The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak

Trinity Church

Waltham, Massachusetts

Pentecost IV – 10 July 2011

Genesis 25:19-34, Psalm 119:105-112, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9

From the Book of Genesis:

Esau despised his birthright.

From Psalm 119:

The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from thy precepts. Thy testimonies are my heritage forever, yea, they are the joy of my heart.

From St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

The apostle wrote, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death… If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.

And From the Gospel According to St. Matthew:

After teaching the Parable of the Sower, Jesus concluded with these words; He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Let us pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,

Amen.

One might very well say that the Bible, in its entirety, is one great big proclamation from God to mankind in which God says, Listen up! Literally, from beginning to end, the Bible contains the accounts God speaking His Word to His people to get their attention to call, challenge, comfort, confront, direct, command, invite, judge, teach, instruct, inspire, correct, reprimand, encourage, lead, guide and warn His children from whom He has been alienated.

Scripture consistently teaches that the separation between God and man – the alienation of man from God – comes from us – not from Him. It comes because although God may say, Listen up! we so frequently do not.

Right from the beginning, God had spoken and told His first children, Adam and Eve, that the whole world belonged to them and that they could eat anything except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He said, Listen up, Adam! Listen up, Eve! You can eat anything but don’t eat of that tree.

But the serpent said, Don’t listen to Him. He didn’t really mean it. Here, have a taste – it’s good. Take a bit. He won’t mind. And besides you shall become as gods yourselves.  Well, you know the rest of the story. They ate. We fell. They listened to, heard and obeyed the wrong voice.

How much better it would have been if they had simply listened to and obeyed God.  Were they not conscious of the power of evil in the world? Perhaps not, although the commandment itself indicated the possibility of danger. The Psalmist knew of evil’s power and presence.  He sang, The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from thy precepts.

Now even as I say that God speaks but we fail to listen, I can think of exceptions when some or maybe even many actually do listen, hear and obey. Remember Jonah? God sent him to proclaim the divine Word to the City of Nineveh calling the people to repent and turn to the One True God. Now, Jonah himself listened to God and heard the Lord’s command. But he did not obey. He avoided doing what God had commanded, ran away as fast as he could, and only after he had been swallowed up by a giant fish and then coughed up did he decide to obey the Lord and do as commanded.

Jonah finally obeyed God. He called Nineveh to turn to God and the entire city listened, heard and obeyed.  Yet such as scenario is rare. Generally, the people may listen but if they listen they do not hear, that is, get the message.  And if they hear, they may very well not obey. Even when the people listen to God’s Word spoken through His prophets – men like Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and even John the Baptist – the people may listen, hear and sometimes obey only to ignore the Lord’s precepts at the first opportunity. Every evangelist – even men as successful as Billy Graham – have spoken about so many who have come to Christ only to depart soon after. They turn away, fall away or simply go away.

Scripture also tells us that God speaks to the whole world but speaks primarily through His chosen people.  He chose Abraham to be the father of many nations whose offspring would be so numerous as to be like the stars of the heavens. Abraham’s son, Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob would be the founding fathers – the patriarchs – through whom God would fulfill this promise.

A quick look at Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, tells us that he was a reluctant candidate for God’s work. Like Jonah, he was slow to do what God commanded. Like Jonah, he eventually did as he was instructed.  But right from the beginning he was more concerned about himself than about anyone else, seeking his own advantage, even over his brother, Esau.  Jacob took advantage of his older twin brother and wrangled the birthright from his him.

Now birthright means a lot less today that it did in previous generations.  In ancient times and for most of human history, the first-born son received the birthright – that is the right to claim the inheritance upon the father’s death.  Birthright not only involved property rights, it also meant that he who had the birthright had power and privilege. Others would owe him allegiance and obedience.

Now, I said that Jacob wrangled Esau’s birthright away from him. But it didn’t take much. Esau gave it up in exchange for a hot meal. Hence, scripture says, Esau despised his birthright.

            Now, it’s possible – and indicated in Scripture – that some people simply cannot hear when God speaks.  They do not have ears to hear.

             Jesus said as much when he taught about the nature of the Kingdom of God by speaking in parables.  When His disciples asked Him why he spoke in parables He said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Our Lord then quoted Isaiah who had said, and I paraphrase – that some will hear but never understand – see but never perceive – for they have closed their ears to God’s Word. They will never have the eyes to see the vision of His Kingdom.

The message given in the Parable of the Sower says the same thing. God’s Word is broadcast – spread out – all over the world. Some people are like the rocky ground and His word never takes hold. Others have shallow soil. The Word takes hold but when anything challenges it, they give it up.

And others are like fertile soil. God says, Listen up! and they do. They listen, they hear – they understand and they internalize God’s living Word and do not give it up. They listen, hear and obey. Like the Psalmist, they live by God’s precepts and His Word is the joy of their hearts. God’s Word is their heritage.  Unlike Esau, they will never exchange it for anything else.

Well, the more things change, the more they remain the same. We live today in just the same atmosphere, as did all previous generations.  Surely, far too many people today either ignore God’s voice when He says, Listen up! – or listen but do not understand – or listen and understand but do not obey. 

We live in a secular age, in a secular city. The faithful of previous generations have faded.  Their heritage – a kind of birthright for their children – has been discarded – given up for the approval of non-believers or because it’s just the thing to do right now. The wicked have set their snares and trapped so many who think of themselves as enlightened, modern and up to date.

One of he most enticing snares is that one that tells us in our generation that God’s Word cannot be true. So many who believe themselves to be enlightened will say, Times have changed. We need new solutions to new problems.  How can anything 2,000 or 3,000 years old have any relevance to our situation today? We know so much more.

            On those grounds, many people – and probably the majority in this part of the world – completely disregard the Bible, the accumulated and time tested wisdom and truth found on and in its pages and go their own way.  Amazingly, most of those who reject it or consider it irrelevant have never read it!  Having eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and convinced that they do indeed really know the difference between good and evil – well, they know that God’s Word is most certainly not definitive for the modern, open minded and well educated individual.  God’s Word simply does not stand up to Darwin’s word, Karl Marx’s word or the currently popular words of John Maynard Keynes.

How interesting. Darwin never determined the true origin of the species, Marxian economics have consistently failed and Keynesian theory bankrupts the nations. Yet the Bible’s wisdom and God’s commandments work every time they’re tried. And Christ’s saving power – well, there’s just no other.

Such individuals will say, They didn’t have computers 2,000 years ago. Neither did they have reliable birth control  – or convenient international travel – or access to the teachings of so many other great thinkers from other cultures and religions. Or the benefits of science, space exploration, or modern biology and chemistry. So how could anyone who lived 2,000 years ago have anything important to say to us in our generation? It’s just irrelevant.   

Rejecting the heritage of faith passed on to them as a kind of birthright, and having given it up for the approval of their unbelieving friends, they place their faith n failed ideas and false Messiahs. Deaf to God’s Word and blind to the vision of His kingdom, they either cannot or will not listen and see.  In their ignorance  – the ignorance that they call enlightenment – they judge God as irrelevant.  On the Last Day, He may very well judge them as they have judged Him.

Our job remains the same – to keep the faith that has been passed on to us as our heritage – to live our lives alive in God’s saving Word and to do so joyfully, courageously and without compromise.

Our best example remains St. Paul. When God said to him, Listen up! Paul listened.  When God asked him, Why do you persecute me? Paul had no good answer.  He heard God’s voice. He understood God’s message. And he dramatically changed. Yes, he listened, heard and obeyed.

St. Paul like the other original evangelists knew and proclaimed the saving power of God. Paul’s words are perfect when he wrote, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

            St. Paul knew the devices of this world, the world of the flesh. When he writes of the flesh we must not think just in terms of the physical body with its various desires and needs but of everything material in the fallen creation – everything from the human heart, mind, body and soul to the earth itself and the universe beyond.  So he wrote, For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh… those persons set on the material world without God – well, those people are indeed lost. Their minds are hostile to God.  They do not and cannot submit to God so they submit to sin and death. Incidentally that’s the only choice; one or the other. And they do so as if they were intelligent, have superior knowledge, insight and wisdom and that they have the secret to life.

But the secret is just this. There is no secret. The secret to life and to eternal life hung on a cross two thousand years ago when the incarnate God allowed the powers of sin and death to kill Him – but what those powers did not know was this – that in His death they would die and He would live – and even more than that, all those who believe in Him will live forever. That’s the secret that’s no secret at all.

So, Listen up! If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, grant to us ears to hear and eyes to see. Indwell in our hearts, minds, bodies and souls. Grant to us the courage to defend and proclaim our heritage of salvation that we may speak your truth to those who set for us and for all snares of entrapment. And grant that we may so live our lives that we will inherit eternal life

given in and in only in your Son,

our only Saviour,

Jesus Christ the Lord

Amen.

The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak
Trinity Church
†
Waltham, Massachusetts

Pentecost III – The Sacrament of Holy Communion
Independence Day Sunday

Song of Solomon 2:8-13, Psalm 45:10-17, Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

From the Song of Solomon:
My beloved speaks and says to me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

From St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
The apostle speaks for all of us when he confesses, I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

From the Gospel According to St. Matthew:
Jesus said, Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,
Amen. †

Very rarely do we find a passage from the Song of Solomon cited in the lectionary. The Song is most certainly a love song – one that many Biblical scholars have found slightly embarrassing for sometimes candid descriptions of carnal desire. Most of us would feel uncomfortable reading some parts in public. But all of us can relate to the delight that young lovers, a bridegroom and his bride, take in each other. Such delight is pretty much a universally shared experience.
The Song has traditionally been interpreted on two levels; the first being the celebration of the love that a bride and groom can share, and the second, a symbolic celebration of the love of God for His people, of Jesus Christ for His church. Both interpretations are valid – one does not supplant the other.
The church, from its earliest days, has been characterized as the bride of Christ and our Lord as the bridegroom. Hence, the relationship between Christ and His church is the highest form of holy matrimony – a holy marriage established on the self-sacrificing love of the groom for His bride. It’s a holy marriage that lasts not until death do us part but rather through death so that we will never part. It’s an eternal love relationship – for the Lord our God loves us perfectly and wants our love freely given in return.
This constitutes salvation’s love story; God’s love seeking our love. The perfect and most holy love of God for His people is the force of life itself that created us in the first place and will deliver us at the last moment when He says, says, Arise, my love, and come away….
God is love – perfect in power and the greatest of all powers. But we need to remember that although God is love, love is absolutely not God. We must never let love occupy God’s place in our hearts, minds or souls.
It often does in this world. It’s one of the most seductive forms of idolatry and one of the easiest into which one can fall. It always leads to heartbreak. For human love, however wonderful and glorious it may from time to time be, cannot save. Only God’s perfect holy love – the love that went to the cross – can save.
If we are honest with ourselves – and the Lord requires that confessional honesty – we know that we do not deserve His perfect saving love. We know our faults and failings exercised in and by our own free will.
Even St. Paul, an obvious saint in the highest sense of that word, fully recognized his own sinful nature. Part of the saving grace imparted to him was his ability to honestly declare that sinful nature with neither pretense nor excuse. He claimed to be among the worst of all sinners. And he wrote with absolute candor when he told the church in Rome that the right that he both knew to be right and that he wanted to do, he would not do and the evil that he deplored he would do. In goodness, evil is always close at hand. (Paraphrase) True for him. True for you. True for me.
The glory of God, then, is that He loves us – always has and always will. The glory of God is that His perfect love went to the cross because we both cannot and will not love perfectly and yet, deep in the souls of some – perhaps deep in the souls of many (NOT all) – is the powerful desire to love Him even as He has loved us.
His love is the most powerful force in and beyond the universe, perfect in goodness and the only power to which we should give ourselves or to which we should submit ourselves. In His perfect power, he will not force our obedience neither will He make us submit. He wants us to freely choose to love Him – simple as that.
Contrast that with the powers of this world – especially the political powers of this world that deceivingly claim to care about us and seek to take care of us – the ancient lie that evil always speaks – the ancient lie we’re hearing again even as I, and other preachers, speak from various pulpits across the country this morning about the birth of this exceptional nation.
The great lie whose purpose is not liberty and freedom but domination and control – the seductive lie that says, Give yourself to me and I will take care of you. These kinds of politicians are like the deceptive lover – the cad or the gold digger – who deceives, abuses and steals to get what he or she wants and damages, discards or yes, even destroys, the one for whom they had declared love.
Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of the United States of America, the birth of a nation totally unique in all of human history including present human history. No other nation has ever existed like this one – no other nation currently exists comparable to this one.
Any other nation that has prospered and in which the citizens have enjoyed freedom derive from the example of this nation and the free markets that we have established in this world. We are totally unique. And for all of our faults, we have been a greater force for freedom, prosperity and general goodness that any other nation at any other time – in all of human history.
I will be bold enough to say that the founding of this nation is a part of the divine love story every bit as much as was the deliverance of the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. The One True God moves in human history. He did not created the world and depart. He has always taken an active part in each individual’s life and in the lives of nations.
This nation did not come about spontaneously. It arose out of the divine inspiration in the hearts and minds of the Founding Fathers – all sinners – all men capable, like St. Paul, of both good and evil – of righteousness and sin – yet called at one point in human history to risk all that they had and all that they were to do what God wanted them to do – establish the first nation in the history of man that limited government’s power, that valued the people over and above the government and that held government accountable to the people. Even as elected persons have sworn to uphold the constitution, they have undermined it. Even as they vow to serve the people, they seek the service of the people. They ignore the founding principles.
These governmental principles have held until is the last few years. We have reached a turning point in human history. Over the last few years, slowly, incrementally, bit by bit and piece by piece, the government, through both deception and false promises, has taken more and more power for itself and away from us.
Claiming compassion and that they will take care of us, we have been foolish enough to believe in them – yes, to place our faith in them – our faith belonging exclusively to God but yet we violate that faith covenant to make a deal with deceivers. We have given too much of ourselves to corrupt powers. And the powers of this world in every nation and at all times are always corrupt. That’s why the Founders limited government’s power and made the government accountable to the people.
Our Lord and Savior said, Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you for my burden is light. Contrast this with the other powers who burden us to the breaking point and give us rest only when they have used us up and literally cast us off. That is the story of most people, in most places, in most of human history.
Examples of the government’s disregard for our essential human dignity, value and worth abound. Currently. Government policy is to treat every traveler as a terrorist rather than to profile those whom we know to be the most likely suspects. Claiming that they are doing it for our own good, 95 year old grandmothers find themselves literally personally exposed in abject humiliation and little girls as well. No citizen – male or female – young or old – should ever be violated in this manner. Yet, I am consistently amazed at so many who not only comply with but actually endorse such a personal invasion.
The government has literally laid claim to access to every citizen’s most private parts. From their perspective, no one has any right to even this most personal aspect of privacy. The worst part of this is that we have allowed them to do this.
To the best of my knowledge, no other nation uses this invasive procedure. And those nations that use criminal and suspect profiling have the longest and best track record of air safety. Witness the nation of Israel. And, bringing it home to you and men right here in our own city, the demand for criminal background checks on church volunteers to sell popcorn on the Fourth of July is just one more tiny example of ever increasing invasiveness and intimidation. Shame on them. Shame on us.
The test for integrity is always personal. For example, let’s look at those who demand the redistribution of wealth. Those who demand this redistribution of wealth must redistribute their own wealth first. Integrity. They, of course, will never do that.
We have seen that those who demand redistribution – a socialist principle implemented over and over and over again in history with a perfect record of failure – those who advocate it acquire ever increasing personal wealth. As they take our money, they keep the largest amounts for themselves and their friends before the tiniest amount goes to the poor whom they claim to protect.
Again, this happens every time it’s tried. Never has this had any other result except the exploitation of the citizen. Witness the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and any other socialist dictatorship. The only prosperity in any of these countries comes from the occasional opportunity to participate in free market capitalism outside of the socialist economy.
At some point I will preach a sermon that shows how free markets represent righteousness. In preparation for that sermon, I recommend reading John Calvin; but more than that, I recommend reading the Bible. It’s all there.
When our politicians divest themselves of their wealth – as have so many Christian saints throughout history – witnesses most recently Mother Teresa – not until they have impoverished themselves first should we give them a hearing. And with that hearing our job is to proclaim the principles – the Biblical principles – of our Founders and say, No! Remember, we, the citizens, employ them to serve us. In the USA, government is NOT the master. The citizens are.
Politicians do not love us. God loves us. Power politicians seek to eat us up and drain us of our time, energy, resources and wealth. (Nothing new in human history. Again, read your Bibles.) They claim loving compassion. But they lie.
God gives Himself up for us – He goes to the cross for us – and calls us to feed on Him even as the powers of this world feed on us. His broken body and shed blood prove His love. No one else – nothing else – is worthy of our love and devotion. So, Arise my love and come to His table – the wedding feast prepared for the Bride of Christ in His perfect love.

Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, at this most crucial time in human history, we pray that your hand will move powerfully to protect us from the powers that do not love. Us. Give us eyes to see your Truth and ears to hear your saving Word. And grant that, obedient to you and submitting to your righteous will, we will be forever free.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ,
the bridegroom
and only Saviur of the whole world.
Amen. †