First Blessings

Session 1 — Plays and Symphonies (Isa 2:1-5)

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Advent with Isaiah: Session 1 — Plays and Symphonies
Isaiah 2:1-5

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Two Convictions
Astrophysicist Carl Sagan wrote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” He meant that most of the constituent elements in apples and flour and sugar were forged in ancient stars that exploded and scattered those elements abroad with some of them making up this planet we call earth. So, you have to have a universe of ancient stars before you can bake an apple.

The same holds true with household repairs. You can never do the job you started until you finish another one before it.

And the same is true when teaching a class. We are here to discuss Advent with Isaiah. But, to do that, I find that we must first go back far earlier than Isaiah and work our way forward. We’ll “create” the universe of Scripture and then we’ll bake a delicious pie.

I want start with two hermeneutical convictions — convictions about how we find meaning in Scripture. The two aren’t separate; they are more like the two sides of a single coin, but I’ll pull them apart to make them clear.

Conviction 1: Jesus makes precisely what sense he makes only in the context of the whole story of Scripture. Without the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus makes no sense.

Conviction 2: The story of Scripture makes what sense it makes only when read through the lens of Jesus. Without Jesus, the Hebrew scriptures make no sense.

I know this has a sort of chicken-and-egg quandary about it: you can understanding Jesus only when you understand the story of Scripture, and you can understand the story of Scripture only when you understand Jesus. So, which comes first? Where do you break into the circle? N. T. Wright talks about a cartoon showing a chicken and an egg talking. One says to the other: “Well, can we just stop asking? We’re both here now, so what does it matter?” Yes, you need the Hebrew Scriptures to understand Jesus and you need Jesus to understand the Hebrew Scriptures, but they’re both here now. Read them together and you won’t go wrong. Separate them, and theological disaster is certain.

These two convictions — that you can understand Jesus only when you understand the story of Scripture, and that you can understand the story of Scripture only when you understand Jesus — come from Jesus himself and from Scripture itself. We’ll look at two places this appears, one from Jesus and one from St. Paul.

On the Road to Emmaus

Let’s start with a well-beloved event narrated by St. Luke, a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus.

13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:13-27, ESV throughout unless otherwise noted).

The two on the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion, are confused about the events surrounding Jesus; his crucifixion has thrown their hopes into disillusionment, and the reports of angels, a missing body, and claims of resurrection have muddled things even further. And what does the “stranger” with them do? He opens to them the Scriptures beginning with Moses (the Pentateuch) and the Prophets and shows them that the events surrounding Jesus make what sense they make, only in the context of the whole story of Scripture. Rightly understand Scripture and you will rightly understand Jesus. Or said negatively: if you don’t understand Scripture, you will not understand Jesus.

The Veil Lifted

St. Paul was commissioned by Jesus specifically to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Yet, Paul never flagged in his concern for his fellow Judeans. His practice and his mantra were the same: to the Jews first and also to the Greeks. So, he agonized over the ongoing rejection of Jesus by most of his fellow Jews, and he pondered why that might be so. You can read Romans 9-11 for a detailed exposition of this. But it isn’t only in Romans; listen to these words from 2 Corinthians:

12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:12-18).

St. Paul says his fellow Jews cannot read and understand their own Scriptures because their minds are hardened and their hearts veiled. It is only when one turns to the Lord Jesus that the veil is lifted and the Scriptures make sense. You can only understand the Scriptures through the lens of Jesus.

So, there you have my two convictions about Scripture from Scripture itself.

Conviction 1: Jesus makes precisely what sense he makes only in the context of the whole story of Scripture. Without the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus makes no sense.

Conviction 2: The story of Scripture makes what sense it makes only when read through the lens of Jesus. Without Jesus, the Hebrew scriptures make no sense.

In Advent, it is fitting to begin with Conviction 1, to ask these questions: What is the whole story of Scripture in which Jesus makes sense? How might Jesus have told the story to his companions on the way to Emmaus?

The Story of Scripture: A Drama in Five Acts

Up until now, I have assumed something that many people — both Christian and non-Christian — do not necessarily take for granted: that Scripture is a coherent narrative that tells a single story, though that story is complex and multigenerational and multidimensional. Scripture is a grand, sweeping drama with Jesus at its climax. The Bible isn’t always considered that way. Some see it as a rule book or perhaps as an instructional manual; look things up as needed — a sort of ancient moral and religious YouTube. Some see it as a collection of ancient myths or moralistic fables. Some see no pattern or coherence in it at all. But for us, it is a narrative — the narrative — the drama of God and man.

Because it is a drama, many find it helpful to consider it as a play with various acts. There are many ways to divide the narrative, but I find the way often used by N. T. Wright to be straightforward and helpful. He describes the narrative as a play in five acts:

ACT I: Creation

ACT II: Fall

ACT III: Israel

ACT IV: Jesus

ACT V: Church

Today, I want us to consider the first three acts — Creation, Fall, and Israel — especially in relationship to Jesus.

ACT I: Creation

God created everything that is; for us that is a given starting point. But why? Why did God create at all? Here is how St. Paul might answer that question:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Col 1:15-16).

Creation — physical and spiritual, visible and invisible — is for Christ. Creation is to the glory of the Son of God; it shows forth his praise. And what of man in creation? What is man’s unique purpose? We — male and female — are to bear the image and the likeness of God, not least by being God’s vicegerent, his authorized representative on earth to act on his behalf as priest, prophet, and king. There is even more here. Paradise/Eden was the place of overlap of heaven and earth, the place where God dwelt among his people. It was to expand outward into the world as Adam and Eve, and later their offspring, subdued and tended creation so that God’s kingdom on earth might be as God’s kingdom in heaven. And that points us toward Christ who came announcing that, in and through his presence, the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, that in him and through him God was once again dwelling with men.

The Church Fathers thought of Adam and Eve as innocent but not yet as perfect. When I say not perfect, I don’t mean flawed or deficient; I mean not complete, just as a baby or infant is not yet perfect. Think innocent and immature and you get the picture. A baby has much growth ahead of it: much to learn, many skills to develop. This is a distinction the Church makes between the image and likeness of God. We are made in the image of God in that we are rational beings who have the spiritual capacity to bear the likeness of the Son of God. Some of you may remember the instant cameras of the 1960s. Snap a photo and the undeveloped film shoots out the back, a blank, black negative. The image is already there on the film. But, over the next several seconds the likeness begins to form and show as chemicals react. Image and likeness: man was made in the image of God with the intent that man would mature into the likeness of the Son. So, this means that man, formed for Christ, made in the image of God, was intended to grow into Christlikeness and to point all creation — in heaven and on earth — toward Christ. I might say that this is still true: that baptism — new birth, new creation — renews the image of God in man and that man is intended to grow from there into the perfect image of Christlikeness.

ACT II: Fall

We do not know how long man persisted in his state of innocence, that is, in obedience to God and in fulfillment of his vocation. But that did not last. We need not rehearse all the details of what we call “the Fall,” though we should be clear about its consequences. How did man and creation change through the Fall? Man became subject to death, sin, and the fallen powers. Man lost his original innocence and squandered his vocation. Creation itself was subjected to futility; it is out of joint, subjected to the ravages of entropy — the wearing out and running down of all things.

All of this raises an important question: was Act I a failure, after all — God’s Plan A gone awry? What do you think? The Creation was not a failure. Let me suggest two reasons for that conviction. First, creation perfectly expressed the will of God for something other than God to exist for the glory of the Son; that there is something other than God and that the something is oriented toward God and shows forth, even imperfectly, the glory of the Son rules out failure as the verdict on creation. As for humankind, they are still the image-bearers of God — imperfectly so, but image-bearers nonetheless. They are still signposts — broken signposts as N. T. Wright says — pointing toward the Son. All of creation, even in its fallen state, points achingly toward its telos, toward its proper end. It has lost its way to get there on its own, but the proper end is at least dimly remembered. That raises the question of how to get man and all of creation back on track. It’s time for Act III.

ACT III: Israel

In Act III, God’s calls a man and his wife — harkening back to Adam and Eve — to be the nucleus of a people who would be for God a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. He promised Abraham a people and a place (a land): a people with whom God would dwell and a place in which God’s kingdom — his righteous rule — would be made manifest to all other peoples.

The story of Israel is long and winding. What are some key points in it — considered chronologically?

1. The birth of Isaac and the renewal of the covenant

2. The birth of Jacob and the renewal of the covenant

3. The birth of the Patriarchs

4. Exile in Egypt

5. The Passover and the Exodus (1200s BC — Moses, Exodus, Joshua)

6. The Law

7. The Wilderness experience and the Conquering of the Promised Land

8. The Judges (1100s BC)

9. The United Kingdom: Saul and David (1000s BC)

10. The Divided Kingdom: Solomon, Rehoboam, Jeroboam (900s BC)

11. Various Kings in both Israel and Judah (800s-700s)

12. Fall of Israel/Samaria to Assyria (722 BC)

13. Fall of Judah to Babylon (587 BC)

We could spend many hours filling in details, but it is the grand sweep we are interested in. And, in Advent, we are also interested in the Prophet Isaiah. Where does he appear in the timeline? Well, that is a matter of much debate. We can place the beginning of his ministry during the reign of King Ahaz of Judah (reign c. 736-715 BC). That means that Isaiah began his ministry shortly before the fall of the Northern Kingdom, and he witnessed, at least second hand, its destruction. The end of Isaiah’s ministry is the question. His prophecies include the fall of Judah, the Babylonian captivity, and the return of the exiles to Jerusalem, a period from 587-539 BC. So, Isaiah’s prophecies cover roughly a 200 year period, a very unlikely lifespan. So what are the possibilities most serious considered to explain this?

Many scholars have concluded that the book we call Isaiah is a compilation of similarly themed prophecies from either two or three different prophets. The book is often broken down like this:

Chapters 1-39: Isaiah

Chapters 40-55: Second Isaiah

Chapters 56-66: Third Isaiah

The other major notion is simply that the one Isaiah who began his ministry during Ahaz’s reign was granted a vision of what was to come long beyond his own death, in other words that he was a prophet not only in the sense of one who tells the truth of current events from God’s perspective but also as one who foresees coming events and their spiritual import. I have no problem with either option, but I see no reason to discount a single Isaiah who functioned as a prophet in the fullest sense. Even if we accept three Isaiahs, there is an irreducible element of foretelling if the book is in any way Christological, that is, if it points to Christ, as it surely does.

Now, let me pose the same question about Act III as I did about Act II: was it a failure? The story of Israel — in the Old Testament — ends incompletely and disappointingly. Ten of the twelve tribes have been lost forever, assimilated by other peoples and nations. The two remaining tribes, which are now called the Judeans, are greatly diminished in scope and power; they are occupied by a succession of foreign powers and have no Davidic king as promised. Worse still, God no longer dwells in the midst of them; the Holy of Holies in the rebuilt Temple is empty and their worship is simply a ritual. The promises of the covenant have not been fulfilled. If Israel was to be the solution of man’s fall, it seems like something has gone drastically wrong. So, was Israel a failure, Plan C gone to rack and ruin? Again, I must say no. Israel was not to be the people who would solve the problem of the fall itself, but rather the people through whom God would come to solve the problem himself. Israel was the people through whom the Messiah would come, the Messiah who would deliver all men from sin, death, and slavery to the powers; the Messiah who would inaugurate the Kingdom of God and who would himself be the one in whom God and man would dwell together. So, ultimately, Israel points directly toward Christ and cannot be understood apart from Christ. And, just as clearly, Christ cannot be understood apart from the story contained in the Hebrew Scriptures.

And that brings us around again to our two convictions: Jesus can be understood only in context of the whole of Scripture and the whole of Scripture can be understood only in context of Jesus. The Old Testament — not least Isaiah — points toward Jesus, and Jesus is the climax and fulfillment of the Old Testament.

Isaiah

Now, with this background, we can turn our attention to the text. We will start by taking a few minutes to read Isaiah 1 as the context for the today’s lesson, Isaiah 2:1-5. As you read with your table group, I would like you to consider a few questions:

1. What is the state of Jerusalem and Judah as Isaiah describes it?

2. What is the relationship between worship and social justice?

3. What does God want/expect from the people?

4. What does God plan to do?

It would be helpful to point out some specific verses that lead to your answers.

[Discuss Isaiah 1]

And now — at last — we come to the text for today’s lesson, Isaiah 2:1-5.

1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

2 It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,

3 and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

4 He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.

5 O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord.

Imagine a composer working on a great symphony. The first three movements are complete, though the third one doesn’t have the typical dancelike motif. Instead, it is somber, and it ends without resolution but with a whispering, whimpering discord. And then, tragedy strikes; the composer dies before finishing the fourth and final movement. But, he has left behind some hints, some notes, a musical theme, which he had planned to develop fully. And these notes are hopeful, upbeat, a glorious fulfillment of all that had gone before. It provides resolution and harmony.

This is a good analogy for the Old Testament, for Acts I through III of the drama of Scripture, if I may mix metaphors from drama to symphony. The story of Israel ends unfinished, on a minor note, with discord and not harmony. Judah is under occupation with no Davidic king on the throne and the temple of God is empty of the presence of God. But, the composer has left behind some notes, a prophetic them which is yet to be fully developed; and it is glorious and hopeful. That is what we get in Isaiah 2:1-5.

Notice in verse 2 that the fulfillment of this vision is yet to come; it is for the latter days. And that should strike a chord with us:

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Heb 1:1-2).

The latter day, the last days, are the days of Acts IV and V of the great drama — the acts of Jesus and the Church. Isaiah sees that the story of Israel is incomplete and will reach its fulfillment only in his future. And what will be the sign of this fulfillment?

…and all the nations shall flow to it,

3 and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Is 2:2b-3).

In the latter days, God will no longer be just the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the God of all peoples as was intended from creation. So, this is not only the fulfillment of God’s covenants with Abraham and David, but with Adam and with all creation. And again, this finds its fulfillment only in Jesus, as we sing in the canticle Dignus Es:

Splendor and honor and kingly power*
are yours by right, O Lord our God,

For you created everything that is,*
and by your will they were created and have their being;

And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain,*
for with your blood you have redeemed for God,

From every family, language, people, and nation,*
a kingdom of priests to serve our God.

And so, to him who sits upon the throne,*
and to Christ the Lamb,

Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor,*
for ever and for evermore. Amen (BCP 2019, p. 84).

Now we come to a portion of Isaiah’s prophecy which requires us to modify Wright’s five act play. Remember the outline:

ACT I: Creation

ACT II: Fall

ACT III: Israel

ACT IV: Jesus

ACT V: Church

We need a sixth act: the age to come — the age in which heaven and earth are united (Rev 21, 22) and in which God is all and in all (1 Cor 15:28). Only then will all disputes be resolved, only then will perfect peace reign. That is the last act of the drama, the fourth movement of the unfinished symphony, the fulfillment of all promises in Christ. That is what Isaiah saw in his vision. It is what Jesus’s first Advent set into motion, and what his second Advent will bring to fulfillment.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Eve of Thanksgiving, 26 November 2025
(Deut 8, Ps 65:1-8, James 1:17-27, Matt 6:25-33)

What Do You Say?

IN THE NAME of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ritual plays out wherever there are parents with young children. It was on full display just last month on All Saints’ Eve, otherwise know as Halloween, and I’ve seen it several times since in a host of circumstances. Father or mother bends down to eye level with the child and asks the age old question in sing-song voice: “What do you say?” Because we’ve seen it so many times, and because so many of us have asked it as parents ourselves, we know what is expected from the child. There are only two possible answers: “please” if the child wants something or “thank you” if the child has received something.

This training in etiquette, this enculturation in manners, doesn’t stop in the toddler years. We expect our growing children to show proper gratitude for gifts given them on birthdays and at Christmas and on other occasions. And, if those gifts are sent from afar, we might insist that our children write thank you cards or, at the minimum, acknowledge their appreciation with a phone call to their grandparents or godparents or aunts and uncles. Graduation gifts certainly require thank you cards as do wedding shower and baby shower gifts. It is just common courtesy; our parents raised us that way, we raise our own children that way, and we expect our grown children to raise our grandchildren that way. It is such an ingrained part of our cultural experience that few seem to question it. I had given it little thought myself until faced with preaching this Thanksgiving-eve sermon today. And then the question — once it presented itself — seemed obvious: Why do we teach our children to be grateful? The question seems obvious, the answer less so.

At one level I suppose we teach our children to be grateful because we don’t want to be embarrassed by their failure to conform to the social norms of etiquette. Here in the South we fear hearing anyone ever say about our child — behind our backs but loud enough for us to hear of course— “Well, bless her heart, her parents must not have raised her any better.” That is good Southern, two generational judgment probably said with a smile that would wither kudzu. No, we don’t want that. Nor is it simply concern for ourselves; we know our children will fare better themselves if the niceties are observed. Manners grease the skids of social interaction, open closed doors, and crack open doors even more widely open. I wonder how many opportunities I’ve had in life just because my mother taught me to say please and thank you.

That’s the most basic answer to the matter of manners: we express gratitude self-consciously, because it is in our self-interest. But, that’s a bit cynical and hardly satisfying; there has to be more to it than that. And, there is. The ”more” — the real why of gratitude — is found in familiar words from the Eucharistic prayer. That’s not surprising. Eucharist means thanksgiving, and the prayer we offer is called The Great Thanksgiving. So, here are the familiar words I have in mind, beginning with the Sursum Corda, the “lift up your hearts”:

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.

Now, here it is:

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.

It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth (BCP 2019, p. 132).

There is the sacramental answer. Why do we teach our children gratitude? Why do we express it ourselves? Because is it right, because it is our duty, and because it is our joy to give thanks and praise to God. All other gratitude — gratitude expressed to our fellow image-bearers of God for gifts and services and sacrifices — participates in that primary gratitude to God and flows from it. We teach our children to say thank you to the adults in their lives, to their friends, and finally to strangers because we want them to know how properly and fully to show gratitude to God. How can you thank God whom you haven’t seen if you can’t thank your brother and sister whom you have seen, so St. John’s might ask.

Since all gratitude flows downstream from our gratitude to God, let’s start at the source: It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

It is right. Book One of C. S. Lewis’s classic Mere Christianity is entitled “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.” In it he argues that all people have “in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really [agree]” (Kindle Edition, p. 3). He calls it the Law of Right and Wrong or the Law of Human Nature. Lewis develops this notion further and shows that the Law of Right and Wrong is both extrinsic — it comes from outside us and its authority lies beyond us — and at the same time intrinsic in that it is fundamental to human nature; while we may rebel against it, we all nonetheless recognize it and our responsibility to it. Cultures and individuals may disagree over some of the details of the Law, but none can escape from it. We may differ on whom we may kill and under what circumstances — war, self-defense, that sort of thing — but no culture and no sane individual would say we may kill whomever we please, whenever we please, for whatever reason we please. We all know that wanton murder violates the Law of Right and Wrong. Anyone who says otherwise is a sociopath or a psychopath lacking some fundamental aspect of humanity.

This means — at the very least — that some behaviors are right and we know them to be right beyond any doubt and beyond any need to justify them. They are moral axioms, convictions we all recognize as true without proof. It’s easy to see this by pairing some examples. Cowardice is wrong, bravery is right. Lying is wrong, truth-telling is right. Faithlessness is wrong, fidelity is right. Abuse is wrong, nurture is right. Deceit is wrong, fair-dealing is right. We could go on constructing these pairs all day. We know right from wrong and have no time to waste with those who might argue to the contrary.

Now, our Eucharistic liturgy recognizes this Law of Nature, too, when it has the priest say to God on behalf of all, “It is right…always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” Gratitude is part of this Law of Nature; we know — again, both extrinsically and intrinsically — that it is right to give thanks to God. In fact, St. Paul sees the failure to give thanks to God as something of a primal sin, the fountain of all evils. He explains this in his letter to the Romans:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things (Rom 1:18-23).

The refusal to give thanks to him is the first step on man’s downward spiral into idolatry, lust, sexual immorality, covetousness, malice, envy, murder and all manner of wrongs. So, our liturgy calls us away from that first fateful step of ingratitude by reminding us that it is right always and everywhere to give thanks to God the Father Almighty. And, even as we say it and do it, we know it to be true.

But, our giving thanks to God is right in another sense. It is our right to give him thanks and praise. It is what we were made for as human image-bearers and we, among all creatures, have the unique right to do so. Listen to this excerpt from Psalm 98:

5 Show yourselves joyful in the LORD, all you lands;
sing, rejoice, and give thanks.

6 Praise the LORD with the harp;
sing with the harp a psalm of thanksgiving.

7 With trumpets also and horns,
O show yourselves joyful before the LORD, the King.

8 Let the sea make a noise, and all that is in it,
the round world, and those who dwell therein.

9 Let the rivers clasp their hands, and let the hills be joyful together before the LORD,
for he has come to judge the earth (BCP 2019, p. 397).

The seas can make a noise, the rivers can figuratively clap their hands, and the hills can be joyful in their fecund beauty. But only man can articulate his gratitude to God. Only man can sing, rejoice, and give thanks in psalms. It is our God-given right to gather up the inarticulate praises of creation and, as priest of creation, to offer those praises to God in words, we who were called into being by the Word of God, we who have been redeemed by the Word of God incarnate. And, because we were made for this, because we were given this unique vocation, it is both our right to do so and our duty to do so. It is our duty always and everywhere to give thanks to God, the Father Almighty.

Whatever else we might say about the sin of our first parents in the Garden, it was a failure to fulfill their vocational duty to give thanks to God their Creator. He had called them into being from nothing. He had given them each a human companion and complement. He had given them a home replete with all necessities and with boundless pleasures as well. He had given them meaningful work to do that participated in and extended his own creative activity. And, he had consented to dwell with them there. But rather than fulfill their duty of gratitude, they strayed into the way of discontent. Rather than fulfill their duty of gratitude, they lusted after the one thing that was forbidden. They failed in their duty to give thanks to God the Creator in the midst of his creation and all creation was subjected to futility. All creation fell from inarticulate praise to inarticulate groaning.

But thanks be to God for the redemption wrought in Jesus Christ our Lord who is even now making all things new. Through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, He has restored to us our priestly vocation and has called us once again to articulate the praise and thanksgiving of a creation that is being renewed in him. It is once again our duty to give thanks to God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. And, because it is a duty that we were made for, a vocation blessing we were given, it is also our joy to give him thanks and praise.

Let us get this straight. God does not need our gratitude. He is not a divine narcissist who, in his insecurity, needs constant affirmation. It is not that God needs our gratitude but that we need to give it: it is our joy always and everywhere to give him thanks and praise. To express our thanksgiving is to make the experience of receiving blessing complete. A blessing without thanksgiving is truncated, diminished. Thanksgiving makes our joy full.

I have mentioned this to some of you before. I want you to know that I know that I am repeating a story, one of the saddest stories I know. Bart Ehrman is a Biblical scholar who along the way lost his Christian faith. He became so focused on the pain and evil in the world, so unable to reconcile that with a good God, that he simply gave up on God altogether. I heard him interviewed once and the host asked an achingly good question: Having left your faith behind, is there anything about it you miss? To his credit Ehrman answered yes without hesitation. He explained, and here I will paraphrase his response in the first person:

I have had a good and beautiful life and I am filled with a profound sense of gratitude for it. But, without God, I have no one to thank, no one to whom it makes sense to express that gratitude.

This is a direct quote from Ehrman’s blog:

So when I’m “thankful” for the circumstances I was born into in the mid 50s in America, for excellent health, for a positive disposition, for talents I inherited, for good intelligence — Whom do I thank (www.ehrmanblog.org/thanksgiving-2019/)?

And that lack of someone to thank leaves the blessing incomplete, strips the experience of its full joy. That’s what Ehrman acknowledged in one unguarded moment, in one interview.

But we know whom to thank. And we know that it is our joy always and everywhere to give thanks and praise to God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. We know that God accepts our thanksgiving not from any divine need to be praised, but rather from his will to increase our joy.

So, why do we teach our children to be grateful? Because we want to bring them here around the altar where they will find their fulfillment. Because we want to train them to join in the Great Thanksgiving. Because it is right, our duty and our joy always and everywhere to give thanks to God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. So we teach them to say “thank you” for little gifts given, for little services rendered, for the every day acts of kindness and generosity that fill their lives, so they will not be tongue-tied when standing in the presence of the Lord. So we set aside one day each year in a sort of secular liturgy of Thanksgiving so that we may hallow every day by holy acts of Thanksgiving. We can give thanks at family tables tomorrow because we have first given thanks at this family Table whenever we gather for Eucharist.

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.

It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. Amen.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

This Is the Message: A Homily on 1 John 3:11-24
(2 Kings 6, Ps 75, 1 John 3:11-4:6)

Collect
O God, our refuge and strength, true source of all godliness: Graciously hear the devout prayers of your Church, and grant that those things which we ask faithfully, we may obtain effectually, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In its two thousand year history, the Orthodox Church has formally recognized only three — perhaps four — theologians. The most recent, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, died in 1022. Today, in the post-Enlightenment West, we tend to use the term theologian quite loosely to mean someone who has made an academic study of God and of things religious, to mean someone who knows many facts about what others throughout history have thought and said about God. By that definition, even an atheist can be a theologian, and there are, indeed, some who are. But not so in the Eastern Church. Amongst the Orthodox, a theologian is not one who knows about God, but rather one who knows God — in and through Christ — directly, immediately by encounter and fellowship and revelation, through prayer and purity of heart.

The first of those recognized by the Church as theologian is St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple of our Lord. It is easy to see how he fits the Orthodox definition of theologian, or perhaps how the definition was formulated around him. Did he know God directly by encounter and fellowship?

Listen to the opening of his first epistle:

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-3, ESV throughout unless otherwise noted).

St. John knew God incarnate by sight, by touch, by hearing.

Did he know God by revelation through prayer? Listen to the opening of The Apocalypse:

1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw (Rev 1:1-2).

St. John says that this revelation, this vision, occurred when he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, almost certainly in a time of prayer and worship, perhaps Eucharistic worship. Certainly, St. John knew God by revelation and through prayer.

So, yes, St. John is the archetypal theologian in the true sense. That shines through in his writings: in the fourth Gospel; in his three epistles, most clearly in the first of them; and in The Revelation.

There are common themes that emerge from St. John’s encounters with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; amongst them these three are prominent: life, light, and love. He introduces two of these themes in the prologue of his Gospel:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:1-5, emphasis added).

The third theme comes in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus:

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16, emphasis added).

Light, life, and love: these three lie at the heart of St. John’s theology because they are what he saw in God incarnate. For St. Paul it is faith, hope, and love; for St. John the Theologian, it is life, light, and love.

There are implied dichotomies in St. John’s theology. He writes:

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

St. John didn’t write, but could have: “in him is no darkness at all; in him is no — whatever the opposite of love is — at all.” But, such negative conditions do exist, and St. John knew it. They are there in his Gospel, in his epistles, in The Revelation. Jesus came as light into a world shrouded in darkness. Jesus came as life into a death-impregnated world. Jesus came as love into a world twisted by hatred, envy, and indifference. He came to conquer the powers of darkness, death, and hate. He came to redeem us from slavery to darkness, death, and hate. He came to shine light into our darkness, to lead us out of death into eternal life, to teach us and empower us to love God and our neighbor. And that brings us to our text today, 1 John 3:11-24.

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1 John 3:11-15).

Here, St. John plunges us headlong into the heart of the great conflict. We are commanded to love in a world that will reciprocate with hatred and violence. We are to live — to proclaim resurrection — in a world headed toward the grave. And the inevitable result of our decision to love and to live is a conflict that, by all outward evidence, we will loose. Evil will seem to win because we will be hated and we will be killed. Our very righteousness will provoke the world to murder. We see that with Jesus and in every previous generation throughout history flowing backward all the way to Cain.

From the beginning, St. John writes — from creation — we have heard the message that we should love one another, with the implication that Cain knew this commandment, as well. So, why did he violate the commandment and murder his brother? St. John gives two, tantalizing answers: (1) Cain was of the evil one, and (2) Abel’s righteousness shone a light on Cain’s evil. I don’t know fully what it means that Cain was of the evil one, but the language is evocative of more than a passing acquaintance. By comparison, one cannot be of Christ casually, without firm resolve and commitment, without living the way of Christ. I suspect the same is true here of Cain, that he was, at his core, resolutely opposed to all things righteous, that he was aligned with the evil one, that he is the archetype and father of those whom St. Paul describes in Romans 1, those who although they knew God, did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but became futile in their thinking and darkened in their hearts (see Rom 1:18 ff). And when evil is shone as evil by the presence of righteousness, evil strikes back to destroy the good.

So, St. John writes, we should not be surprised when the same happens to us, when the world hates us. And, again, in the short term, it may look like the world is winning the conflict between evil and righteousness. But that is a myopic view, a near-sighted distortion of the truth. It is the righteous who have passed through death, passed out of death, into life. St. John writes this: We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death (1 John 3:14). Our love for one another is the evidence that we are not like Cain: of the evil one and thus subject to death. Hate is evidence of death; love is evidence of life.

But, what kind of love is St. John writing about? What does it mean to love the brothers? — and when both St. John and I say “brothers” we mean “brothers and sisters.” St. John points to Jesus as the example:

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers (1 John 3:16).

That is a high standard of love — laying down your life for someone. If we take that concretely, then none of us here have ever loved our brothers, and it is likely that none of us here will ever be called to do. So, St. John makes it clear that we lay down our lives not only only by dying physically, but rather by dying to self, by sacrificing for the good of the brothers:

17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:17-18).

This is very down to earth. If you see a brother who has a real and substantial need, and you have resources but refuse to help him, then you don’t have God’s love in you. You have not passed from death to life; you are still in darkness. Imagine a relatively affluent church having some poorer members who are routinely forced to choose between housing and medicine because they can’t afford both. If the church has the resources and chooses not to help, it would be hard to say that God’s love abides there. The heart of that church is hardened. Now, apply that to the individual members of the church, folk like you and me. If I can help a brother in true need and choose not to, then I am, at best, loving in word and talk, but not in truth. But, if I do help, that is the evidence that I love in truth. If I do help, that is reassurance before God that my heart is not closed.

This matter of the heart is crucial. There are many spiritual illnesses of the heart, illnesses that run the gamut from hardness of heart to excessive scrupulosity, from a refusal to open the heart in love at all to despair that whatever is done in love is never enough to please God. Those with the former illness — hardness of heart — feel no remorse for the good they could have and should have done but did not do, and the latter — those suffering from scrupulosity — feel guilt for the good they have done, that it is somehow not enough, never enough. God will prod the former and reassure the latter. Here is how St. John says it:

19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God (1 John 3:19-21).

And, because as the prophet Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things, we pray with the Psalmist that God will reveal our hearts to us, lest we delude ourselves:

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
try me and examine my thoughts.

24 Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting (Ps 139:23-24, BCP 2019, p. 456).

St. John says that, if our hearts are pure, if we are keeping God’s commandments and doing what pleases him, then God will honor our prayers and give us what we ask for:

22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us (1 John 3:22-24).

This is not a blank check, not least because our hearts are not wholly pure and because we do not perfectly follow the commandments to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and to love our neighbor — and our brother — as ourselves. For me this promise is aspirational. The more I purify my heart — the Lord being my helper — and the more I love in deed and not in word only, the more my heart and mind will be aligned with God’s will, so that what I ask of him will be pleasing to him and granted by him. The key is the commandment he has given us: to believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and to love one another, just as he has commanded us.

I close with a word from Tertullian, a second and third century Christian apologist who offered a description of early Christian worship and life. After discussing many characteristics that set Christians apart from the surrounding culture, he closes with this:

But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred. See, they say about us, how they are ready even to die for one another (Tertullian, Apology, Chapter XXXIX).

Please God, may that be said of the Church in this and every age. Amen.

We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This violence God delights in (Tertullian, The Apology, Chapter XXXIX).

This excerpt comes from a description of early Christian worship by Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. 155 – 220 AD) — Tertullian — a second and third century Christian apologist from Carthage, modern day Tunisia in Northern Africa. He was one of the earliest theologians, if not the first, to think and write in Latin, and is thus often considered the founder of Western theology. A caution is in order. While the Church honors his early writings, it is more circumspect regarding Tertullian himself and it eschews his later thought. The early, Orthodox theologian was seduced by the heretical Montanist movement and ended his life outside — informally if not formally — the catholic Church. The Apology is among his early works and is sure and safe ground.

The language of the excerpt is strange and wonderful to my ears. In the description of prayer we find this intriguing troika of descriptors: force, wrestling, violence. This hearkens back to the puzzling language of our Lord:

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force (Matt 11:12, ESV unless otherwise noted).

Even before this, there is the image of Jacob wrestling with God — violence as prayer, prayer as violence: Let me go. Not until you bless me.

24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him (Gen 32:24-29).

Certainly, the grappling of Jesus in the Garden — unto the sweating of blood — stands as the ultimate example of forceful, violent prayer.

Today, we seem more likely to encounter centering prayer for making us whole rather than violent prayer for wresting blessing from God: prayer for “making us” but not for “breaking us,” prayer of sweetness and light but not prayer of wounding and martyrdom. Who or what teaches us to pray with force, with wrestling, with violence? The Psalms will teach us if we are faithful to their discipline, day in and day out, year by year. The Church Fathers will teach us if we submit to apprenticeship with them. But, it is perhaps the fallenness, the brokenness, the suffering of the world that is our best mentor: the hardships and losses of life, the headlong stumbles into sin, the heart-shattering abandonments and betrayals of friends-turned-enemies, the doctor’s diagnosis, the two o’clock in the morning worries and fears. And the cry is wrung from our lips and our hearts, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” from which we may limp away wounded but having seen God face to face.

I am an Anglican, and Anglicans do not “do” force and wrestling and violence in prayer, at least not in public. It simply is not done; it is not proper. But, I cannot help but wonder what might happen if the Prayers of the People just once turned into an all-out, no-holds-barred wrestling match with God Almighty, an encounter turned violent because we were praying as if our lives depend on it, which, of course, they really do. And not our lives only, but the life of the world.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

The Problem for the Rich Is the Poor : A Homily On James 5
(1 Kings 15:1-30, Psalm 5, James 5)

Collect
O merciful Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I am now at that age where I generally preface every story with the disclaimer: “Now, if I’ve told you this before, please stop me.” I don’t want to be one of those old guys who runs out of stories before they run out of years. The problem is, I am going to tell you a story you’ve heard before. Fr. Jack told a version of it two Sundays past. I told a version of just last Sunday. This repetition is not our choice. We follow the lectionary and the lectionary is hammering this point home because Jesus and all of Scripture hammer this point home. So, here we go again.

We often speak of people groups as if they are monolithic, as if all the members of a group are essentially identical and interchangeable; if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. We know that’s no true. We know that in any group there are common features and great variability. But it is easy and convenient to minimize the differences and to maximize the commonalities so that we can, for good or ill, speak of the whole group.

We speak of the homeless. Depending on who is speaking, all the homeless are either helpless victims of a neglectful or oppressive social structure or else lazy, shiftless products of their own irresponsible choices. We speak of immigrants. Depending on who is speaking, immigrants are the very backbone of American exceptionalism — what made America great to start with — or else violent, drug-dealing abusers of the largesse of this country. We speak of political parties as if all our compatriots are saints struggling mightily to drag this land back from the brink of destruction and our opponents are demons hauling us kicking and screaming into the maw of the abyss. And we all know this is all nonsense and yet we all do it to greater or lesser degrees. Lord, have mercy on us and forgive us this foolishness.

But, even Scripture does this from time to time — generalizes a group while admitting of some exceptions. All Moabites are bad, except for Ruth; Ruth is fine. Ninevites all deserve destruction; but even their animals repented in sackcloth at the preaching of Jonah, so there’s that in their favor. Samaritans are scum, and yet that one Samaritan was the hero of Jesus’ most famous parable.

It is the same with the rich in Scripture. As a group, they are generally warned or castigated if not condemned outright. They are probably up to something shifty that is very good for them and very bad for the common folk. But, as with other groups, there are exceptions; Lydia and Barnabas, maybe Philemon, come to mind as among the few righteous rich.

So, what is it that makes the rich so suspect in Scripture, so likely to hear the word “Woe!” shouted in their general direction? The problem for the rich is the poor. God had instituted a social policy in the Law that would largely mitigate poverty. There were gleaning laws that allowed the poor man access to the rich man’s over-abundance. There were laws of manumission that freed Hebrew economic slaves in the seventh year of servitude. There was a general economic reset every fiftieth year in which all property reverted to its hereditary owners. All of these laws kept the power and the greed of the rich in check and ensured that the rich could not forever prosper at the expense of the poor. But the law, as far as we can tell, was never observed in full. That the rich had not followed the law, that there were the destitute among them, is the indictment against the rich. There were no woes for the righteous rich — cautions, yes, but no condemnation — but judgment aplenty for the covetous and miserly rich.

And that brings us to James who has nothing good to say about the rich. Let’s consider James 5:1-6.

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you (James 5:1-6).

Harsh. Let’s look carefully at the text to see the specific charges against the rich. In verses 2 and 3 the problem is hoarding, specifically the hoarding of wealth: clothes, gold, silver — treasures in general. These rich do not use their wealth to make themselves happy — note the deterioration of their goods, the rottenness and corrosion — nor do they use their wealth to alleviate the suffering of the poor. They simply hoard it as testimony against them of their greed. These rich were surely the inspiration of Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge and his business partner Jacob Marley, men who made and hoarded money solely for the sake of making and hoarding money, good men of business. Marley realized only too late that, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business.”

The rich are condemned because God had intended — had commanded them — to be a flowing stream of economic righteousness, but they had instead dammed up the stream to create a private reservoir of luxury solely for themselves. As St. Basil the Great (330-379) wrote:

When someone steals a person’s clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to those who need it; the shoes rotting in your closet to the one who has no shoes. The money which you hoard belongs to the poor.

But, James’s charge against the rich is actually worse than mere hoarding. They are hoarding not what they had rightly earned, but rather stolen wealth, wages fraudulently withheld from the poor. Look at verses 4-6.

4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you (James 5:4-6).

Not us — certainly not! But what about a society or a business or an individual that accrues wealth by routinely underpaying those who can least afford to be underpaid? What about my barista friends at a local café who have to work two jobs simply to have adequate food and clothing and who are praying that they do not get sick because neither job offers health insurance? What about the itinerate farm workers — the pickers — the immigrants who go from field to field doing back-breaking work for a mere pittance, and then are demonized for being here at all? What about the single adult, with no children, working full time for minimum wage in Knox County, TN? The minimum hourly wage is $7.25. The hourly poverty wage is $7.52. The minimum living wage is $23.30, four and a half times the minimum wage. Read James 5:4-6 again, and see if there is not just a little discomfort, a little concern that our society might have gone awry and might, Lord have mercy, be ripe for judgment. Then read the whole of Revelation 18. To be clear, I do not not know the solution. This is where we need Christian, Gospel-shaped politicians and businessmen and sociologists and a host of other professions to bring their expertise to bear to begin implementing the Kingdom of God vision.

Given this abuse by the rich, what are the poor to do? A better question might be, What can the poor do? because poverty also implies a certain powerlessness. James says this in verses 7-11; it may be a general instruction to everyone, but it certainly applies to the poor in this context:

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful (James 5:7-11).

The ultimate remedy for poverty and the suffering it causes is the coming of the righteous judge who will put all things to rights. In the meantime, the poor, the abused, the suffering are to be patient, to guard their own hearts from bitterness and grumbling, to remember that the Lord sees and knows their plight and is compassionate and merciful. It seems perhaps too little, but both our Lord and his brother James assure the poor that there is blessing for them in what they are called patiently to endure, that their poverty is not the end of their story. We have to be careful here not to mistake James’s call for the poor to be patient for permission for us who are not poor to be negligent in our responsibility. Remember Matthew 25 and the corporal acts of mercy incumbent upon all Christians: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; shelter the homeless; visit the sick and those in prison; bury the dead; give alms to the poor. That is how we can avoid the miseries that are coming upon the heedless rich on that day when the first are last and the last are first.

One more word about patience: we can mistake patience for passivity, for simply biding time and doing nothing. That is more akin to sloth, one of the deadly sins; but it is not Christian patience. Patience is a Christian discipline that must be exercised. Patience is a Christian virtue that must be practiced until it become second nature. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that must be cultivated. Patience is not passivity; it is askesis, discipline that transforms one into the likeness of Christ. James mentions a key to moving beyond passivity and into askesis:

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray (James 5:13a).

For what are the suffering poor to pray? Well, that brings us back to the Sermon on the Mount, as James so often does. Hear Jesus:

44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:44-45).

And again, in the words Jesus taught us all to pray:

11 “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11).

In the midst of their patient, prayerful suffering, there comes this word from Jesus, a call to trust:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt 6:25-34).

Those are comforting words to those of us who already have adequate food and drink and clothes, for whom the anxiety over basic necessities is largely foreign. But it is a holy challenge, a holy discipline for those in real need — a struggle toward virtue. Generosity, faithful stewardship, active compassion: these are James’s call to the rich, to those with resources. Patience, prayer, trust: these are James’s call to the poor, to those suffering need. There is something for each of us to do here.

Of course, those of us with resources should also pray, because none of us have enough to remedy societal poverty. A good prayer to start with might be the conclusion of the suffrages from Morning Prayer, words I used last Sunday. May these words be our prayer and our call to action:

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
And take not your Holy Spirit from us (BCP 2019, p. 22).

Amen.

There may, in other words, have been a different kind of vacuum into which the Jesus message made its way. It was not so much a matter of people giving up an old “religion” and then finding a new one. Nor was it explicable as dissatisfaction with existing philosophies and the discovery of the new one that Paul was teaching. Rather, people who were used to one kind of political reality, albeit with its own history and variations, were glimpsing a vision of a larger united though diverse world — and then, as they looked around them, they were discovering at the same time that Rome, after all, could not really deliver on its promises. When the new communities spoke of a different Kyrios (Lord), one whose sovereignty was gained through humility and suffering rather than wealth and conquest, many must have found that attractive, not simply for what we would call “religious” reasons, but precisely for what they might call “political” ones. This looked like something real rather than the smoke and mirrors of imperial rhetoric (N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, HarperOne (2018), p. 423).

And what of this creature, this mote of a bee?
For what flower is it and it alone crafted?
To what task of service and praise has it been called?
Why is it at all? Certainly not of necessity, but of — what? — the exuberance of the Creator, His sheer joy in the making from least to greatest?

And what of the hand upon which the bee pauses and rests?
For what purpose is it — and perhaps it alone — crafted?
To what task of service and praise has it been called, to what vocation?
Why is it at all? Neither of necessity nor happenstance but of — what? — the providence of the Creator, His grace in giving, his image-bearing energies expressing his ineffable essence?

That this hand may serve and praise at least in part as this bee does in full!

SAVED BY A HURRICANE, the caption says. “Salvation belongs to the LORD,” the Psalm says (Ps 3:8a, BCP 2019, p. 272). There seems no reason that both cannot be true. About another matter, but equally germane here, N. T. Wright says about St. Paul:

There are two quite different ways of approaching this question, and I think Paul would have wanted to have both in play. He would have known all about different levels of explanation. He undoubtedly knew what 2 Kings had said about the angel of the Lord destroying the Assyrians who were besieging Jerusalem, and he may also have known the version in Herodotus, in which mice nibbled the besiegers’ bowstrings, forcing them to withdraw. He would certainly have known that one could tell quite different stories about the same event, all equally true in their own way (N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, HarperOne (2018), p. 414).

Angels or mice? Angels and mice? Is it the binary Fujuwhara interaction between hurricanes Humberto and Imelda that will stall Imelda some 150 miles off the South Carolina coast and then pull it out to sea? Well, yes, quite possibly on a natural level. Is it the angel of the Lord who, at the Lord’s command, will stall Imelda and steer it into the Atlantic? Well, yes, most certainly on a supra-natural level. God deigns to use agents — material and spiritual — to accomplish his will and we praise him for both, remembering Psalm 3:8 — salvation belongs to the LORD.

As an Anglican, I often pray The Great Litany which contains this intercession:

From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence and famine,
Good Lord, deliver us (BCP 2019, p. 92).

And, yes, I have prayed this with Humberto and Imelda in view. I never once concerned myself with specifying the method the Good Lord was to use in delivering us (them) from lightning and tempest and flood. The binary Fujiwhara interaction is fine with me.

Why God at some times stalls and steers hurricanes away from land and delivers those in the path of destruction and at other times seems indifferent to human suffering — seems, but is not — I have no way of knowing. That is far more complex than Fujiwhara. But, it is all somehow bound up in his love and our salvation, which brings us back again to Psalm 3: Salvation belongs to the LORD.

Imelda’s path could change once again, could confound meteorologists once again, could stall off the coast of South Carolina with flooding deluges, could slam ashore with devastating winds. So, let us not grow slack or weary in our prayers. Pray for angels. Pray for mice. Pray for both.

Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, 28 September 2025
(Amos 6:1-7, Ps 146, 1 Tim 6:11-19, Luke 16:19-31)

Politics, Religion, and Money: Dives and Lazarus

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away (BCP 2019, p. 22).

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are, it is commonly said, three things that one simply does not discuss in polite, social gatherings: politics, religion, and money. But, you know, dear ones, that the church is not a polite, social gathering, but rather a convocation of insurrectionists bent on overthrowing the world and introducing a new world order under the rightful king. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever, we say not to any elected official, appointed governor, or hereditary potentate of this world, but to the one who invaded this world, defeated its ruler, and claimed it as his own, even Jesus Christ our Lord and the Lord of all creation. So, yes, let us talk politics, religion, and money, polite societal norms notwithstanding.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….

These words from the Declaration of Independence, written almost certainly by Thomas Jefferson, are among the most profound, the most significant political convictions ever penned by men. If the United States has any claim to being or having once been a Christian nation, the evidence lies in these words. Though throughout our history they have often been more honored in the breach than in the observance, they are nonetheless the ideal to which, in our best moments, we aspire.

And, they are wrong; Jefferson was wrong in this regard: That all men are created equal is not self-evident and never has been. Even the greatest of the classical cultures — the Greeks and Romans — did not consider all men equal; they would have considered that notion absurd. The equality of all men is not a self-evident truth; it is a Christian revelation, a spiritual truth proclaimed by Jesus in his summary of the Law, penned by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, and only lately incorporated into the political realm by our Founding Fathers as self-evident truth.

But, once accepted, Jefferson was right in the implications of the principle. If all men are created equal, then their rights are endowed by their creator, not granted by fiat or boon by other men, societies, or governments, but God-given. It is the responsibility of government and law, not to bestow these rights, but to secure them: to act in obedience to God and under God’s authority — and under God’s judgment — to ensure that no person is alienated from, deprived of, these rights, the most basic of which is the right to life. And, by life, we do not mean merely birth or basic biological existence, but a certain quality of life that promotes human growth in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man.

And that quality of life brings us to money. Back-breaking, spirit-crushing poverty is not life, not life as God intended it. Poverty that keeps some people famished while others dine in Michelin Star restaurants is not life, not life as God intended it. And so God gave his people laws, a government to secure the unalienable right to life endowed by the Creator.

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:1-2, 9-10).

19 “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this” (Deut 24:19-21).

The gleanings of the fields and the vines and the trees belong not to their owners, but to the poor, the sojourner, the widow, and the orphan — not as a remedy to their poverty, but at least as a relief from it. That is a God-given unalienable right to life for the poor and a God-mandated responsibility for any government or people that calls on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is not just in the Law proper that God demands those with goods to honor the rights of the poor; it is a theme running throughout the prophets.

Isaiah writes:

6 “Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh” (Is 58:6-7)?

And, in today’s reading from Amos:

4 “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory
and stretch themselves out on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock
and calves from the midst of the stall,

5 who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp
and like David invent for themselves instruments of music,

6 who drink wine in bowls
and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” (Amos 6:4-6)!

Joseph — Israel — is blissfully ignorant of its true state as Amos speaks his words of woe. Assyria — that dreaded threat to the north and east — seems exhausted, but is in reality only catching its breath for a final assault that will sweep Israel away forever. The rich are living in pampered luxury garnered at the expense of the poor. This is a people, a society of golden idols and golden toilets, of the one-percenters who strip their fields bare and who leave the poor, the sojourners, the widows and the orphans with nothing to glean. This is a people, a society which no longer acknowledges — if it ever did — the unalienable right to life of the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan.

Some eight centuries later, another prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, is on his way to Jerusalem for the final time, meeting both acclaim and opposition as he goes. As is his wont, he is still speaking in parables, but they are sharp-edged now and pointed. The Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees feel their sting. Jesus even dares to speak of politics, religion, and money. The Pharisees are especially vexed when he speaks of money.

14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them…

19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish” (Luke 16:14-15a, 19-25).

This single parable ties together politics, religion, and money; it links the law, the prophets, and the Gospel. Jesus is speaking woe to the Pharisees just as Amos had prophesied destruction to Israel, present Messiah and past prophet both condemning the sin of luxury at the expense of the poor: the Pharisees, the Rich Man, and Israel are one and the same, under one and the same judgment.

And what of Lazarus? His one desire is to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table — to glean under the table of the rich man. Lazarus is the incarnation of the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan to whom the Creator — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — had given the unalienable right to life, for whom the Creator had established the law of gleaning, ensuring the poor their rights to the excess of the rich. The rich man was breaking the law of God — the spirit of it if not the precise letter — by denying Lazarus even the scraps from his table. This is not the rich man’s denial of optional charity; this is the rich man’s refusal to obey God, to fulfill his God-mandated responsibility. In Jesus’ parable, the rich man’s willful disobedience to the law of charity is the only charge leveled against him, the sole criterion used in judgment, the single factor that determined his eternal destiny. This is only one parable, used to make one particular point, directed toward one specific sin of the Pharisees, so we dare not mistake it for the whole of the Gospel. But, we dare not minimize it either; these are the words and the judgment of Jesus himself. And he is consistent in this indictment:

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Mt 25:41-46).

Was this just hyperbole, or did Jesus perhaps mean what he said?

This parable of the rich man and Lazarus is unique in one respect; it is the only parable in which Jesus names a character — Lazarus, Eleazar in Hebrew. I don’t know with confidence why Jesus chose that particular name — it may simply have been a common name — or even why he chose to name this poor man at all. Of course, he may have chosen the name symbolically and pointedly; it means “God helps,” and God was Lazarus’s only help. Regardless, I know what the name does; I know how it functions in the parable. The name humanizes the poor. It reminds us that the poor, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan are not mere types, not abstractions, but are people with names, people with names known to God. And a name does something else in the parable; it moves Lazarus from the category of stranger into the category of neighbor. Did this rich man know Lazarus’s name? Yes, he calls it out in his own plea for mercy. Lazarus lies daily at the rich man’s gate; his proximity makes him a neighbor. Lazarus has a name; his identity makes him a neighbor. Lazarus has an obvious need; his hunger makes him a neighbor. And Jesus had something to say about neighbors, not just in parables like The Good Samaritan, but in direct commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. When we hear those words each week, we rightly say: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

The rich man has no name, though the story is sometimes called the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Dives is not a name; it is simply derived from the Latin for “rich man.” In his neglect of Lazarus, Dives has lost his identity, his humanity. He has become an abstraction, a type, a caricature — just another of the self-indulgent, self-absorbed rich. Dives typifies the nature of sin described by Martin Luther as man incurvatus in se, man turned inward upon himself. The parable portrays the end of such a centripetal existence as isolation from others and separation from God, a painful and hopeless semblance of existence.

Friends, both this parable and this sermon are sobering, and I am not at all having a good time. The parable ends with a sense of utter hopelessness for the rich man and even for his five living brothers who he says will not listen to Moses and the Prophets and who Abraham says would not listen to a man risen from the dead. They, too, are already incurvatus in se, curved inward on themselves, black holes of self-absorption.

But, please God, we are not. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to repent if repentance is called for. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to receive this parable if it is spoken to us. God has graciously given us this day, this moment to take to heart the words of St. Paul to his protégé Timothy:

17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life (1 Tim 6:17-19).

The poor are God’s gift to the rich, and the rich are God’s gift to the poor. As the parable of Dives and Lazarus preaches, the poor need the rich for their relief; the rich need the poor for their salvation.

Where do we start? Perhaps with the heart. Is there in my heart a haughty spirit based on my prosperity? When I see the sojourner or the poor do I feel superior, do I feel entitled, do I feel that I have earned — by my own ability and effort — my prosperity while they certainly have squandered their opportunities? Do I think “there but for the grace of God go I” never realizing that my relative wealth may be more God’s testing of me than God’s grace to me? Do I feel secure in my prosperity — in the food in the cupboard and refrigerator, in the unworn clothes in the closet, in the steady job or retirement income, in the IRA and stock portfolio — or do I recognize these as gifts from God in whom alone is my security? Perhaps we start there, with an honest look into our hearts.

And, as we open our hearts, we must also open our hands to do good as opportunities present themselves — and they always present themselves. I cannot remedy homelessness or hunger, nor can the church, nor can the government. But I can, from time to time, relieve, at least for a moment, the hunger of this one person in front of me, the want of that person who asks me for mercy, the plight of this suffering group who appeals to me for aid. That was the example of Mother Teresa who said that not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. I can do the small thing. You can do the small thing.

A young man struggling in vain with sin came to Elder Paisios in total despair. After listening to the young man, after feeling his pain, Paisios said, “Look, my good fellow, never start your struggle with the things you cannot do, but with the things you can do. Let’s see what you can do, and let’s start from there.”

Small steps, small things done with great love: what can we do to be generous and to share what we have? What can we do to give even a cup of cold water to the thirsty? It is easy to become overwhelmed with the magnitude of poverty and need around us and to turn inward not so much out of selfishness or greed, but out of hopeless and despair. But, Christ planted the cross in the midst of hopelessness and despair. Christ, in his resurrection, gave us a new song to ward off hopelessness and despair: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! And, Christ sends us out into the world to do the work he has given us to do, to love and serve as faithful witnesses: to do the small things with great love, to do the things we can do empowered by his Spirit, to notice and to feed Lazarus.

Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away (BCP 2019, p. 22).

Amen.