All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Thomasville
Trinity 21, 2009

 “O God, who blessed Son was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil and make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom.” 
 
 They say that confession is good for the soul, so I’ll just come right out and announce that for about the last nine months, I’ve had a Facebook account.  It came about after the Diocesan Search Committee had finished its first of several three day meetings in Savannah, and it was where we had made some very significant strides in our work, as well as having forged a greater sense of unity within the group. 

Well one of our number decided she’d write a little account or evaluation of the meeting, but in an email announced she had posted it on Facebook.  And I guess I’m enough of a Narcissus that I had to do the Facebook thing to read her report.  Of course I had lots of goading and nagging from my children, not to mention Mr. Hughes.

Anyhow, one of my way too many friends, commenting on his religious views writes:  “Everyone goes to Heaven.  The End.”  This is someone who I know pretty well; he grew up in Thomasville attending one of the three school systems, and I know precisely what he meant.  That is, he was sick and tired of hearing classmates over the years talk about who was saved and who wasn’t saved, as if anyone’s salvation had everything to do with the individual alone, with absolutely no role played by God. 

What he was decrying was salvation by recitation of a formula – along the lines of a sermon I preached several weeks ago.  In writing “Everyone goes to Heaven.  The End,” he was attempting to assert the primacy of God in the work of the salvation of mankind – to which today’s collect attests. But before we get to that, I’ve got some rather extensive background so please bear with me.
 
I’ve just finished Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol – wherein a number of the main characters believe all of the human race is sort of pre-wired with a desire to search out and find the Truth with a capital “T”.  The language Brown uses is a little too New Age for my taste, but his argument is really nothing different from the conversation which has been going on the last several years between the scientific and faith communities over whether God had hard-wired us so that we could respond to Him in one way or another.  Essentially, this is what it means to be made in the Image of God.

There is a spark of the divine in each of us which allows us to hear God’s voice and respond to Him, and the greater effort we make to keep away from sin, the clearer His voice will sound, and the more powerfully we’ll be drawn to Him.  Not that we become divine ourselves, but throughout our lives as we respond more and more to God’s grace, the more we will find ourselves in Him and the more He will find Himself in us.

Unfortunately, many people are turned off by what we call the spiritual life, quite often because they mistakenly believe that the Christian life is or ought to be all about morality.  Yet in the Epistle to the Romans Paul makes the unassailable argument that the Law, when isolated from other considerations, becomes not only a stumbling block, but the actual cause of greater sin.   Witness the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, where the Pharisee’s efforts to keep the Law have produced nothing but the most horrific sene of pride.

Further, who among us can actually keep the Law.  As Martin Luther discovered, attempting to keep the Law can only lead one to the pride of the Pharisee, or the most terrible depression.

Further still, what about those of us who like to think of the Sermon on the Mount as the kernel of Christianity:  “Give me the Sermon on the Mount and all will be well” might be OK for a nifty slogan, but as a statement of actual fact it is sheer nonsense.  Because to the natural man or woman the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount are not only difficult but absolutely impossible.  So one more point we mean to nake this morning is that Christian ethics or morality, are not the root of the Christian life.  Rather, Christian ethics are the fruit of the Christian life.

 A second group of misguided but well meaning Christians believes that the basis of the Christian life is not moral, but intellectual in nature.  For one to declare, apart from other considerations, that he or she “believes the Faith” is not a religious but an intellectual affirmation, again falling short of the essence of the Christian life.

The Christian after all, is striving toward union with God, and all of his or her religious knowledge is strictly ancillary to this end.  Knowledge, study, preaching, instruction are not ultimately intended for the enlightening of the mind, but through the enlightening of the mind, to the directing of the soul or the reorientation of the soul towards God.  That is, the knowledge of Christ which we seek is not merely the assimilation of certain facts about Him, but the knowledge won by experience of Him – because biblically speaking:  to know someone is to participate with and in someone.

The Christian must always hold before Him the Lord’s words:   “This is life eternal:  to know Thee the only God, and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent.” 

What I know my Facebook friend means is that right thinking and right living on our part alone simply aren’t enough to effect our salvation, and that God must play a role in this somehow, which brings me to the next point and that is:
 God has hard-wired us for union with Him, and that this union is effected through the supernatural (not miraculous) but through the supernatural or spiritual life.  What this means is that there can be no upward striving toward God (whether we’re talking about our salvation or even the decision to say a prayer); there can be no upward striving toward God without the initial primary action of God Himself – what we call prevenient grace.  Prevenient comes from the same word as prevent, which means “to go before.

Our spiritual journey toward God is always a response.  It is never self-initiated.  I don’t mean at all that such prevenient grace circumvents our free will.  Rather, through he Holy Spirit, God dangles His carrots before us to prompt us, and then through our own will we response either positively or negatively.  No matter the situation, it is a response – and never self-initiated.

Thus we have no business patting ourselves on the back if we’ve experienced a revelation of sort, or if we have had an “Ah Ha” moment regarding our relationship with God, or if we suddenly believe ourselves to be saved.  Instead, we’ve had the wisdom as well as the good fortune to respond to the divine prompting.  And therefore we need to be grateful to God for such prompting – and the more grateful we are, as well as the more we desire His Presence, the more He will offer Himself to us.

So then, when any of us do get to Heaven, it will be God’s doing far more than ours – and not because of our morality or our intellect.  God has in a very real way hard-wired us human creatures with something which allows us to recognize and respond to Him when He calls us, or when He reveals Himself to us. 

 Now to take this a step farther:  the point of our partaking of the sacraments, whether it’s Holy Communion, Penance or Confession (remember we Episcopalians do believe in sacramental confession before a priest); whether we’re talking of unction, or Confirmation, or Holy Matrimony, or Holy Orders; whenever we participate in the sacraments (even through sermons because they are considered sacramental as well), God bestows His grace (what we call Actual Grace) upon us.  We define a sacrament as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  Grace is God’s unmerited love for us.  But we can make a distinction between Prevenient or Habitual Grace (what we’ve been hard-wired with_ and Actual Grace – grace given for a specific purpose in the sacraments.

The result of this Actual Grace acting upon our minds, hearts and wills (assuming we’re allowing our minds, hearts and wills to cooperate with such grace by and with Prevenient Grace); the result is that we grow in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.  And these are the virtues which unite us to God and effect our salvation.  Faith sees God.  Faith sets our eyes and mind upon God, so that with the virtue of Hope we might follow Him.  And Charity allows us to love God and therefore each other.  Faith sees God; hope follows God; and charity loves God.  These are the virtues which unite us to God, essentially and ultimately saving us.  Their presence in our lives is an unmistakeable sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

 Now to our collect – and I assure you we’re well more than half way through the sermon at this point.  Those of us who were present at Tommy Williams memorial service the other day, heard Brother Dan Spencer tell us that Tommy wanted him to tell the congregation briefly about three things:  salvation, sanctification, and glorification.  And what I want us to notice this morning is the connection between these three indispensable aspects of the Christian’s spiritual journey, and how they jell with today’s collect which is not just another absolute masterpiece of theology, but nothing less than the kernel of the Christian’s spiritual journey through this life and into the beyond and hereafter.

 “O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life.”  This is what salvation is all about, although Episcopalians would call it justification.  God came to us in Jesus that He might destroy the works of the devil in us, thereby Him making us (remember it’s His doing) children of God and heirs of eternal life.  This has happened to anyone who has been baptized, but also to anyone else (initially prompted by prevenient grace) who has ever lifted his heart mind and will toward God for even the slightest moment. 

Jesus has made one and all who are baptized part of His Body and heirs of His Kingdom, a fact which we must accept in faith.  Faith is how we apprehend our justification.  Further, it is the virtue which helps us make sense of that first portion of the Holy Eucharist, from the opening prayer right on through our recitation of the Nicene Creed, where throughout we recount our salvation or justification.  None of that would make sense to us without faith.

So on to the next phrase:  “Grant us we beseech thee, that having this hope, we may purify ourselves even as He is pure.”  God has given us this wonderful gift of justification which we accept by faith and trust, and naturally we would want to do our best to be like Him.  This is the process of sanctification – the process of becoming holy or whole, complete if you will.  Please know it does not mean becoming sanctimonious!  To become holy or sanctified is a process we could not begin or sustain without the virtue of hope.  However, just as with faith, our hope comes from our response generated by God’s prevenient grace, and furthered by the actual grace we receive when we participate in the sacraments.

Hope is what helps us make sense of that portion of the Eucharist which we call the Offertory:  presenting our alms, offering our prayers and intercessions, the confession of our sins, and finally our offering of jesus’ sacrifice in the Prayer of Consecration – none of which would make sense to ur without hope.  And hope is definitely not “wishful thinking”.

Finally the last phrase:  “That when He shall appear again in power and great glory, we may be made like unto Him, in His eternal and glorious Kingdom.  There are all kinds of verses in the Bible which speak of how God’s glory will be made manifest in us as we glorify Him.  Glory remember, doesn’t mean simply white and dazzling, or gold and shiny.  The word Glory (doxa in Greek; kabod in Hebrew) pertains to every magnificently wonderful aspect of God’s entire nature. 

Thus when we sing the Doxology, what we’re doing is singing the praises of God’s Glory.  And praise is the highest form of prayer.  Praise is loving God, simply because He is God, and not because of anything He has done or will do for us.  Praise is loving God in all His Glory, simply because He is God.  And the more we see God through faith, the more we will follow Him through hope, then the more we will glorify Him and thereby glorify ourselves through our charity and love.

This is what the Communion portion of the Holy Eucharist is all about.  And once again, we should take note that this entire process has nothing to do with the intellect or with morality.

 Thus the collect becomes a brilliantly succinct summation of the Christian’s spiritual life (one which applies to us from not to eternity), and Tommy could not have picked a better topic for his pastor to preach to us than our justification which we apprehend through faith; our sanctification which we work on through hope; and our eventual glorification which is effected by our love.  And all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit acting upon that divine spark that God placed in His creation in the beginning – as well as our response to it. 

And so to close:  One of St. Augustine’s most famous quotes is “O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”  God has made us for Himself by creating us in His Image.  And He wants us to love Him simply for what He is, and not simply to avoid Hell.  He does this by sending us through the sacraments His grace.  The effect of that Actual Grace working in conjunction with the Prevenient Grace given us in the beginning upon our souls, effects not the suppression of our natural wills, but the reorientation of our wills.  Grace directs the activity of our souls to their true end – which is the will of God.  Dante believed this subject so important that he made it the core of his Paradiso, particularly in the opening Canto.

Here then are Beatrice’s words to Dante as they begin their journey through the Heavens.  But remember, these are meant to apply just as much if not more so to our lives here and now, as they would after our deat.  Beatrice tells Dante:

“All things possess
Order amongst themselves:  this order is
The form that makes the world resemble God….

God is Order if He is anything

All natures in this order (you and me)  lean and tend
Each in distinctive manner to their Source, (God)
Some to approach more near (to Him) and others less—

with each one
Ferried by instinct given from above. (having been made in God’s Image)

This is what makes the fire rise toward the moon;
This, the prime mover of the mortal heart;…

The glorious world-ordaining providence
Forever stills the highest heaven with light,
Beyond the spinning of the swiftest sphere (the highest part of Heaven)

And to that place as to our destined site
We’re speeded by the power of that cord (grace)
Shooting each arrow (each soul) in its happy flight.

Often it’s true a form (a soul) may not accord
With the intent of Him who works the art
Because the matter’s deaf and won’t respond:

So, from this course, a creature may depart
If it should have the power, despite the push (by grace from above), to swerve away and veer off from its start…

No more amazement should it bring to you
That you now ascend, than if a mountain stream
Should tumble rushing to the plains below.

But, it would be a cause of just surprise
If, free of every bond of sin, you should remain
Like a still flame on earth – and not rise.
The to the Heavens she turned her gaze again.

Our salvation is begun, continued, and ended by God.  This is what my Facebook friend meant with his remark about going to heaven.  It just takes a Dante to flesh it all out.

“O God, who blessed Son was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil and make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom.”