In the Name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
At some point, if you’ve been around any Anglican setting long enough, you’ll occasionally find the preacher steering away from the appointed texts to focus instead on the appointed collect of the day. This is one of those days.
And it’s one of those days because the collect appointed for today – one of Archbishop Cranmer’s originals for the 1549 Prayer Book, by the way – deals with the most important topic of all: LOVE!
Cranmer based today’s collect, of course, on what St. Paul wrote about love in that great hymn to love in 1st Corinthians – when he concludes by saying, “Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” And that’s what today’s collect is dealing with – the greatest gift in the whole wide world: love. What it does and what it means.
Shall I just repeat today’s collect for those of you who joined us for the (5:45, 7:45, 9:15, 11:15) mass and missed the celebrant (say/sing) it? I’m also going to use modern English and ask for Archbishop Cranmer’s forgiveness:
O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I think the first thing we might say is that this collect is severe – even somber and scary in tone. And by severe I mean unembellished. By scary I mean intimidating. Whereas the most memorable (and perhaps our favourite) collects tend to be lofty and expansive, this collect is arresting and straightforward.
In short, according to Archbishop Cranmer, we either have the gift of love and we are therefore alive, or we lack love, which certainly means we can’t give it to others, so we are therefore dead.
If that’s too severe, how about this? Fred Barbee, the late editor of The Anglican Digest, is a bit more gentle. He writes, “What this collect wishes to say is that with love we are counted alive before God.”
But regardless of how you understand it, the natural anxiety basically boils down to this: “God do you love me?” and “Am I capable of loving others?”
And these questions have been the source of more mental, emotional, and spiritual struggles than I have time to describe in this little homily.
And most of the struggle actually comes from pride, of course, and wanting desperately somehow to measure up and qualify for this life-giving love.
Forgive me, but I’m thinking now of a silly example, but I think you’ll understand. I don’t know about you, but when I’m invited to a party (big or small), and the host says (in all seriousness, mind you), “Charleston, please don’t bring a thing,” my pride just simply will not allow it; I have to arrive with something in my hand, even if it’s a small token of thanks. One time the kids got into some gourmet popcorn on the way, so I had to show up and present the host with a half-eaten bag of popcorn!
Seriously, though, I think we do the same when we think about God’s love – whether we’re talking about receiving it or giving it. To receive it, we imagine we better at least show God something good we’ve done. And to give some love away, we think we’ve got to reach deep, deep down into some supposed reservoir, pull up some good feelings on cue and spray them all around like Lysol!
But I’m pretty sure that is not what Cranmer was describing when he wrote the collect appointed for today. In fact, I know it’s not.
Let me level with you. Each one of us is of infinite value to God. Each one of us is of infinite value to God. And God’s love is freely given to each of us; it’s never earned. This is the most basic, yet most profound thing, I will ever say to you.
God doesn’t give it because of who we or what we think we’ve accomplished, but because of who He is. C.S. Lewis, as always, says it so well, “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
And that’s what Cranmer is saying in today’s collect.
The real question – the real issue – becomes whether or not we’re open enough – vulnerable enough – to let down our guard enough to receive a little bit of that love so that we might then be able to give a little bit away to others.
If you’ve been resisting God’s love by thinking you’ve got to measure up or that you’ve done something so heinous that God is permanently displeased with you, the day has come to face the facts and be set free.
You know, Carl Jung really was right: “what you resist actually persists.”
St. Augustine was a famous member of that resistance; he was 32 when he finally took the plunge. In his Confessions, which I think is his seminal work, he describes it this way:
Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness…you called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.
Augustine said “late have I loved you.” He deeply regretted his resistance.
Don’t try to hide from God. Don’t run from God. He is a loving Father who longs to embrace you – to embrace me – to cleanse us and to give us new life. If you’re hiding, if you’re running, if you’re resisting, I beg you to please turn and run to God, and know the incredible, immeasurable, life-giving love that is found in Christ Jesus.
O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
7th Sunday after Epiphany
19 February 2017