Preached at St. John's Lancaster, 10 February, 2013
Quinquagesima: The last Sunday After Epiphany C
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
II Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43
All of this talk about Moses’ face requiring a veil seems so strange to us moderns. Why would the Patriarch Moses enter into God’s presence bare-faced, but don a veil when he talked to his fellow Children of Israel? It seems like a strange custom to us, but to the Fathers of the early Church it was no mystery at all. As Moses bore the law of God to the people of God, it’s splendor shone forth like light into the darkness. And yet because of their sin and hardness of heart, those who waited for Moses at the foot of the Mountain could not even stand to see this glory of the law which was already fading in anticipation of the coming of the light of Christ into the world. Ambrosiaster, in his fourth century Commentary on Paul’s Epistles (ACCS VII 222) writes that “Their minds were hardened through unbelief, and this will not change until they convert and believe in Christ.” Chrysostom, the Bishop of Antioch and Constantinople, writing in that same century agreed. “The veil is not there because of Moses, but because of their gross and carnal minds.” (homilies oh the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 7:3 in ACCS VII 223). He went on to say, “But when we turn to the Lord, the veil is naturally taken away” (ACCS 224).
It is no coincidence that Peter, James, and John, in today’s Gospel, were allowed to see the glory of God on the Mount of Transfiguration immediately after Peter’s momentous confession “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” As the Fathers of the Church pointed out so clearly, it is belief in the Christ which allows the estranged sons and daughters of God to behold his glory, and to be restored to relationship with him. No one says it better than Theodoret of Cyr, writing in the fifth century: “The same is true for you as well. When you believe in Christ, the veil of your unbelief will be taken away.” (Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians 305, cited in ACCS 224).
All of this brings us to the topic of preparing for Lent. Since my return from Charleston, I’ve been reading Eric Metaxas’ excellent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Metaxas quotes liberally from the letters the German theologian sent home while he was in New York as a student. Those letters call us rather confrontationally to examine what our faith is all about, and to return to that “Belief in Jesus Christ” which was urged upon us by the likes of Ambrosiaster, Chrysostom, and Theodoret some sixteen hundred years ago. Bonhoeffer said, “In New York they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.” After attending a lecture by the famed American preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, where a sermon on the forgiveness of sins and the cross had been marginalized and labeled “traditional,” the great German continued, “ this is quite characteristic of most of the churches I saw. So what stands in the place of the Christian message? An ethical and social idealism borne by a faith in progress that- who knows how- claims the right to call itself “Christian.” And in the place of the church as the congregation of believers in Christ there stands the church as a social corporation. Anyone who has seen the weekly program of one of the large New York churches, with their daily, indeed almost hourly events, teas, lectures, concerts, charity events, opportunities for sports, games, bowling, dancing for every age group, anyone who has heard how they try to persuade a new resident to join the church, insisting that you’ll get into society quite differently by doing so, anyone who has become acquainted with the embarrassing nervousness with which the pastor lobbies for membership- that person can well assess the character of such a church. All these things, of course, take place with varying degrees of tactfulness, taste, and seriousness; some churches are basically “charitable” churches; others have primarily a social identity. One cannot avoid the impression, however, that in both cases they have forgotten what the real point is.” (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, pp106-7)
Ouch! As you prepare to observe an Holy Lent, how do you stack up against those churches described by this great Martyr of the 20th Century, who died at the hands of the Nazi’s? Are your reasons for “doing church” or “practicing religion” like those he observed, or are they more akin to what he found when he visited and taught at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, where The Reverend Adam Clayton Powell was the pastor, and where Bonheoffer “would finally hear the gospel preached and see its power manifested.” (Metaxas 107) “Powell combined the fire of a revivalist preacher with great intellect and social vision. He was active in combating racism and minced no words about the saving power of Jesus Christ. He didn’t fall for the Hobson’s choice of one of the other; he believed that without both, one had neither, but with both, one had everything and more. When the two were combined, and only then, God came into the equation. Then and only then was life poured out. For the first time Bonhoeffer saw the gospel preached and lived out in obedience to God’s commands.” (Metaxas 108)
As we prepare to enter Lent, where are we as individuals and as a church? Are we, are you, doing many good things, like those parishes of which the twentieth century’s most famous martyr wrote? Or have you believed in and come to terms with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life? Have you bound together inextricably the fire of the Holy Spirit with great intellect and social vision? I would submit to you on this day that it is that combination of doctrine and experience and practice to which God calls us as individuals and as a church. Yearn for and find such faith in the days to come. In the Name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment