The Second Sunday of Lent
Sermon
The Second Sunday of Lent
25 February 2024
The Reverend Dr James Gardom, Interim Priest-in-Charge
Genesis 17.1-7, 15, 16; Psalm 22.23-31; Romans 4.13-25; Mark 8.31-38
I did something wrong last week.
Or rather, strictly speaking I did something wrong in October and it only came to light last week. I found that I had allowed one of my students to register for a combination of examination papers which was illegal under Faculty regulations. This is a pretty serious matter. As things stood the student would not be able to take a full set of exams, and not be able to get a degree. I had a rather unpleasant 48 hours, and so did the student. I made my apologies and my reassurances to the student. I contacted the Faculty and received a stern response. I made my confession to the Tutorial Secretary. I learned, to my relief, of a possible way forward. I negotiated with an entirely deserved humility with the Chair of the Faculty Board for a helpful and supportive letter. I registered a plea of Incuria with the Examinations Allowances and Mitigations Committee, and I think it is going to be okay.
In relation to the University regulations, I was undoubtedly a Penitent Director of Studies searching restlessly for a solution and a resolution. That powerful sense of being in the wrong, and not being able to put things right ourselves is a key Christian experience. It is called being a sinner. In the way of these things, some people have this feeling to excess, and in others it is insufficiently developed. But it should come to us forcibly if we try to imagine our rather hopeless selves eternally in God’s presence. There is no way that the bundle of mixed motives, cross purposes, self-deceptions, vanity, stupidity and selfishness which constitutes each one of us is going to be able to stand an unmediated eternity in the dazzling presence of the God of power and love. It would not feel right, and I don’t think we could bear it.
The heart of the good news is the discovery that God has made this problem His problem, and that there is a solution and a resolution if we are willing to participate in the process.
Our readings today tell us three rather important and non-obvious things about the process.
They tell us that we are justified by faith.
They tell us that we must lose our lives to save them.
They tell us that we must take up our crosses and follow Christ.
So what do these things mean? I want to suggest one path through these three.
Justified by Faith:
Justified being justified means being made right, put right by God. It is an active process, not a legal fiction, a tick in a box. It is being remade, made right, healed, salvaged, saved. If we could see straight, and had steady hands, perhaps we could put things right ourselves, but in fact we have damaged spiritual sight and damaged spiritual arms and hands, so to speak, so we cannot. Justified by faith means we have to set out on a path, begin a process, which will lead to the healing of our sight and our hands. It is faith because, of course, we are not able to see exactly how it can work. Walking by faith means taking and trusting our guide because we know we cannot trust ourselves.
Losing our life to save it:
How did we get into this mess, where we cannot trust our spiritual eyes to see, or our spiritual hands to put things right? Effectively, we inherited, and received from our culture, our human nature - ways of seeing and ways of living. These, with our connivance, are the things that have damaged us beyond our capacity to put things right.
So, it is absolutely necessary to lose those ways of living and ways of seeing. The Bible is pretty trenchant about this – We must die to sin. We must be buried with Christ.
In our reading, Peter’s inability to see how different things are in Christ, brings out Jesus’ very harshest comment, “‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ We have to lose this pattern of life, in order to live, because it is killing us.
So what is this new pattern of life, that we can begin to see in Christ, and to which we are journeying in faith?
Galatians 5.6 tells us “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” And that is what it means to “take up our cross”. Taking up your cross is about learning to love. The Cross is the symbol of the way Christ loves. Which means going beyond love in reciprocity. Any reasonably wise person can manage love in reciprocity.
Matthew 5.46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
We are, at best, hardwired for reciprocity in love. We think that we are reasonably kind and people of goodwill, but it takes a real effort not to return evil for evil, insult for insult. The cross, on the other hand is the image of love beyond reciprocity. Borne patiently, and without anger, for others. And that is hard. It is certainly impossible to do this in a single step. It is a habit that needs building. That is what it means to take up our cross.
We are being justified step by step, as we follow Christ. We can ask Christ’s help for each step, and that is what the Christian life is about. It is by committing ourselves to follow Christ and at least to begin to move beyond reciprocity and limits that we begin the process of healing of sight and power.
It is a long journey and I think it must extend beyond this life. But it is worth it!
For by God’s grace, every step is love. By faith we set out on a journey of healing, under the guidance of Christ. By losing our foolish and crippled lives we begin to take on the free and healed lives for which God created us. By taking up our cross we begin to love beyond the cramped limits of reciprocity which are natural to us.
Saved, healed, whole.