On the Collect for Lent 2

By a happy coincidence, I was reading again yesterday in The Noonday Devil. Evagrius warns of the dangers of the logosmoi, the demonic thoughts which assault us. And here today we prayed:

O God, who seest that of ourselves we have no strength, keep us both outwardly and inwardly that we may be defended against all adversities which may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ, our Lord... (TLH)

This is something that we post-moderns have a hard time with, believing that thoughts themselves can assault and damage our inner life. We rather like the observation of Aristotle that the mark of an educated person is to be able to consider a thought without accepting it. But are there thoughts that are too hot to handle? Whose consideration cannot take place without damage being inflicted on us? We know in fact that there are.

Proverbs 6:27: Can a man take fire into his bosom and his clothes not be burned?

Yes, no matter how much we may not like it, we have to admit that there is such a thing as playing with fire. Allowing certain thoughts to take up residence within us can, in point of fact, damage us in our hidden, inner life, for these thoughts by their very nature war against divine love.

And so the prayer. It is a cry for help and in many ways an expansion of the prayer that the early Christians had on their lips constantly from Psalm 70:1. There’s a reason that the daily offices seem to include this all over the place as they begin.

Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord!

This is the prayer raised in the face of the assaulting thought that seeks to gain entrance and do its damage. God knows WE have no strength to fight this. But the strength He provides us is in His Word. When His Word inhabits us and we inhabit it, then the evil thoughts from the demons cannot gain their entrance. Oh, as we learned last week, Satan knows how to twist even the divine words to his own purposes, but we learned as well that answering him back with the divine words was the method of spiritual warfare in which our Lord triumphed. Against a Satanic twisting of Scripture, He simply cited Scripture. We are weak, but He is mighty. His words are strong.

When St. Paul urged us what to think about in Philippians 4, that’s above all an invitation to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. It’s not much different from what he was getting at in Colossians 3. And so the most deadly of the thoughts that assault us: acedia. This nasty bugger that wants to close our hearts and ears to the divine Word. This sloth and indolence in hearing the Word. This attack upon the very foundation of all godliness in our lives. This itch to do or move or think or check your phone or do anything but actually listen and pray. It is a thought. It assaults. It seeks to harm. We are weak. We are helpless. He is strong and His Word is mightier than their words.

To continue in the Word is the only thing that can expose the assault that we’re not even aware of; to continue in the Word will disclose the damage already done; to continue in the Word where we are exposed in all our fears and ugliness and yet where He graciously reveals Himself as more kind and loving than we ever dared to dream, and kind and loving to US, to ME. This is the battle against acedia, and only in the Son of God is it overcome. “Abide in me and I in you.” Then the evil thought cannot win the day.

“Give us help, O Lord, for vain is the help of man.” Psalm 108:12

An outstanding article

by Dr. Maas. Read it. You will be glad you did.

Law, Liberalism, and Luther: Beyond the Myths

Homily on James 1

Chapel 2.8.18

Invocation

Collect

Let us pray. Blessed Lord, since You have caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning, grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which You have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Psalm 1

Reading – James 1:19–25

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Homily

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You can’t help but wonder if James had heard Jesus deliver the Sermon on the Mount. It seems to lurk in the background a lot in his epistle. Jesus had spoken of those who hear his words and do them. He called them like wise men who build their house on a rock. Winds, storms, rain lashed it, but it stood. It stood through it all. It lasted. And the contrast, please note, is not with those who don’t hear his words. The contrast is exactly the one James makes: those who hear the words of Jesus but do not do what they hear. Just info. Just data stored in the memory or not, at least it passes through the mind for a while. Jesus says that hearing but not doing results in houses that come crashing down when the storms come; they’ve been built on sand. So this is a word NOT to those who never bother to darken the door of the church and hear the word, but to those who are always sitting in pews listening. It’s aimed at you. At me. 

Striking, then, that the first thing our reading today wants us to do is to be quick to listen and conversely slow to speak. Two ears. One mouth. There’s a reason. And the warning against the rush to anger which is the rush to judgment. Our getting angry, all worked up, never produces the righteousness that God is after, either in us or in others. So if we are to “do” the Word we hear there, we’ll slow down. We’ll pray God as we do in Evening Prayer: “Set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips.” Instead of being hasty with our mouths, we’ll stop and consider. Think how often in Proverbs God warns us against haste in our talking! Maybe James also remembered hearing Jesus say that for every idle word we utter we will have to give an account. 

Our words, our anger, they can’t do much. But God’s words are different. They can do a lot. So James urges you to be done with all filthiness and rampant wickedness and in its place receive with meekness the implanted Word and he tells you that this Word is able to save, to heal your souls. It CAN produce the righteousness God requires. Implanted. Coming from the outside in. Someone putting it there. So many ways it can happen. You here listening. Opening your Bible at home. One way I love to receive the implanted word is to listen to the Scriptures on audible come prelent or Lent each year. From start to finish, the words pour in and wash over you. I listen not just because it’s absolutely fascinating (it certainly can be!) or boring (if I hear about the long lob of the liver one more time in Leviticus, really?!), but because God’s made this promise about His Word. It can save me. It can save my soul. Yours too. It’s the actor and the doer first. And you only come to act after you have let it come to live inside me and do its job of giving you faith and trust. It plants divine life in you like a seed.That’s what it means to save you and heal you: to cause faith to grow up in you that you have been loved in Christ with a love that is vast and immeasurable. Through what you hear, by the Spirit’s might, you then hold tight to your Jesus. 

But, as He would say: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not DO what I say?” So imagine a conversation with my son back when he was a teen and planted in front of the computer playing games. “David, take out the trash.” And he says: “Got it, Dad. You want me to take out the trash!” And a half hour later, I notice David hasn’t moved and the trash is still sitting there. I say: “David, take OUT the trash.” If he were to pull the very sinful move Lutherans are prone to, he’d reply: “Ah, Dad. You’re right. I’m a dog. You told me to do it and I haven’t done it. I’m sorry.” Meanwhile, his eyes would be fixed on his computer game and he’d keep playing. “DAVID! TAKE out the trash now.” Finally, I might get through to him. You see, he was hearing, but he wasn’t doing. God wants you to do both. Hear and in the strength of what you hear, to do.

To have Jesus as your Lord is to let His Word shape and impel actions. Faith does that. Is affects how you live. Glues together what you hear with what you do. Example If I know that Jesus tells me “judge not and you will not be judged, condemn not and you will not be condemned”, and I dismiss His words with a “oh, well, everyone judges; you have to”, what good does that do? If I know that Jesus wants me to forgive those who hate me, to pray for them and bless them, and instead all I do is harbor grudges and anger in my heart, what good does that knowledge, that hearing, actually do?

James says when we hear, but don’t do, we’re like people with alzheimer’s glancing in a mirror and then immediately forgets what we saw, maybe even who we are. He contrasts it with the person who stares steadily into what he calls the perfect law of liberty, the finished law of freedom, and I’d argue that is JESUS, and that transforms the person from forgetful hearer to a doer who acts. 

So here’s my challenge to you as we prepare to enter this Lent. It’s a challenge to myself as well. What if we weren’t David. What if we gave up the excuses. What if we listened and took to heart everything Jesus says to us in His Word. And what if instead of treating that as mere information, we received it as marching orders from Him to whom we bow the knee as our Lord? What if we began to do what we hear. To stop talking about prayer and instead to pray. To stop talking about love, and instead love. To stop making excuses about fasting or giving, and instead to fast and to give. 

What if? I’ll tell what what if: we will end up being blessed. Blessed in our doing. Venturing out on the words of Jesus you won’t come out the losers. He ventured everything and trusted His Father and He is no loser. He triumphed from garden to cross to empty tomb. He triumphed because He heard and He obeyed. “Sacrifice and burnt offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear...  Lo, it is written of me in the book, I have come to do Thy will, O God.” That perfect keeping of the Father’s will He accomplished, that is your perfect righteousness AND it is also His standing invitation for you to join Him in His life. A life where you HEAR, receive the implanted word, and in its light DO. You will be blessed with Jesus. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hymn: #577 Almighty God, Your Word is Cast

Prayers: 

Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.

For meekness to receive the implanted Word that is able to save our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

For grace to do the Word that we have heard, let us pray to the Lord.

For hearts that long to gaze into the perfect law of liberty, let us pray to the Lord.

For forgiveness for every time we have treated God’s Word as information and not as the instructions and promises of our King, let us pray to the Lord.

For all who suffer in body, mind, or spirit, especially for Norman, Susan, Roger, Ruth, Allan, Jan and those we name in our hearts this day…., let us pray to the Lord.

For all who serve as military chaplains, and especially Joseph Watson, that they may sow the comfort of the precious Word into the hearts of our armed forces, let us pray to the Lord.

For every good and perfect gift which comes down from the Father of lights, who never changes, let us ask in the words that Christ Himself taught us, saying:

Our Father…

Benediction

A Prayer for Lent

As we prepare to enter the fast....

Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Word of the Father,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, the Word through whom all things were made,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, foretold by the prophets in signs and words,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, in the fullness of time conceived by the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Holy Virgin,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, hymned by the angels,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, adored by the shepherds,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, worshipped by the Magi,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, held by St. Simeon,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praised by St. Anna,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, obedient to your parents,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to a sinner's baptism,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, fasting in the wilderness,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, driving out demons,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, cleansing the lepers,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, teaching the precepts of the kingdom,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, raising the dead,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, walking on water and changing water into wine,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praised by the little children,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, riding into Your city as the sacrifice appointed,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, giving your body and blood to be eaten and drunk,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, praying in the garden,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, bound and mocked,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, stripped and beaten,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, innocently condemned to death,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, opening Your hands upon the cross to embrace the world,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, knowing the loneliness of our exile and our sin,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, trampling down death by death,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, pouring forth water and blood to save the world,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, sanctifying our graves by lying in a tomb,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, harrowing hell and releasing the prisoners,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, rising in victory over death and corruption,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, appearing to the disciples in the broken bread,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, ascending in triumph,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, High Priest who ever lives to intercede for us,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, coming on the clouds of glory to renew all things,
have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, dread Judge at the Last Day,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Pure Gold

Enjoy this goodie from Dr. Stephenson!

Presentation Homily