SAINT MICHAEL'S AND ALL ANGELS' DAY: Homily

“ANGELS BEHOLDING THE FACE OF GOD”

Saint Matthew 18. 1-11

Saint Michael’s and All Angels’ Day: [transferred]

 28 September Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   The question is “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” It was The Lords question to the “12.”  It’s the Lords question to your sinful “old Adam” as well. With false self-modesty you would never claim that you are the greatest. But deep down inside you do think you’re pretty special and that at least you’re a whole lot better than pagans, heathen, liberals, foreigners, Muslims, and homosexuals. No, no you’re not. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one who does good no not one. Repent. The intelligent man is not greater than the unlearned or even willingly ignorant man. The gifted woman is not greater than the unskilled woman.  The married couple with a bunch of wonderfull children are not greater than the single and solitary. The chaste are not greater than the immoral and the honest are not greater than the cheats. To be sure, The Lord wants, indeed commands you and everyone, to obey the 10 Commandments—all the time. It is sinful to harm your neighbor and sinful to refrain from helping your neighbor…which is everyone else! But His words as recorded by Saint Matthew are not about your new life of sanctified Grace and naturally flowing good works. He is talking about Holy Baptism. He is talking about Angels. He is talking about His soon-to-be “Apostles” and the nature of Grace.

    Jesus calls for a little child and sets the lad in the midst of them. I submit He sat the boy on His own lap and tenderly embraced him.  Even as infants are the templates for reception into the Kingdom of God so too are young children examples of innocent and trusting faith in the love of The Father.

   Christ is talking about Himself and giving Himself to the disciples, all disciples, through His Word. You don’t convert yourself. You don’t become “as little children” through an act of effort, prayer or discipline. All adoption is by way of gift. Thus, Christ does all the giving, the heavy-lifting, and the work. “Whoever thereof shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  This is Jesus.

   Earlier He had said: “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” [Mt. 11.11]

   Jesus is the smallest, the littlest, the humblest One, for He veiled His Godhood and in His assumed Flesh and Blood from the Virgin obeyed the Law and did the work of God. From His small and meek birth at the manger to His unassuming first 30 years or so He dutifully kept the Commandments for all…for all of you who like to lord it over your neighbor and preen in the mirror of ego. Jesus is the little child, the Only Begotten Child of the Father, Who meekly let Himself be led to the Cross as the dumb Lamb of Sacrifice, not uttering a cry or complaint. Paul tells you what God the Spirit wants you to believe: “…the weakness of God is stronger than men,” and “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” [1 Cor. 1. 25, 27]  Not only Jesus as the “suffering servant” Messiah, the “one little word” that fells the devil and all his wiles, but also the small and normal “means of grace” which are despised by the largeness of the world and the largeness of your sinful selves. Not the mighty raging river Pharpar of Syria, but the Jordan healed Naaman. Not the manly and self-chosen decision of willpower, but the humble and despised font in a chancel. Not the wealth and works of “good deeds” but wine and bread that His self-same small word makes His true Body and real Blood. Not in numbers, and concert hall-sized structures of opulence, but in pews, pulpits and altars. Not with faux miracles and emotionally laden trickery but with preaching: “Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” [v.23]

   But pastor, what about the angels, what about Saint Michael the Archangel? These spirit creatures are Gods ministers and servants…His (mostly) invisible messengers and guardians of His flock. Holy Sheepdogs said George Herbert, or maybe the fingertips, as the Seraphim are the “fiery ones,” of the Holy Ghost. Post fall, post Eden, the angels are the “little ones” of God who are yet greater than all the demons and devils. They are “types” and pictures of what the “12” and their successors were to be and are to be.

   Do not despise children. Be fruitful and multiply. Protect life from natural conception to natural death. Do not neglect appreciation and thanksgiving for your guardian angels and be dutiful in praying Luther’s morning and evening prayers. Receive the little children, the pastors in your midst; receive and believe their catechesis and doctrine for it is simply their master’s words—the deposit of the faith “once delivered unto the saints” [Jude 3] Do not offend them by denying Christ or by apostatizing from your Baptismal Grace. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for they when they preach the Word and when they administer the Sacraments they are like their angel “types” which behold the face of Christ’s Father which is in heaven. For when you receive through Faith, by Grace, the Apostle of Jesus you receive Jesus…you receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

   I invite you now once again to dine with your Messiah, and with Saint Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and all the heavenly host.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

SAINT MATTHEW THE APOSTLE AND THE EVANGELIST'S DAY: Homily

“CHRIST IS MERCY, ON SINNERS”

Saint Matthew 9. 9-13

SAINT MATTHEW: 21 September Anno + Domini 2014

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   Levi was special. This tax collector, this publican, was special because Jesus made it so!

   You all are unique for the same reason.

   No one is forgotten…no one is ever forgotten. No Christian is ever abandoned or forsaken. You have The Lord’s Word on it…on you…and in you. Now that’s a pledge you can live with—forever!

   A popular Facebook meme accurately states: “Though Communism is 100% ineffective at making everyone wealthy, it IS 100% effective at making everyone poor and miserable.” Yes! And isn’t that exactly what the devil does?  Communism is Satanic because it is simply the organized “fanning the flames” of envy—greed—laziness—theft—and concupiscence! As every person by fallen nature is an “enthusiast” (a “schwermerai” as Luther puts it in the Smalcald Articles) so too everyone is a spiritual communist by nature. This is why Protestants hate the Saints and why ignorant Lutherans too eschew giving honor and respect to the Saints. Repent!  You can’t make yourself bigger or more important by avoiding the greatness of Saint Matthew. To be sure, he is only one of 12 human beings ever to live that can be called both Disciple of Jesus and Apostle of The Lord Christ—both designations and ordinations the result of God’s own calling. Hallelujah! Levi is only one of four humans to be supernally blessed to be called Evangelist—i.e. Gospeller! Hallelujah!

   And the joy of the Good News is that Levi is only Saint Matthew because Jesus made him so…the same way He has made you Saint “ - - - .”   “[Jesus] saw a man…sitting at the receipt of custom, and He saith unto him, follow Me.” You and Levi share the same Father, God the 1^st Person, and the same Mother, Holy Mother Church. You and your fellow publican both started off as collaborators—both to secular Baals (whether Rome, America, or just plain SELF) and Satan as well. Levi and you, traitors like your Father Adam.

   Levi collected money that was not his. He probably “took a cut” of it as well, as was common. He used authority not his to ‘lord it over’ others. This is YOU to a “t.”  Repent!   

   Levi could and did repent because Jesus went to him, found this lost lamb, and placed His Word into him.  The Christ does the work and then gives the benefit to His brethren. The Word works. The Gospel gives one what is required: “repent and believe;” gives the faith to the recipient to receive the Christ…and then to repent…i.e. “to follow.”

    Though Christ came to call all to repentance, though He died for all and desires all to believe, He made a point, and still does, to come and associate with, be with, get down in the dirt with, SINNERS. Jesus embraces the miserable, where they are. Jesus took all that misery to the Tree and let it kill Him.

    Yes He teaches and catechizes…that is, He gives His very words from His mouth.  His Words always give His Person and Work: “God of God, light of light, Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made Man; and was crucified also for us; He suffered and was buried.”

   But, how would you know this were it not for THE WORD giving His Words to be preached, “Gospelled,” and then recorded for all time and all people in the New Testament?  Levi was given that task, that joy. What does Levi, named Matthew, tell the Church Catholic?  Saint Matthew writes the first of the Gospels so that Christ might always remain in your midst—where two or three are gathered.  The Gospel of Matthew is the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of The Holy Spirit that guaranteed Matthew wrote what God wanted written, and of The Father. This Good News is not primarily meant for personal study and reflection, although it is salutary so to immerse oneself in the Word, always. But rather, this text is the Church’s Text. It is the Person and Work of He Who is the Baptizer, Preacher, Absolver, Celebrant, and Food.  It is that which gathers you all at the Mass every week.

    What is today all about? It’s not about Matthew but about Jesus. Jesus coming to sit with people just like Matthew, people who are fellow publicans (cheats, traitors, money-obsessed, liars, and idolaters) people just like you and me in our sinful selves. When you grumble and look down your Jewish nose at others who aren’t as “good” as you think you are, then you are Pharisees. Stop it! Grow up into the maturity of The Faith. And even at those times when you’re not the Pharisee you are the sinful tax-collector. Stop it! Grow up into the generosity of He Who Redeemed you: “not with gold or silver but with His Holy Precious Blood and with His innocent suffering and death.” 

   Be what you are. Admit what you are. It’s okay to be sick if you’re in the best hospital in the cosmos. It’s okay to have the disease if you’re in the presence of the Physician Who has the cure—Who IS The Cure!  Miserable in, with, and under sin look around and hear the Gospel “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, for I Am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Jesus has mercy this morning for He Is Mercy.  He was Sacrifice, the Lamb slain in your stead. He is now not roasted lamb but The Bread from Heaven in, with, and under the Bread of Eucharist. He is The Righteous One and He calls you to Table—not the operating table but the Banquet Table. Join Matthew and Mary, Peter and Paul. Join Publicans and Sinners and luxuriate and joy in Mercy.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

HOLY CROSS DAY: Homily

“LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH”

Saint John 12. 20-33

HOLY CROSS DAY: 14 September Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   You were conceived and born in sin. You are a sinning creature by nature. The reason you age, break down, get sick, lose loved ones, and die yourselves is that you are sinners. If you don’t like this kind of talk and reject it—and reject the messenger—that’s just too bad; it doesn’t change the reality. You can shake your fist at the sky when it’s raining or at the equation of 2 plus 2 equals four, but that doesn’t change the facts of WHAT IS!

   According to post-Nicene historians such as Socrates Scholasticus, the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, travelled to Palestine in 326, founding churches and establishing relief agencies for the poor. Historians Gelasius of Caesarea and Rufinus claimed that she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to have been used at the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves. It is said a miracle revealed which of the three was the True Cross.

Many churches have claimed to possess fragmentary remains of the True Cross. Their authenticity is not accepted universally by those of the Christian faith and the accuracy of the reports surrounding the discovery of the True Cross is rightfully questioned. Nonetheless Lutherans, as Catholic Christians of the West may still honor and respect Helena for her piety, charity, and interest in Saintly artifacts.

   But though the wooden beams upon which Our Lord purchased forgiveness for the world seem to be lost forever, it was never the wood as wood, the cross as a cross that had any worth or merit—hence the ornamental “barren” crosses—without the corpus—our woefully inadequate to express the Historic lections for this morning’s Mass. The pole was not barren but had a brass serpent. Paul didn’t peach the cross-beams of “four-by-fours” but of the God/Man hanging on the tree. The Lord Himself says the glory is when [He] is “lifted up from the earth.”

   You are the New Israel, the Church of the Living God, yet you spend much of your days whining like Desert Hebrews and complaining like spoiled children: “and the people spake against God and against Moses.”  Whether you refrain from openly cursing the Lord’s Name or not, you do not invoke it as you should in prayer, praise and thanksgiving. You do not Honor His Name in your actions—your lack of pious practices—or in your attendance to His Word. You are more often than not like Martha of Bethany and not like Saint Mary.  And you do speak against God’s modern day Moseses!  When Christ speaks of His Holy Office of under-shepherds “he that receiveth you receiveth Me” [Mt. 10.40], which Melanchthon quotes in the Symbols, He is also saying that those who reject His apostles reject Him and His Father. And that’s what selfish prodigal sons do isn’t it: “for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.” [Nu. 21.5]   We don’t put the Lord above all things. We don’t love and serve our neighbor. We don’t bridle our tongues and rend our lustful hearts. We don’t daily meditate on The Word and daily drown the old Adam.  We dance around the golden calves of mammon and self. We bow our knees not to Christ in genuflection but to our own feelings and intellectual superiorities.

   But the “hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”  The Mass has arrived and the Holy Spirit has, by Jesus the Word, assembled you all once again in this sheepfold.  You are not old Adam when you are IN JESUS.  In Christ you are NEW ADAM for Jesus is The NEW ADAM.  He is the true Israel and you are, IN HIM, the Children of Israel.  In His Holy Cross which is the Crucifix and not the bare wood, you have the content of The Faith and the content of your forgiveness of sin(s). In that Body and Blood once upon the tree, and now in the font, in the Word, in the Absolution, and in the Chalice, you have heaven, salvation, life, and peace which passeth understanding.

   The “certain Greeks” were right to “[come] up to worship at the feast.” They were looking for the consolation of Israel along with believing Jews such as Philip and Andrew.  Desiring the Old Testament Passover was good because it pointed to the Cross—the Crucifix—the Christ.  Their most famous request is forever on the lips of pastors to be spoken right before the homily commences: “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

   And where does the homily direct you?  Where did Philip and Andrew usher those Greeks, those fellow Gentile believers?  They went straightaway to Jesus and let the Word Himself show forth salvation.

   God the Son speaks not of cleansing lepers, walking on water, raising Lazarus, being Transfigured between Moses and Elias, conquering the devil during the 40 days, or even of keeping the Law perfectly for 33 years…though all of these things were necessary and essential in Christ’s mission of Redemption.  But no; Jesus talked about the Holy Cross—the bloody execution instrument of the Crucifix.

   “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”  Christ is talking of His suffering, death, entombment…and His Resurrection.  “This preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto [you] which are saved it is the power of God.”  Your power is not in your arms and lungs or in your family and friends. Your power is not in your nation, financial portfolio or vocational skills. Your power is not in your good feelings and intentions or in your strivings. Your power is not in your wisdom and high I.Q.s.   He destroys the wisdom of the wise. Jesus preached His crucifixion; so did the Apostle; so did Moses by the “type” of the brazen snake on the pole, and so does the Church today!

   The serpents which killed were made a sign, an ensign, a banner of victory. By placing them on the pole, portraying them as defeated—death was mocked and captivity was lead captive.  So too the true serpent Satan was in reality killed and defanged of all his real power and venom when Christ Jesus took the results of Satan, the world, and your old Adam—i.e. sin, upon Himself, becoming sin for you, becoming like unto a worm, or a pierced snake, for you. Christ on the Cross is now your Crucifix life, form, ensign and banner of victory.

   “He was lifted up from the earth” and in the joyous Gospel words that proclaim this triumph He draws all men unto Himself.  His Glory is in His laying down His life for His friends, for you, and for His enemies as well—the world. The unbelieving Jews, then and now, will reject Him as an insufficient “sign.”  The unbelieving Greeks, then and now, will reject Him as not an intellectually rigorous and philosophically wise enough leader. “But we preach Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

   Your old nature wants more but your old nature is crucified and dead IN CHRIST.  He loved you so much that He lost His life for you.  He hated your damnation so much that He suffered the pain of hells damnation in your stead so that would inherit paradise. This is His hour. The Father now glorifies you as He Glorifies the Crucified and Risen One. The Holy Cross—the Crucifix—today is lifted high among the Eagles: “behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

12th Sunday after TRINITY (2014): Homily

“CHRIST OPENS OUR EARS AND ENTERS WITH LIFE”

Saint Mark 7. 31-37

12^th Sunday after Trinity: 7 September Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

    “In the beginning was The WORD…and the Word was God.” [Jn. 1.1] “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said ‘let there be light’” [Ge. 1. 2 – 3]

    The Holy Trinity departed from being all and came to create the coasts of all the cosmos. The Lord came to the great sea and divided it from the land and placed a garden in the midst towards the east.

    He who has ears to hear let him hear. Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.

    One cannot speak and sing unless one can hear. One cannot hear if one is dead. One cannot hear if one has dead ears—suffocated and stuffed with ‘old Adam wax;’ impacted shut with “I.” 

    Saint Mark’s recorded events are really all about Holy Baptism aren’t they? This pericope appointed for the 12^th Sunday after Trinity is all about Jesus coming and claiming one of His own lost sheep—a lamb so terrified and tied down by the deafness of sin and unbelief that no bleating of pain much less Chants of Kyrie could be emitted from a bound and captured tongue!

    Jesus departs from the areas of Tyre and Sidon which are north of his home area of Galilee. The word Saint Mark uses is oriwn which literally means “region” but which so felicitously the Holy Spirit has the English Divines translate as “coasts” in the Authorized Version. Coasts always signify water…rivers, lakes, oceans, and Baptismal Fonts.

   One doesn’t choose or decide to hear any more than one chooses to be born or to have parents. It is given. It is a gift. It is Grace. Christ is the Giver of all good things and it is very good to be able to hear. One might have been able for 33 years to actually see Jesus with the eyes—if one were in the right place and the right time. But one, everyone, the world, can HEAR Jesus through His Words of Holy Scripture and through His Word made flesh in Supper and in Holy + Washing!

   You are all broken and wasting away because of sin. The wages of sin is death. Your uncleanness in thought and deed comes from the residual deafness still inside you. Your sins with words (cursing, swearing, lying, gossiping, and killing) come from a tap-rooted muteness anchored in the soil of sinful self.

    The deaf mute is like the palsied cripple who was brought to Jesus. The lame man didn’t come to The Lord but rather was carried on a “death bed,” which became a resurrection pallet when Christ touched him with the Word of Life. That man was carried by four friends, four believers, four Baptismal Sponsors emblematic of the Four Evangelists themselves. Likewise the man with the impediment of speech was brought by his believing and trusting friends, his own Godparents “and they bring unto Him one that was deaf…”

    Jesus did for him what He did for you in the Sacrament of Water and Word. To be adopted means one is pulled out from a world of no connection and no family and placed into a NEW FAMILY and new body, identity and name. The Church, Jesus’ family is the “ecclesia” which means “out of” the masses. “And He took him aside from the multitude.” Jesus, to be sure, healed this man from his physical brokenness by giving him perfect hearing and perfect speaking. But what Christ actually did was that He Baptized the man into Himself. Jesus made the man His own brother, child, friend, and disciple.

   What once happened to you…when you were a little sinful pagan? You were bathed first (hopefully) in the Word of Christ for 9 months as your parents sat with the “in-utero-you” in Jesus’ “mouth house”…your ever-forming ears hearing the distant Gospel echoes and rumblings of Hallelujahs and Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus. You were bathed in His Body and Blood as your mother Communed on the very flesh of God in The Supper.  And then…brought, carried,  “and they bring unto Him” you were presented at the coasts of a font where Jesus sighed over you with love and affection and bathed you with Water and Word…word from His mouth, Holy spittle of Salvation: Ephphatha. You were opened for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost…who brought you more Jesus…Who made His Father your Father. With The Spirit making you His temple your speaking was now plain for your sins were loosed as well as your tongue. Your singing was beautiful and you’ve been publishing it, with your fellow Royal Priests, ever since. He does all things well. He makes the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the unbeliever to believe, the lonely to be placed into a Family, the hurting to be comforted, the dead to be raised to Immortality, the naked to be clothed and the hungry to be fed.

   Your ears have been opened, cleared, cleansed, sterilized and sanctified by the Blood and Water, by the fingers of Jesus. Do not place the wrong things into them.  Repent from hearing evil and listening to false doctrine. Fill your ears with the Church’s song, Psalter, and prayers. Your tongue has been freed from the devil’s muzzle by Jesus. He has given you the gift of tongues—i.e. the New Testament of His Person and His Work, for you and the rest of the flock. Repent of the things that have come out of our mouth unfitting of a Christian. Confess Boldly Christ Crucified for the forgiveness of sins and speak lovingly and hopefully to all your neighbors—to all the world. You speak and wear The Gospel on your lips which flows from The Gospel in your new heart of Christ.

   Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by The Word of God.  O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.

   Recently there was a beautiful and magical YouTube video that made the rounds on Facebook amongst many confessional Lutherans. There was a short video of a little 18 month old boy who, after being born deaf, heard words for the first time. He was naturally caterwauling and fidgeting while the physician fine tuned the exterior sound device connected to the implant…but the minute the implant was turned on and he heard his mother’s voice for the first time an indescribable smile came instantly to his face and his whole being lit up…yeah, it’s just like that only infinitely better. You may “fall asleep” in Christ with Bach’s Messiah playing or  maybe with your Pastor and friends singing the Nunc Dimittis at your bedside one last time…but, BAPTIZED INTO JESUS, you will wake to Christ’ smiling eyes speaking into your ever-Ears “Well Done Good and Faithful Servant; I love you, welcome Home!” And you will respond and speak plain: “My Lord and My God.”

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

Another Attempt at Hymn Writing

   For those on the historic 1-year lectionary here is a short hymn for next Sunday (the 12th Sunday after Trinity; Saint Mark 7. 31-37)  - - -   JW

JESUS NOW EPHPHATHA CRIES

Words: Jay W. Watson, 2014

Tune: Neander, Joachim Neander, 1680

8 7 8 7 7 7

Leaving Sidon comes the Savior

Through the coasts and to the sea

Mute delivered broken sinner

Hoping that His touch would free

Lord with victim stepped apart

Fingers spit Redeemer’s start

Touching sighing Word thus proclaimed

Ears to hear and speech to ring

Though imploring silence maintained

Gospel can but shout and sing

The crowd beyond all amazed

Chanting His merciful Grace

 

Bringing heaven in this service

Christ for you in bread and wine

His forgiveness heals deafness

Paschal Word on which you dine

In the bloody Lamb baptized

Jesus now Ephphatha cries

11th Sunday after TRINITY (2014): Homily

 

“JUSTIFIED IN THE JUST ONE”

Saint Luke 18. 9-14

11^th Sunday after Trinity: 31 August Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The Name + of Jesus

   The Christ speaks parables because you are all self-righteous. You get the overly familiar story of the Pharisee and Publican once a year, whether you want it or not, because you all despise others!

   It’s so easy to despise truth because it cuts just a little too deeply. It’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge the veracity and purity of the Lord’s Law—the Ten Commandments—but another thing to stare honestly and heart-openly into that mirror of absolute Truth and be eviscerated. When WAS the last time you smote your breast and spoke the Kyrie—last week, same time, same station?

   Jesus told this text “unto certain which trusted in themselves.” It matters not that the laser focus of His words were upon the Pharisees; the “12” and His other followers heard it all as well; and so do you.

    You trust in yourselves…at least when you can even be cajoled to think about anything at all other than the rat-race, the grind, the play-time, the hobbies, politics, and accumulation schemes. There’s a reason man-centered, contemporary Christian worship, and mega-church crap is so darn popular—“old Adam sinners” are just hard wired to be narcissistic preening poppin-jays  “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, rioters, unjust, shoplifters, looters, adulterers, Hispanics and Blacks with multiple girl-friends, wives, and whores, or even as this publican, liberal…democrat.”

   These two actors, Pharisee and publican, though parable personages are NOT card board cut-outs, clichés, or caricatures…they are YOU!

   But unlike the outwardly rigorous Pharisee, you are so secularized Monday through Saturday, so conformed by the world & society, that you don’t even pray, fast. or give tithes (a hard 10%  or  more to the Kingdom’s work).

   Instead, every year when you hear this parable, of quickly assenting “mentally” to the fact that your “old man” is the Hypocrite but that your new forgiven self is the blessed publican…ponder that fact and meditate on the wisdom of Christ’s Bride, Holy Mother Church’s insistence to keep this text in constant, CONSTANT, yearly rotation. You are not a one-time Pharisee “lifting up your eyes” to your own statue of self-righteousness and made-up “works;” you are a daily Pharisee!

    You don’t fast your eyes from sin or your appetites from gossip, revenge, and meanness! You gorge yourselves on your own superiority and self-constructed “lawfulness.” Turn off your media outlets that constantly (by the very minute—and second) taunt you and tempt you to judge, hate, and condemn “others” and instead start helping the less fortunate and struggling—sinners though they be. Associate more with the type of people that He, Who you call your “Lord and God,” associated with and lived among!

   There are no “others…” and conversely there are no good people that you can aspire to be…there are only fallen, broken, hurting and incredibly lonely people. Every one of us is both Pharisee and publican.

   There is only One Who can help Who can rescue and save. Only Christ Jesus is the JUSTIFIER, the One Who makes all right—RIGHTEOUS between you and God; between you and your fellow brethren.

    The publican, “standing afar off,” could do so only because Jesus allowed Himself to be “afar off” from Heaven’s fullness during His earthly visible ministry, i.e. He humbled Himself in non-use of His Divine powers and attributes. Only Jesus causes your repentance by allowing the Sanhedrin and Roman soldiers to stand Him “afar off” on Golgotha outside the city…away from proper and neat Pharisees and Lutherans. The unnamed publican could bow his head in contrition, close his eyes in prayer, and smite his breast, only because Christ bowed His sweaty, bloody and wounded Head, closed His agony-filled eyes, and prayed to The Father “forgive them,” “today you will be with Me in Paradise” “I thirst” and “it is finished!” Jesus let His own breast, and back, and feet, and hands, and head, and side be mightily smote so that your thrice-fold breast beating is now symbolic of your heart being rended rather than your flesh in hell for all eternity. You speak the confession of sin to your pastor and in your Mass preparation on Sunday mornings; you speak the Kyrie with Bartimaeus, lepers, cripples, mothers and fathers with dead children, you plead for mercy ONLY BECAUSE The Merciful One took your sin, disease, pain, sadness, and all your “otherness” and crucified it all on the Cross in, with, and under His sinless Body. By His suffering and death your Phariseeism is paid for. By His Resurrection, Ascension, and Presence in you by His Holy Word (Baptism, Absolution, Eucharist, Preachment) you are forgiven.

    The greatest pain and sadness is loneliness—being solitary without friend and family. The most profound emptiness each human being feels is the lack of touch, embrace, closeness. Self-righteous sin separates and isolates. Jesus draws you to Himself, places you into His sheepfold, His Family, His Church, His very side, wounds, and heart. Jesus exalts you today at His High Altar of sacrifice, Eucharist, and forgiveness because He humbled and abased Himself at Calvary two millennia ago. And just where does the publican go at the parables end? Just where has the Holy Ghost called and gathered you this morn? “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified.” The publican went home. We all want to go home. We all want to be with our beloved Father.

   ‘God is in His holy habitation’—font, pulpit, altar, for you in the nave that leads to the chancel—He is God Who setteth the solitary in families.’

   His fast is over. The fast is over. You’re home. Come home to the feast and eat and drink all that He possesses—the righteousness of Christ.

In The Name of The Father and of The + Son and of The Holy Ghost

10th Sunday after TRINITY (2014): Homily

“FORGIVEN: THE TEARS OF JESUS”

Saint Luke 19. 41-48

10^th Sunday after Trinity: 24 August Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

In The + Name of Jesus

   “…and He shall hear my voice: He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me.”

   Adam and his precious rib wept when expelled from paradise. “Adam,” man, has been weeping ever since. Exile and loneliness; pain and deprivations; death of loved ones and the deprivations of old age; hunger and thirst; persecution and want; life under the cross waiting for the Redeemers visitation and redemption is awash with tears and weeping.

   You weep because of Satan’s attacks—the devil’s vicious (all the more so because there are elements of truth in his accusations of your evil) indictments. You weep because of the constant groaning of the world (change and decay in all around I see). And you weep because the Lord’s bright mirror of the Law shows you your fallen nature—the “beast” howling in pain as it first sees its hideously ugly reflection in the glassy pond. Sin causes weeping.

   You weep but others usually do not see it. Old Adam views crying and sighing, bawling and smiting as signs of weakness and dependence.

   You ask, you petition, and you entreat God to take away your thorns. You bargain with Him and at times you curse Him. Who will save you from the weeping; from the condition that produces the symptom of the weeping?

   “And when He was come near, He beheld the city.”  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Son has always been God and has always been Savior: “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” [Eph. 1.4a]

   Weeping is ultimately solitary. The weeping of the mother who has lost her child, the husband who has lost his wife, the prisoner in solitary and the soldier dying in a foxhole. Joy and its attendant laughter and conversation (i.e. communion) is of the Trinity—multiplicity in solidarity: One in Three and Three in One—FAMILY.  There is no only-child in the Lord’s courts.

   Jesus always beholds the “city,” the “polis,” as He has from before eternity. He knows His own sheepfold in all of its individual manifestations over time and space. He knows His people in their hamlets and villages, in their neighborhoods and towns; in their metropolises and lunar colonies (should it come to that).

   While He cares and governs all men, all the world—His own brothers and sisters, His Christians are the apple of His eye. And His eyes are more than moist they are outpouring of His Grace—His love in action. “He beheld the city, and wept over it.”

   God cries for you. Do more than casually think about that—ponder it and meditate over it.  The Lord of Life and Light weeps over your dying, darkness and death. So, at least be aware of your sinful condition and repent. Repent and believe the kingdom of God is at hand. The King with His wounded and blood-stained hands, and tear-stained cheeks, is NOW in your midst! This is the day of your salvation, rejoice and be glad in it and IN HIM!

   The pagan Sadducees and the heathen Pharisees, back then in Jerusalem in 30 AD and now in these last days, willfully and consciously rejected the things which “belong unto thy peace.” God is your peace for God the Trinity is PEACE incarnate in Christ the God/Man! Only the eyes of the Saints are opened by His tears of cleansing…not Visine or saline, or even Can-C, but the tears of Jesus—the Water of Life from the Rock of ages. Only by Grace and not works are you enlightened to know, and to receive the “things which belong unto thy peace.” These things are Jesus in His Word and in His Supper. These things, THIS JESUS has been given to you ever since He first “came near…beheld the city” at the Holy Font of your Baptism.  At your initial washing into His Body He wept over you and His tears, the Water from His riven side, cleansed you and brought you back to life.  This is given to you so that you don’t just “know it” but that you literally “have it.” You have God in you through your ears and through your mouth.  PEACE has come to dwell in you. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit because The Lamb of God is IN YOU…making you and all your brethren the New Jerusalem which comes down from above—the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!

    All sin. All die. All have tears and weeping…sooner or later. But you and your fellow Saints are saved for you have your sins forgiven in the Blood of the Lamb—the Blood and Water of Jesus.  The rejecting enemies of God will have the eternal enemies casting the trench of hades around them to compass them for all eternity in outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

   But you are rescued from perdition by He Who has visited you and continues to visit and indwell you. He came in time to obey and pay…to do and to suffer…to submit and to die.  He visited you in Washing and He visits you now in Preaching and Feasting. You and your children are safe under “the shadow of His wings.”

   Because not one stone of your trespass breaking was left standing, but all were laid upon His precious flesh, crushing the LIFE out of Him on the tree, the gates of hell have been ripped off their portal and you are free…and today again, home amongst the Company of Heaven and the Angels.

Esaias’ prophecy is now history: “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces.” [Is. 25.8]  And the Apocalypse of Saint John is now: “For The Lamb Which is in the midst of the throne shall feed [you] and shall lead [you] unto living fountains of water; and God shall wipe away all tears.” [Rev. 7.17]

   Your tears are dried by His hand which feeds you His Body and His Blood. Come now and receive His weeping of Joy over you—the cleansing flood of Grace.

In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost