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The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
O God, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards thee, that we, loving thee in all things and above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
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Scripture citation(s): James 1:2-8,16-18
A Sermon by
Fr. Ritter
on
James 1:2-8,16-18
✛
God, the Giver of All Good and Perfect Gifts
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Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17).
What is the essence of God? What is God within himself? What is the fundamental character of God? Who is this God that our first lesson draws attention to, this God as he is known in his works? Is there a relationship between these two? This afternoon the author of the letter of James proclaims and reminds us that God the Father is the giver of all good gifts. Now, the logic of the New Testament and the early church fathers dictate that when the Father is mentioned, then the Son and the Holy Spirit are present as well. Therefore we can say, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God is the giver of all fully accomplished and completed gifts.
So how does this play out? First and foremost, God the Father gives the completed gift of his Son. Jesus in John’s Gospel affirms that all he possesses is from his Father. In John, the relationship Jesus has with the Father is defined by complete and mutual self-giving (16:15, 5:26). We see this relationship of self-giving throughout the Gospel and especially in the high priestly prayer of chapter 17. The apostle Paul speaks of the Father giving up the Son to the cross. Last Wednesday we celebrated the fourth century Bishop Athanasius, who wrote that God’s self-giving is in fact, the “essential mark of God’s divinity.” In short, self-giving is what makes God, God.
And because with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, then we must affirm that God’s self-giving to the Son is not a one off; it is not a one-time deal, we cannot say that this giving only happened once at the cross. Instead this self-giving is something that is happening all the time, eternally within the life of the Triune God. The self-giving of God the Father to Jesus the Son is total and complete, and likewise in turn, the Son returns what God has given him. The Son’s self-giving is described in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesuswho, because he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Because he was in the form of God, Jesus emptied himself taking the form of a servant. The life and death of Jesus the Son is defined and marked by self-giving of that which is essential. Jesus says in the twelfth chapter of John’s Gospel, “Truly, truly, I say to you, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
To begin with, Jesus is talking about himself. He is the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. It is Jesus who gives us his all, who gives up everything on the cross. Christ is used up by our endless need and he does it for our sake. But in that grain of wheat Jesus is also addressing us; he reminds us that death and resurrection is the way God works in this world. In a similar way Christ calls us to take up our cross and to deny ourselves. What does this mean, what does this look like? We have to say that because we are created in the image and likeness of this self-giving God, then self-giving is the definition of what it means to be human. When we give ourselves away we are truly human. When you love your neighbor as yourself, we are human. As one theologian writes, understood properly in the context of the triune God, self-giving, “self-expenditure is self-fulfillment.” And if we are following Jesus in this way then at some point the giving of ourselves will lead to our death. We are not God; we only have so much of ourselves; we only have a finite amount of time and stuff. But this is the outcome that God expects from his creatures. Indeed this is what it means to be a creature. To be a creature is to have a beginning and an end; to be a creature is to be in need and to know that we have a God, our Father, who brought us forth with his Word of truth and who is the giver of all good and perfect gifts.
