[Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday, February 23, 2020, delivered at The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Phoenix AZ]
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When we came up with this year’s preaching schedule, being a sucker for routine and pattern, I decided to pick the fourth Sunday each month, not realizing that I would get saddled yet again with the Transfiguration. Confronted with this I had a choice: be lazy and pirate past sermon material; or, be faithful to the calling of my Order to pursue Truth, wherever it may lead.
Well, there went this weekend.
With that said, I’m going to turn to what we read in today’s Epistle:
So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.[1]
This is an Apostolic interpretation of the phrase we heard in both St. Peter’s epistle and in St. Matthew’s Gospel, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”[2]Whereas the Gospel explicitly states, “Listen to him,”[3]the Epistle implicitly repeats this and expands upon it with the words, “You will do well to be attentive to this.”[4] The following statement gives us the reason why: it is, “A lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
Oh yes, that is SOOO helpful.
So here we need to bend our thoughts to unpacking what that means. The metaphor of the prophetic message as a lamp in a dark place is a direct reference to the darkness of the human condition and the fallen cosmos in general. While humanity is made in the image of God, which is inherently good, humanity universally tends to separation from God, which is inherently bad. Since the presence of God, as we see from all three of the readings, is heralded by light, then separation from God is the absence of Light, a darkness deeper than any night or even the deep void of space. This absolute darkness is broken, however, by a lamp. Lamps regularly are used in dark spaces or at night to push back the darkness until daytime comes with its all-pervasive light. Here the metaphor looks forward to an end-state where the darkness is permanently dispelled. If we take this metaphor of light versus darkness, the dispersal of darkness means only one thing, the permanent abolition of the separation between God and humanity. Therefore, according to the Apostle, the words of the prophets are to bring us the Light of God until the permanent resolution to the darkness at the end of the age, when, “the morning star rises in your hearts.” This “morning star” is no less than the Saviour himself. Zechariah the priest, father of St. John the Forerunner, prophesies this in the Benedictus, when he states that, “the dawn from on high will shine on those in darkness and in the shadow of death.[5]
It all comes back to Jesus, doesn’t it?
Now, the reading does not stop there but it continues with a warning, a caveat if you will. We are told that these prophecies are not a matter of one’s own interpretation.
Oh, now what could that possibly mean?
Western Christianity for the past five hundred years or so has been struggling with that concept. The Church of Classical Antiquity had made the Scriptures relatively broadly accessible to a large number of people, but with the collapse of the West, this faded until the social upheaval of the Reformation. While the Reformation ushered in a whole pile of old problems and introduced some new ones to the Faith, the Scriptures and their transforming power became widely accessible again. The BIG problem with that, however, was many of the new reforming traditions forgot that one little line, “that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”
So while the Mediaeval Church in the West failed to make the Scriptures, that lamp in the darkness, widely available, relying on a fallible few to shine that light into a wide and thick darkness, the Reformation failed in adequately presenting Scripture in the light of Holy Tradition.
I know some people will bristle at that.
I call to witness, however, the evidence of Western Christianity in the Twenty-First Century of this era, and the massive manure pile of heresy that we must deal with. The West is rife with denominations that based themselves on differences in interpretation of the message of Scripture or even the repudiations of whole sections of the Canon established by Holy Tradition. Many groups flat out ridicule and disparage Tradition, claiming it to be completely the creation of humankind and having nothing to do with God’s message and that THEIR OWN interpretation of Scripture is the right interpretation of Scripture.
That, brothers and sisters, is hubris. Hubris is an ancient Greek word referring to human pride that sets itself up against the divine. Hubris we know better as the deadly sin of Pride. Pride not to be confused with self-respect, a healthy and humble and accurate regard for one’s strengths and weaknesses, but that overconfidence that each of us alone are the best arbiter of what is right and wrong.
I’m remembering a story about a tree in a garden for some reason right now.[6]
Against this I contrast that when interpretations coincide with Holy Tradition, when the Scriptures are read and understood, we see the faith blossom and the transfiguration of souls occur. Within our own tradition, we see the influence of Bl. Richard Hooker and the other Caroline Divines, Charles and John Wesley (who incidentally stayed within the borders of the Ecclesia Anglicana), and the Oxford Movement, where Holy Tradition and the Immediacy of Holy Scripture came together in a lively fashion to rekindle the faith of many. Make no mistake, the transformative power of the Holy Scriptures, balanced out by the interpretive power of well-ordered reason and the witness of Holy Tradition, bring to life within us the light of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom is Life, and that life is the Light of humankind.[7] We see this light shine forth in the old orders of monastics, who kept the light burning in the dark ages and still continue to guard it today in out-of-the-way pockets of the world. We see this light shine forth in the message of the friars and sisters of the old mendicant orders that arose to make the message of the Gospel near again. We see this light shine forth with the apostolic orders that arose in the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. We see this light shine forth in the new orders of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries spreading through many Western traditions. We see this light shine forth in parishes the world over when the Word takes hold and galvanizes congregations, whether weak or strong, small or great, to undertake great works of transformative mercy in the world. We see this light shine forth in areas of conflict where Christian souls stand firm on the Gospel message of healing for the sick, dignity for the dying, the rescue of captives, the relief of the poor, the forgiveness of sins. We see this light shine forth when sinful and fallen people turn their lives around, struggle with their addictions, reach past their selfishness, and spit in the eye of the adversary, no matter how dark and hopeless it seems.
So here is the Tradition. The prophets looked toward the destruction of darkness and the dawn of everlasting day. That reconciliation to God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, foretold and longed for by the prophets. He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. It is He that we come forward today to receive. It is He whose Death and Resurrection we participate in with our Baptism. It is He whom we take into our hearts and souls as we receive His Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. It is He who transforms us by His Presence, His Word, and His Spirit. Come, let us receive the King of Glory and leave behind the Darkness and embrace the Light.
Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, St. Dominic, and all the Saints, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] 2 Pet. 1.19-21
[2] Mt. 17.5; 2 Pet. 1.17
[3] Mt. 17.5
[4] 2 Pet. 1.17
[5] Lk. 1.76-79
[6] Gen. 3.1-24
[7] Jn. 1.4
Comentários