Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:8-14; Luke 20:9-19

In today’s collect we ask God to “grant [us] grace to love what [He] commands and desire what [He] promises.”

It’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it? It sounds like something everyone should hope for. But actually, not everyone believes it can ever happen.  And not everyone believes it even needs to happen.  Like a lot of things that are in the Book of Common Prayer, today’s collect makes theological assumptions, and only when we understand what those are can we really see what the collect is getting at.

The first thing we have to realize is that the collect assumes that we don’t do those things already. We don’t love what God commands. We don’t desire what God promises. Because if we already did those things, there wouldn’t be any need to ask God to grant us the grace to do them. We don’t ask God to grant us the grace to love ice cream or desire financial security, because we already do. That would just be wasting our breath.

So the collect begins by assuming that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. And everyone doesn’t agree about that. Some folks take what might be called a “Creation-centered” view of the world. They take seriously the story of Creation in the book of Genesis, where God created the world, “and it was good.”  They say that God wouldn’t make anything that wasn’t lovely.  And so while there might be a bump in the road here or there, we’re basically good, and so there isn’t much need to ask God for the grace to love and desire what He commands and promises.  We’re already there; we just need to remove a few of the obstacles in our way.

That way of thinking was popular in the early part of the 20^th century, before things like two world wars and the Depression seemed to indicate that all was not well.  And it has become popular again in the last couple of decades, under names like New Age and “Creation Spirituality.” On the good side, it honors God’s creation and God’s original intention for all of us.  On the bad side, though, that way of viewing the world tends to overlook things like war and poverty and the deaths of innocent people in terrorist attacks. 

And theologically speaking, it overlooks the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Because if the world is pretty okay with just a couple of wrinkles that need to be ironed out, why did Jesus die on the Cross? Richard Niebuhr, one of the 20^th centuries great theologians, summarized Creation-centered theology this way: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a Cross.”

Given the evil in the world – and the way that the Son of God was treated while He was here with us – it seems that what began as good has gone terribly wrong.  So it makes sense that we would ask God to change us, so that instead of acting selfishly and self-destructively, we’ll do what God wants us to do, which is what’s best for us.  The next question, though, is whether that can ever happen.

Some folks don’t think it can. They take evil very, very seriously.  They believe that human beings are so fallen – so full of sin – that we’ll never be able to love what God commands or desire what God promises.  The best we can do is ask for forgiveness for all that we do and all that we think and, even, all that we are.  We’ll always remain sinful, and the only thing we can hope for is that God ultimately will forgive us.

This is called a “Fall-centered” theology. According to this view, the critical event in human history was the Fall – the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Before that, creation was all well and good. But since the Fall, sin has so infected all of us that we don’t know what’s right or wrong, or which way is up or down. We can’t trust our own judgments, because they’re so affected by sin.  All we can do is throw ourselves on the mercy of God.

In a “Fall-centered” view, the Crucifixion makes a lot of sense. That’s what happens when goodness comes into this evil world of ours. It doesn’t just meet with rejection, but with execution. And not just any old execution, but an excruciating kind. 

People have been talking a lot about this lately because of Mel Gibson’s new movie called “The Passion of the Christ.”  That movie is a perfect example of “Fall-centered” theology because it focuses almost entirely on the death of Jesus, rather than His life, or His resurrection.  And the graphic depiction of His death fits with this view, as well. The suffering of Jesus that the movie shows is evidence of our basic sinfulness, and of His great love for us.

So if “Creation-centered” people wouldn’t need to pray today’s collect, and if “Fall-centered” people wouldn’t pray it because it’s beyond our sinful reach, the fact we’re praying it here, today, suggests that we Episcopalians are something else.  We’re not Creation-centered, because we take sin seriously. But we’re also not Fall-centered, because sin isn’t the end of the story, just like the Crucifixion isn’t the end of the story. Something came later: the Resurrection.  And something comes after sin: Redemption.  We Episcopalians are “Redemption-centered.”

That means that Creation is good, because God made it. We don’t have to deny ourselves the blessings of this life, because God created us and everything around us. We can enjoy good food and the embraces of the people we love and the feel of the sun upon our skin – as Pam and Catie and I were lucky enough to do this past week – because the world is God’s handiwork, and it is miraculous.

But we also realize that we’re a fallen people.  We confess our sins together each Sunday. We kneel before God and proclaim that we’ve done what we shouldn’t have, and we haven’t done what we should’ve. The Fall is real: something changed. What started off great turned sour, thanks to us.  Thanks to each one of us.

And we also know that Lent will end. That Christ will come again. That the stone in front of the tomb will be rolled away, and Jesus won’t be there, because He is risen. And so are we, because He broke the bonds of sin and death. We’ll never be able to go back to the innocent paradise that was Eden.  We’ll never become sinless, at least in this life.  But we can be redeemed: with Christ’s help we can come to see the world as God sees it.  We can love what God commands.  We can desire what He promises. That is not beyond our reach.  We dare ask for redemption because Jesus has promised to give it to us.

We must be clear, though, before we go characterizing this person or that denomination as centered on either the Creation, the Fall, or the Redemption, that these are oversimplified categories.  All Christians accept all three of them as God’s own truth – it’s just a question of what we emphasize.  And you can tell what someone emphasizes by how they pray, and how they worship.  The fact that we eat and drink the bread and wine that God has given us from His own creation, in remembrance of the last meal His son shared with His friends on earth: there’s Creation.  The fact that we “bewail our manifold sins and wickedness,” in the words of Rite I: there’s the Fall.  But the fact that we don’t leave it there – that the priest immediately stands up after the confession to proclaim God’s absolution, without a second’s pause or hesitation, says that there’s something on the other side of sin waiting for us. Redemption.  Belonging. Home.  Freedom.

These are our sacred words, and with them comes a sacred responsibility. For after we’ve confessed and been forgiven, after we’ve eaten of the fruits of God’s creation, we ask with one voice for God to give us the strength to do the work He has given us to do.  So there is work to be done: Creation isn’t perfect.  And we have the ability, and the responsibility, to do the work: the Fall hasn’t taken that away from us. We can’t do it alone, but neither should we stand idly by and wait for God to do everything.

For God has given us eyes to see the needs around us, and hearts to feel the pain of others, and minds to figure out how this world can be a better place, and hands to make it so. But before we do that, we have to recall the goodness with which God created us.  And we have to face our sinfulness.  And we have to trust that God will not only forgive us, but also transform us, redeem us, make us more like Him, so that we can do the work set before us.  In that spirit, let us all pray together that God will “grant [us] grace to love what [He] commands and desire what [He] promises.”

[Home] [Worship] [Sermons] [Youth] [Mulch] [Projects] [Info]