Homily for
Sexagesima
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Sunday 12 February 2017
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church
Readings:
First of Three-Part Preaching Series anticipating the coming Fast of Lent in Preparation for Easter...
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Today I hold in my
hand a purple stole. Why? I’m still vested in Green. Today marks the beginning of a
transition. Today in the old
Anglo-Catholic Calendar is Septuagesima; the Third Sunday prior to Lent. We are reminded that the fast is coming soon,
or, pardon the pun, that the Lenten fast is coming fast.
Today I want to embark
with you on what will be a three-week journey of preparing ourselves to keep
the fast that is Lent. We hear every
year that one of the marks of Lent is repentance. Every week the Mass typically includes a call
to forgiveness seeking absolution. And
yet some days I wonder just how much thought we give to repentance, to the
quest for forgiveness, not just any forgiveness, but the absolution of
God. I wonder how many times when we recite
the Prayer of Confession, if the liturgy would pause for a moment, a very
uncomfortable moment, and someone was to ask us what we’ve just confessed and
sought forgiveness from, would we be able to answer?
Before I get into this
too far, let me give you a road map for where we are going in these next three
weeks. Today we begin discussing
repentance by remembering the mercy of God.
Next Sunday we will move forward in the awareness of that mercy to
consider the Law of God. And the
following Sunday we will close with the call to forgiveness.
I can think of no
better text to set before us in considering the theme of the mercy of God than
Luke 15:11-32. It is a Gospel reading we
all know well, perhaps not so much by that citation, but certainly by the
“title” of The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
A man had two sons,
Jesus tells us. The younger of the two
convinced the father to give him his share in the family inheritance now. He could not be so patient as to wait for the
father to die. The father split his
possessions and gave the inheritance.
Here the father in this parable shows the first sign of mercy; doing
something absolutely unthinkable because by the actions of the son this son has
made it clear he cares nothing for the father.
We all know this
parable well. You will recall how the
story unfolds when the young man leaves his father’s house. He leaves a comfortable life with great assets. All of this inheritance he wastes until at last he has
nothing remaining from the inheritance he received from his father. And in the midst of that poverty, he recalls
how his father’s servants were more comfortable than he is now. In that memory he returns home, hoping for
nothing else than to be received back as a slave.
This parable speaks
directly to us on the theme of repentance.
The prodigal son returns to the father and gives a model for how the
repentant Christian draws near to God.
The fact that the prodigal son is our model for repentance is further
confirmed not by the son but by the father, not by the Christian but by God. In the parable, the father who has been
waiting and longing for the return of his son, runs out of the house and down
the road to meet him and restore him as his son.
Friends; our God is
like that father in this parable. Our
God delights in us, longs for us, waits upon us, all because our God loves us
more than mere words can describe. God
knows better than do we that we do not deserve such mercy, no more so than did
the prodigal son in the parable who hoped that by some great miracle he might
be received merely as a worthless servant.
Today we hear the
first rumblings of the Lenten call to repentance. There is no better frame of mind with which
to receive this call than the awareness that our God, in the words of the
prophet Joel, is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love.” We have the assurance
in this awareness that when we come to God in repentance, the response we get
all the time, every time, is divine mercy, holy forgiveness, gifts that we do
not deserve but that God longs to grant.
Only we need to hear
the caution in this parable as well.
Having received mercy upon mercy, blessing upon blessing, grace upon
grace, which son of the father will we set before us and emulate? Will we be like the son who cherished the
mercy of the father when it was directed at him and who was offended when that
mercy was turned to his brother whom he deemed unworthy so to receive such a
gift?
Before we answer that,
recall with me what we say about mercy and what Jesus in the Gospel says about
mercy and forgiveness. There are two
things I wish to call to mind for us. The
first is that prayer which Jesus taught us, specifically this one line:
… forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us …
The second is another
parable of Jesus in which a slave sought the mercy of his master for an enormous
debt, larger than he could ever hope to repay.
When the servant sought mercy and more time to repay, the master forgive him the
debt in full. The same servant went and
attempted to collect a much smaller debt owed him of another servant. The one who received mercy showed no
mercy. And when this came to be known to
the master of both, the mercy given was taken away.
As we hear the call to
repentance for the sake of forgiveness, let us remember that God longs to show
mercy to us. In that remembrance may it
be our desire to enter into self-examination, knowing that there is nothing
beyond the forgiveness of God. But let
us also recall that mercy is granted not to us in worthiness. If forgiveness were a gift of which we are worthy,
grace is no longer grace but right, mercy no longer gift from God but
obligation upon God. This is so not only
for us, but for all whom God the Father longs to draw to himself through Jesus
Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Father
Timothy
Alleman
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