A Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Trinity

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Based on a Sermon by Rev. R.D. Crouse
from COMMON PRAYER, Volume Six: Parochial Homilies for the Eucharist

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”
(Galatians 5.25)

The Scripture lessons appointed for these Sundays are all about the nature and practice of the spiritual life. In Baptism, we are born again of water and the Spirit into the new spiritual realm called “the Kingdom of God” or ‘the Kingdom of Heaven.” In Baptism, we embrace, or our parents and godparents embrace for us, the spiritual life of God’s Kingdom, and it is our vocation to grow and become mature in that spiritual life.

Look closely at the Epistle and the Gospel this week. First, the Epistle: “If we live in the Spirit,” says St. Paul, ‘let us also walk in the Spirit.” But what does it mean to “live in the Spirit?” It has to do with our lives’ primary direction and orientation: what we live for, what we take to be fundamentally important, and what we understand to be the purpose and end of our lives. To live in the Spirit means to live according to the will of God, according to the word of God revealed by the Spirit in the Scriptures and the life of the spiritual community.

“If we live in the Spirit,” says St. Paul, “let us also walk in the Spirit.” By that, he means that we who know something of the word of God and the will of God (perhaps only a little, but still something) must walk in that Spirit. We must order our lives and make our daily decisions with our spiritual ends, not worldly ends, in mind. We must “seek first God’s kingdom.” (Matthew 6.33) St. Paul continues: “Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.”

St. Paul frequently contrasts life in the Spirit with life according to the flesh. To live “after the flesh” is to live for worldly ends. It means to regard the ambitions, possessions, comforts, and pleasures of this present age as though they were absolute. That is what it means to be “desirous of vainglory.” Desiring vainglory or empty glory is taking pride or satisfaction in things that are finally of no value or importance. It is to set our hearts upon such things, and for the sake of such things, we compete with one another, provoking and envying our neighbors.

“Brethren,” says St. Paul, “if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou be also tempted.”

The temptations of vainglory — the temptations of worldliness —are indeed very close to every one of us, very close to you and me. How often do we succumb to little and sometimes even big matters? But we who are spiritual — we who have embraced the spiritual life of God’s kingdom — are not to judge one another in a spirit of criticism or pride. Instead, we must judge in humility, knowing our frailty in these matters: “Considering thyself, lest thou be also tempted.”

Do not condemn. Instead, says St. Paul, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” It is not our calling to disparage and destroy one another but to support and uphold one another in spiritual life. Thus, we “fulfill the law of Christ,” which is the law of love.

“For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” Perhaps the most profound temptation of all is the temptation of pride: “to think ourselves to be something.” This is to take our fond ambitions and opinions as the measure of spirituality, to make ourselves arbiters of spiritual life. We fool ourselves and perhaps nobody else, certainly not God.

“But let every man prove his work, and then shall he have to rejoice in himself alone, and not in another; for every man shall bear his own burden.” That is to say, each of us has his own vocation, his own spiritual life — his talents, and opportunities and circumstances — and it is in that context that our spiritual life must mature. There is a sense in which we “bear one another’s burdens.” For instance, the godparent is responsible for seeing that the baptized infant prospers in his or her spiritual life. This is also the duty of each of us towards our neighbor, but there is also a sense in which we must attend to our purity of heart and mind in our own business.

This is the meaning of the Epistle lesson. The Gospel, from St. Luke 17, is the story of the healing of the lepers, and what it adds to the message of the Epistle is simply this. The cleansing and healing of the Spirit is the work of God. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who hath even made us worthy to be ministers of the new covenant.” (2 Corinthians 3.5) Therefore, our spiritual life is to be nurtured and matured in a spirit of thanksgiving, and it cannot be nurtured and matured in any other way. Otherwise, it turns into pride when we think ourselves to be something when we are nothing. We fool ourselves, delude ourselves. Spiritual wholeness consists in giving glory to God. In the Eucharist, the thanksgiving we now go on to celebrate, let us then return to thank God for spiritual gifts, which make us no longer strangers but citizens of God’s kingdom.

“Arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Thanksgiving is an important part of prayer. We are constantly asking, but in the course of our day, we should also make every effort to thank God for the blessings of our lives, which far outweigh the problems. Not only are there blessings in our mortal life, but also the gift of eternal life. Our mortal lives are just a short time, but eternity is forever. Let us begin each day by thanking God for all we have, all we are, for our being, and for what He has promised us in eternity through the gift of His son on the cross. Let us always and everywhere give thanks to our Lord God, for it is meet and right so to do!