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The Second Sunday In Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): Jeremiah 1:1-10; Romans 6:3-14
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Jeremiah 1:1-10; Romans 6:3-14
✛
Lenten Feast
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And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. Jer 1.9
Is it so far-fetched to suggest that when the Lord places his word in the prophet’s mouth, that God is feeding his servant? The word of God has long been likened to food. From the prophets like Jeremiah who, as we just heard, had the word placed in his mouth, to Ezekiel, who envisions himself eating a scroll containing the word of God, to Saint John, who in his revelation, eats a small book from an angel’s hand: God’s word is consumed like food.
Then there are the images set forth by Jesus Christ when he compares God’s word and will to food and drink. “It is written, that Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Matt 4.4 “My food is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” John 4.34
But even more remarkable are the images that Jesus uses for his own body as food and drink. “For the bread of God is he that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” John 6.33 “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6.35 These few words are taken from a long discourse in the sixth chapter of the gospel of John in which Jesus continues to expand and elaborate on his flesh and blood being food and drink for the world.
This idea finds its full fruition in his institution of the Eucharist when at supper Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take eat. This is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Matt 26.26-28 This is all the more remarkable when we remember that John has called Jesus the Word made flesh, and now the word commends his flesh to us as food.
So, whether proceeding from God’s mouth or the word made flesh, God’s word is meant to be food for us humans. That’s a lot of eating and drinking. I would suggest that it is more than eating, it is feasting, and it is commended to us by none other than our Lord Jesus Christ.
But, we find ourselves having just begun the season of Lent, and we have been invited by the church to observe this season with fasting and prayer and alms giving. What gives? Why are we fasting when our Lord Jesus commends a feast?
It is because we don’t have good appetites: not good enough to eat the feast Jesus sets before us. We think we do. It’s dog eat dog out there. You better get yours and wolf it down now, or someone else is going in there ahead of you. It’s eat or be eaten. So we gorge ourselves on money, sex, power, clothes, even on one another. We think we are epic feasters. But we’re not.
We’re more like dogs who curl up in a corner near the table and gnaw on old bones. There’s no meat on those bones; they’re as dry as dust. But we crack our teeth on them, gnawing on the old bone of greed, lust, envy, lying, gluttony, spite….
And let anybody reach down to take that old bone away from you, and you’ll show your teeth, we growl, snap and bite. You don’t take away a dog’s bone, when he’s feasting. But that’s not feasting; heck that’s not even eating.
Eating is what goes on at the table. And seated around that table are human beings. And at the head of table sits the perfect human being, Jesus Christ who has searched the highways and byways for anyone and everyone who will accept his invitation to feast with him.
In the face of such an invitation, why do we gnaw on old bones? We might say, I’m too sick to come to the table. So we have to remember that Jesus came as a physician healing the sick. Or we might say, I’ve been curled up over this bone so long, I’m too lame to come to the table. And we remember that Jesus makes the lame to get up and walk. Or we might say, I can’t see the way to get to the table or I can’t even hear the invitation to feast any more. And Jesus can give you sight and he will unstop your ears so that you can hear his voice. And if you say, it’s too late I’m as good as dead, well Jesus can call you out of death and lead you to new life.
We gnaw on old bones because we are forgetful. We forget that we are dead to that old churlish life of sin. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have shared in his death?
We died when Jesus died, and we have been to the tomb; that old whitewashed tomb full of dead men’s bones. But when Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God, we were raised up too so that we can walk into a new life. If you have died to Christ, then you are dead to sin. Sin need not have dominion over you anymore. The death Jesus died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Which means you can stop living like you are deaf, dumb, lame, blind or dead. You can take your place at the table. You can feast with the saints of God; the ones who have given up gnawing on old bones.
The church commends fasting in Lent because it’s as good a time as any to give up gnawing on old bones. The church commends fasting in lent to work up your appetite for real food.
The Lord has set a table before you and on it lay heaps of mercy, great brimming bowls of righteousness, mountains of forgiveness, an overflowing abundance of grace, life and truth, and there is an ocean of love to be drunk. And at the center of the feast is a lamb; the lamb is delicious, the lamb is good. “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1.29
Therefore, let us keep the feast.
