devil wants to reverse that process.
The background for the Epistle.
It is likely that St. Peter got his image of the devil as a lion in search of prey from the Book of Job. Job 1:6-7 and 2:1-2, both relate these words:
There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it" (emphasis added).
“Walking back and forth on it” suggests “walks about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” The object of his appetite are God’s people. The devil looks for weakness in the faith of God’s people that provides an opportunity to attack.
Job is a disturbing story God because prompts Satan to test Job. However, like it or not, this is the biblical pattern. God’s created Adam and Eve in his image and put them in a garden with a forbidden tree and a serpent—a test and a tester. God freed his people from slavery in Egypt, then sent them to the wilderness to be tested. The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness clearly reveals the identity of Israel’s tester and highlights the vocation of God’s servant to be faithful through the test.
Sin and need vs fullness in Christ
St. Peter says that the devil is looking for someone to devour. To devour means to use people for one’s own purposes without regard for their good. Evil is characterized by what psychology refers to as the narcissistically functioning person, the overt manipulator. However, narcissism exists on a spectrum. Its seed and root is in all of us. It is condition of sin. The seed is evident, for example, when we give in order to receive praise or recognition. Such giving results from an interior need and not from the fullness we experience in Christ.
This is the kind of motive the devil seizes on. We feel unappreciated or undervalued. We become resentful and bitter. The devil offers a path to revenge and vindication and makes us feel entitled to it. However, when bite on the offer we end up feeling ashamed, guilty, and distant from God. We repeat the pattern of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.
Evil’s use of others for its own ends stands in contrast with Christ, who gave himself for us. As Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” And, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (Jn. 6:51, 35). Christ heals our wounds and fills our emptiness. We no longer have to take from others because we are needy. We can begin to give to others because we are full.
In the kingdom of God there is enough for everyone. Christ generously gives unique gifts and graces to each member of his body. Ephesians describes the church as “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). In Christ, we discover that when we give freely we end up with more.
In contrast, the devil’s temptations center on his zero-sum game. The good of each person subtracts from the good of every other person. Everyone takes, but no one is ever satisfied or full.
Contentment, humility and pride
We are vulnerable to the devil’s tests when we become discontented. Discontentment is wounded pride. We feel slighted. We did not get something we wanted or deserved, or we got something we did not want or deserve. We’ve begun to compete with others and are mad that we are losing. We develop grievances and complaints.
We combat pride by the practice of humility. St. Peter writes, “All of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). Being submissive to one another means working for one another’s good and for the good of the community—and not just for my own personal good.
Humility produces contentment. We cultivate contentment by looking for Christ is all things. When we lack something, contentment seeks the manna of spiritual growth in the wilderness. When we have all we need in this world, contentment holds it loosely, practicing gratitude and generosity. Contentment does not “look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
Prayer
Humility and contentment are cultivated through prayer—not just occasional prayer in moments of crisis, but the life of prayer. As Colossians 4:2 says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” We are watchful in prayer for what Ephesians calls the “the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). Wiles are cunning arts and deceits. We fall prey to these when our attention is diverted away from Christ. We stop looking up and we are drawn into a horizontal focus. The contentment, joy, and peace that flow from our vision of God and what he is doing in our lives give way to the competition, anxiety, and fear that result from a focus on other people and things.
The kind of prayer that enables us to endure our tests holds on to Christ come what may. It doesn’t always feel good. Job wrestled with God and challenged God, but never abandoned his prayer. David wrote and prayed the Psalms during his trials. He expressed his honest feelings and complained to God, but these were all parts of his ceaseless prayer and his enduring trust that God would rescue and vindicate him.
The Good Shepherd gets the last word
Sometimes we stumble in times of trial. A bad attitude creeps in. We do or say things we regret. We experience a sense of distance from God. It is then that the Good Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine again to pursue us and carry us back to the fold through a new experience of repentance and grace—and there is joy in heaven again! As Jesus said in John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”
Therefore, as St. Peter exhorts us, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:6-7). And, “May the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you” (1 Pet. 5:10).
