I Corinthians 15: 35 – 38, 42 – 50 / Psalm 37: 1 – 12, 41 – 42 / Luke 6: 27 – 38
This is the homily
given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, February
20, 2022.
“SACRAMENTAL LIVING”
(Homily text: Luke 6:27 – 38)
Recently,
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sacraments. The Sacraments, which are
defined as being an “outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible
grace”, are means by which we receive God’s grace and goodness in uniquely
beneficial ways.[1]
For
example, in Holy Baptism, we believe that God has claimed the one being
baptized as His very own, unique and special possession. The grace of the Holy
Spirit is given, we maintain, in Baptism, enabling the baptized person to be
able to discern God’s working in their lives and in the lives of others.
In
Holy Communion, the bread and the wine denote the Lord’s real presence in the
Sacrament. We are fed by the Lord Himself in this ritual meal.
The
world we live in is a sacramental creation. Everything in it reflects God’s
creative work, hidden in all that exists.
We
Christians are called to engage in sacramental living. We are called to emulate
and reflect God’s holiness in all that we do. I think that’s the gist of Jesus’
comments, heard in our Gospel text this morning. “But I say to you who hear,
‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you’.”
Such
statements as this (and the others that follow) are countercultural calls to a
different way of seeing things, to a different set of values, to a path which
promotes peace and goodwill among people.
Jesus’
instructions aren’t at all new. They aren’t things that God’s people had never
heard before.
Consider
the Old Testament prophet Isaiah’s proclamation: God says, “I will send you as
a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
(Isaiah 49:6b)
Jesus,
in His Sermon on the Mount, issues the stark challenge that says that “unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 5:20)
And
when the Good News of God in Christ went out into the world, the early Apostles
reminded the early Christians that they were to be different in their attitudes
and in their behaviors toward one another, and to those outside the community
of faith, the Church.
We
could paraphrase many of St. Paul’s admonitions by summarizing them thusly:[2] “Once you have come to faith in Christ, you can no longer live as you did
before you came to faith. You must put away your pagan ways and attitudes.”
Holiness
before God and before others was critical. The writer of the Letter to the
Hebrews says that, “without holiness, no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews
12:14)
What
a high and seemingly unattainable standard to live into.
In
order to achieve that standard, and to begin to amend our ways and our
attitudes, we will need the Holy Spirit’s help. The blunt truth is that the
transformation of our inner selves is the beginning place of being able to show
by what we say and do that we strive to live into the high standards that God
has for His people.
Notice
that we’ve now returned to the matter of inner attitudes and outward actions.
That’s sacramental stuff, to be sure.
How
do we begin this arduous journey?
The
only place we can begin is by admitting our own helplessness to be able to
amend our lives. This is, to be sure, a zero-sum proposition, the total
surrender of self and of our own sense of power and ability.
For,
in truth, St. Augustine of Hippo was right: Our sense of ourselves is so skewed
by our sinful condition that we are unable to truly see ourselves as we really
are. We’re going to need God’s Holy Spirit to begin and to continue the process
of integrating our inner selves with our outer acts.
We
are, as ancient Israel was, sent by God to be a light to the nations, that
God’s salvation might be known to the ends of the earth.
In
order to be that light, what people can see of what we do and say must emulate
the high standards that our Lord has established for His people. It won’t do
for Christians to think that they can behave badly and still rightfully claim
the name of Christ.
The
old adage sums up this reality quite succinctly: “What you are doing speaks so
loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
[1] It’s important to note that God is free to act outside of sacramental means, He is not confined to working strictly within the Sacraments.
[2] This is my paraphrase.
