Basics of our Faith: We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible We believe in One Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, truly God and truly Man, only Son of the Father, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father We believe that we are redeemed by the oblation, sacrifice and satisfaction once for all made by our Lord Jesus We believe He rules in Heaven and will come again to judge the quick and the dead and that of His Kingdom there shall be no end We believe in the Holy Ghost, giver of life, who spoke by the Prophets We believe that the Church is the Body of Christ We believe that the sacraments are the visible and outward sign of their effective and inward grace We believe that we will be raised again and, if faithful and true to our Lord and His Word, we shall be saved
05 September, AD 2010 Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity “Walking God’s Way” INFSHG+  I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. (Gal 5:16)   The opening words of today’s extract from the epistle to the Galatians ring in our ears: I say then, “Walk in the Spirit!” St. Paul wastes no time in his exhortation. He gets right to his point. We are on a journey in this life and if we are going to find our way in life we are going to need a destination. If we have a destination, then we know in what direction we should travel. Mostly, in this life, we’re traveling from here to there and back again. We don’t really travel anywhere, just bounce from where we are to some place we need to be and then return. I call it commuting, even when it’s to a vacation spot. I’m going to leave here, go there and, far too quickly, I’m going to be coming back. And those are the fun trips. But there are some journeys that really do go somewhere. We can view our lives as one long journey in time from childhood through youth into adulthood and finally into old age. There will be signposts all along that way: you’ll poke your eye out, for instance or idle hands are the devil’s workshop or that way be dragons. If we really want to get from a happy childhood to a satisfied and contented old age, then we are well-advised to pay good attention to the signs along the way. People have been here before and have kindly pointed out the pitfalls and traps. The idea in life, at least as far as our bodies and minds are concerned, really boils down to clean living, gentle demeanor and kindly relations one to another. Don’t we often try to counsel each other as tenderly as we can when we see someone going wrong. They might not notice it themselves and perhaps a word to the wise will suffice. Perhaps, however, they have noticed and the path they have chosen is what they really want. Our words would fall on deaf ears then. It would not be a word to the wise and that is why we speak tenderly, so that we don’t overstep and disrespect our neighbor. After all, we are commanded to love our neighbor, whether we know them personally or not. That is the law of charity and is our highest calling in this life. But when all our life is said and done, we know in our hearts that this life is not all there is. We know without being able to really put our knowledge into words that we are here only as preparation. This life isn’t fair. There isn’t much justice to be had. Our enemies revile us all the day long; and they that are mad upon us are sworn together against us (cf. Ps. 102:8). We could well ask ourselves: if this is all there is, then why in the world am I bothering to try to be any kind of nice guy? Why shouldn’t I live to the fullest, do whatever comes to mind and take whatever comes to hand? What’s to stop me? What stops me is the awareness that I am not going to cease when this body dies. My soul will somehow continue and that continuation can go either of two ways. Either I can be at peace and be happy or I can be troubled and unhappy. And I see that there is no reason why that condition shouldn’t last forever and ever. Hence it must follow: we are on a journey that has no end. This life we now live is only the first leg of that journey. It looks like what we do, say and think now is going to have a very deep effect on what follows this life.So we could try to set up rules to live by. We would watch for all those signposts, take notes about each one, set up files and codices and cross-references. Draft constitutions and write up by-laws to put the constitutions into effect. Studiously we would examine our files and constitutions and by-laws, so we know them front to back, so we could recite them in our sleep. And then would come a day when we are presented with a dilemma. Our rules say “behave this way” and we are not supposed to transgress. But the situation calls for us to have to break our law. It may be we might have to take a life in order to save lives. If our law against killing is iron-clad and permits no exception, then do we let all those lives be lost, so we can say we’re obedient? It must be clear that the law does not save and that trying to enforce unbending discipline on our fragile bodies and minds will not redeem us. That is the signpost that begins to point us in the direction that will redeem us here and save us in the life to come.In this life, we are journeying from damnation to salvation. At birth, we are born without any connection to God the Father, nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. That connection is established by our baptism, when the natural man is washed away by the living water and the spiritual man is born within us. From that moment, we can travel on the journey to salvation. That journey will have its ups and downs, just as the natural life journey does. And, like the natural life, the one consisting only of the body and mind, there are things we need to learn and signposts to which we have to pay attention. We won’t know the way by guess and by golly. We are going to have to know where we’re going. We’ve got to know to exactly what destination we should point our feet. We have got to have a spiritual compass so we know in what direction that destination lies. That direction must be the Spirit of God. He says it flatly and he tells us why, just as flatly: “Ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” If we immerse ourselves in the Spirit of God, we will be lifted out of ourselves, drawn up from the valley of temptation we live in day to day and we will begin to glimpse the face of God. Just that glimpse will be enough, Paul suggests. All we need is the core instruction: bend our minds and our hearts and our souls to God and we will transcend the body and all the temptations the body is so prone to. But that instruction is mystical. We can hear the words and fashion a mental image of them, but only as if from afar. The image is bright, but it is not clear. There seems to be something wrong with our vision and what we’re trying to see is so distant. Here we are at “A”, which doesn’t look all that heavenly, though, thanks be to God, not that hellish either, and the great day of salvation is “B”, somewhere out there and despite what Paul tells us in his opening cry of joy that we really must walk to “B” we can’t see how to get there. We need to have this filled in. We want to be saved, to enjoy eternal salvation, but there looks like something to do first, something we must recognize. Again Paul wastes no time. As if he hears our unspoken question, he leaps directly to the explanation. Our spirits and our flesh have what the secularists would call ‘different agendas’. Our flesh is made for this world. It was intended to be the glorious vessel for a pure and holy soul, but our first parents marred that. The flesh was intended to be for this world and for the next, but their sin cancelled the next world connection. So, now our flesh is only for this world, at least in the form we have it. And what is the want of this world? It is to acquire, have and enjoy the things and experiences of this world. And while some of those things are decent and even beautiful, the best we can say about this world is that it exists for a while and then it passes away. Everything we have here and everything we experience are ours for a little time and then they fade into mist.  The worst we can say about this world is what Paul then proceeds to recount for us: all the ways we can ruthlessly and selfishly seek our own pleasure and satisfaction. Do we want ecstasy? Adultery and fornication rudely beckon. How about novelty, and the breaking of taboos? Well, uncleanness and lasciviousness are novel. Are we tired of bowing to God? Then we may set up idols we can worship in His place, little godlets we can easily contrive and merrily adore. And what do all these works of the flesh share in common? All these works of the flesh are expressions of pride. If the work is heresy, the action is to make up and teach lies about God. Why do it? Because the teacher thinks he knows more than all the faithful children of God have ever accepted about Him. Even if the heresy is being taught by mistake, it’s still a sin of pride to think that, after so long, one of us can come up with a doctrine that nobody recognized before. Or if the work is sedition, the action is to preach subversion of the lawful secular state, but the pride is to believe that we know better what should constitute our nation than those who gave so much to preserve and then establish it. Every item here is about pride, one way or another. But Paul gives us another list, too. He reminds us of the fruit (not works) of the Spirit. Here we have not actions but grace, the result of having walked in the Spirit. Paul doesn’t say so directly, but we can see that there is a clear order to how this sequence goes: (1) we recognize how full of pride we are, (2) we recognize that this pride leads us into every kind of sin and that all this sin involves us putting ourselves first, (3) we recognize that we must abandon this pride and give ourselves up, because if we abandon pride, then we actually free ourselves from the burden of wanting to make something startling, to draw such attention to ourselves, to have such power over other people, (4) we recognize that our pride has led us to think we can earn salvation, despite how clearly our Lord has told us this is not true, and finally, (5) that we give over trying to be good, as if reading our lines from a script or getting our marching orders from a protocol, but simply accept the Lord Jesus into our hearts and joyfully ask Him to move us along the path. He knows where we must go. He knows how we must live. He knows how to walk in His Spirit. That is what Paul is encouraging us to see: if we live in Christ, then He will lead us in the ways of His Spirit and away from the wrongful works of the flesh. He will guide us and we will inherit all the fruits of joy. We won’t have the momentary lusts of the moment, but we will be given the eternal gifts that God has in store for His faithful people, those people who don’t try to do good but who so allow God into their lives that He makes their lives a testament to goodness. And we will find that we not only don’t want the lusts of the moment, but that we never needed them.Let’s walk in God’s way, then. Let’s open our hearts to Jesus Christ, invite Him to abide in us and ask Him to pour His Holy Spirit upon us. He told us that the Spirit would lead us into all truth. We would know what to say, by His power, if we truly believed. By our faith we will be made whole. (cf. St. Luke 17:19) When we have Him in our hearts, then we hear Him more clearly and love His commands more truly. That is what prepares us for the promises He has made and the fruit He has offered.  +And now, unto God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might and majesty, power, dominion and glory, both this day and every day, world without end. Amen.