Second Sunday in Trinity

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As we discussed last Sunday, St. Augustine divides things into the real and the unreal with his description of two very different spiritual cities: The City of GOD and the Earthly City. In the City of GOD, people love GOD, and they are rich in deeds of love transacted on behalf of their neighbors. In the Earthly City, people are in love with themselves, and they live in such purposeful ways as to disconnect themselves from GOD and their neighbors. — St. Augustine makes the point that all that is really real and exemplifies true humanity, identity, and human purpose can only be found in the City of GOD, for that is where He, who is all in all, dwells. Anything that dwells apart from GOD is separated by a chasm of impenetrable and unscalable vastness; the likes of which, only the love of GOD can overcome. St. John says in our Epistle Lesson this morning: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3.14-15) — Only the love of GOD can overcome. — Only the love of GOD can carry us over from death into life. — Only the love of GOD can “deliver us from the power of darkness and translate us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1.13).   

Thus, once people have made their eternal decision as to which city they will dwell, move, and have their citizenship-being (either the city of loving one’s brother, or hating one’s brother and loving oneself more), then they have had their spiritual passport stamped, and they are approvingly registered on that city’s rolls. — And the crux of the matter, dear Church, is this: citizenship to either the City of GOD or the Earthly City is delicately balanced by GOD’s love, and our response to it. — Again, St. John says: “Everyone who loves is born of GOD and knows GOD. He who does not love, does not know GOD, for GOD is love” (1 John 4.7b-9).   

And it is not only the Apostle John who has this witness about citizenship in the City of GOD, but also Israel’s finest temporal king and bard. King David says in Psalm 15: “LORD, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? Or who shall rest upon thy holy hill? … [It is] he that hath used no deceit in his tongue, nor hast done evil to his neighbor, and hath not slandered his neighbor … [Rather], he that sweareth unto his neighbor, and disappointeth him not, though it were to his own hindrance. He that hath not given his money upon usury, nor taken reward against the innocent. Whoso doeth these things shall never fall” (Ps. 15. 1,3,5-7). — Likewise, in defense of his integrity towards the care of his neighbors, Job, the oldest, wisest, and most righteous man of Holy Scripture says: “If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hastened to deceit; let me be weighed in an even balance, that GOD may know my integrity … If I did despise the cause of my manservant or maidservant, when they contended with me; what then shall I do when GOD [judgeth the matter]? If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail; or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof also; If I have seen any [of my neighbors] perish for want of clothing, or any of my poor neighbors without covering … If I have lift up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw his need in the gate. Then let my arm fall from my shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone” (Job 31.5-6,13-14a,16-17,19,21-22).   

To say the least, GOD is very concerned with caring for one’s neighbor. — As we read last week in Deuteronomy 15, GOD said to Israel, “If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the LORD your GOD is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs … I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land’” (Deuteronomy 15.7-8,11b).  

Therefore, we should ask, what is it about our neighbors that is so important to GOD? Is it our neighbor himself, or is GOD trying to teach us something about Himself by the way and means in which we treat our neighbors? I mean, is it our neighbor that deserves our devotion because of the nature and essence of his character, or is it GOD who deserves our focus and devotion? — To answer this question, one theologian writes: When it comes to loving one’s neighbor and the rules and laws that coincide with GOD’s commands about our treatment of him, “The effect of them is to show that GOD is not merely concerned with external or mechanical obedience to rules for their own tyrannical sake; (viz. do what I say, because I said so; I am GOD). Rather, GOD wants to instill in us an ethos (character/culture) of intelligent, willing, and moral neighborly behavior that reflects His own character. He did this first in Israel, and now He is doing it in His Church.”¹  

In the treatment of our neighbor, we have the opportunity to reflect the Imago Dei (the Image of GOD). — For there was not a greater mar against GOD’s Image than by what man did to his neighbor in the very beginning. And now, GOD’s people, through their redemption in Christ, have an opportunity to redeem what was marred, setting neighborliness on a new transformed trajectory. We read: “And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (Genesis 4.8). — Yet, now, in Christ, we who have been and are being rehabilitated from the Fall in the Garden can proclaim the Gospel of Grace by the way we love one another. As JESUS said: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (St. John 13.35).  

You see, like the rich man in the parable about Lazarus, and Able’s brother, Cain, we once were resident-citizens of the Earthly City of self-indulgence, disassociating ourselves from GOD and from our neighbor. From GOD “We fled and, in losing Him, we lost our brother too; Each of us singly sought and claimed his own; each man his brother slew … [But now, if we love Christ, believe in Christ, and devote ourselves to following Christ, we can call out to Him] … Send us Your Spirit, [to] teach us Your truth — Pleading with Him, ‘O set us free from fancied wisdom, self-sought ways, to make us one in You.'”²   

Dear church, “we must realize that deep in the orientations of our spirit (created in the image and likeness of the Triune GOD), we cannot have one posture toward GOD and a different one toward other people. We are a whole being (again, created in the image and likeness of the Triune GOD), and our true character, thus, pervades everything we do. We cannot love GOD and hate other human beings. Thus, as Saint John says: “My dear children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed, and truth … For those who do not love their brother who is visible, cannot love GOD who is invisible (1 John 3.18; 4.20).”³  

Thus, brothers and sisters, let us today recognize that the Christian goal is constantly to move from the temporal and visible, to the spiritual and invisible – from the earthly to the heavenly – from life to death. — “For in times past, we walked according to the courses of this world, (dissociating ourselves from any love of GOD and our brothers); according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience … That at that time we were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel [and the City of GOD]; strangers from the covenants of promise; having no hope and without [GOD’s love] in the world. But now in Christ JESUS, we who were sometimes far off, have been made nigh by the Blood of Christ. For He is our peace…” (Ephesians 2.2,12-14a) We have passed from death to life – from the Earthly City to the City of GOD, because “we love one another, as He gave us commandment. And we who keepeth His commandment, dwelleth in Him, and He in us” (1 John 3.24). For “Christ delighteth to enter and dwell in that soul where love and charity ruleth; where peace and concord is seen, [known, and experienced].”⁴  

And what is our motivation to love our brothers; our neighbors as ourselves; to have Christ in our souls, dwelling; setting us free from fancied wisdom, self-sought ways, and making us one in Him? — Well, it should be because we long to be like Him, for we are born of Him through the Spirit’s Baptism – we are His children, and He has called us to reflect His Image in the world. As St. John puts it, “Herein is love, not that we loved GOD, but that He [first] loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins … Thus, this commandment we have from Him: ‘That he who loveth GOD, love his brother also” (1 John 4.10,21). “The Triune GOD’s character and behavior have become our moral example, and as Christians, we should want to follow His example.    

There is a favorite phrase in the Old Testament for how one ought to live in covenant relationship with GOD: ‘walking in the way of the LORD,’ or ‘walking according to the Spirit.’ Israel was called to walk (live) in GOD’s way, as distinct from the ways of other god’s, or of other nations (2 Kings 17.15), or in one’s own way (Is. 53.6), or in the way of sinners (Ps. 1.1), because of the way GOD treated, redeemed, and saved Israel.”⁵ — In the New Covenant Church, St. Paul reinforces GOD’s Old Covenant ethic when he says: “This I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh … If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5. 16,25).   

Thus, to obey GOD’s command, and to follow His ethic and model of love, the Church comes praying on this Trinity II Sunday with the Collect prayer: “Keep us, we beseech Thee, O GOD, under the protection of Thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thee.”⁶ The monumental superstructure of this Collect prayer, is of course, that we would have a perpetual fear and love of GOD; viz., that we would find our institutional and doctrinal understanding as a Body, in GOD’s ways, or as we have already said, in His ethic and model of love. That we would, in a sense, find His piloting of our lives and our hearts, more desirable, and fearing a self-indulgent and rudderless course, rather longing for the steadfast steerage of His Holy Spirit as Captain of our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies. That He would empower us to revere and obey Him. “For, the more ardently a man or woman loves God, the more profoundly they fear Him; by the action of one and the same muscle, the heart, two valves are opened: the valve of fear and the valve of love.”⁷ And through the beating of the heart in alive for GOD, the oxygenation of love for neighbor begins to animate the Christian soul, invigorating and empowering him to obey the Royal Law of Scripture: So, that He that sayeth that He love and fear GOD – he love his brother also.      

Brothers and sisters of GOD at St Mark’s, the New Covenant Church has accepted the call to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb; we have accepted the oracles of Christ, we “desire the pure milk of the Word” (1 Peter 2.2), and our bodies have been cleansed by His life-giving Body, and our souls washed through His sanctifying Blood. And today, being revealed in the fullness of His character and essence, GOD’s commandment to us is no different than it was to that of the ancient wilderness Church: “When you give a feast, invite you neighbors: the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. [And when that is done,] go out into the highways and hedges, and compel [all your neighbors] to come in, that my House may be filled … for on this mountain (the City of the Living GOD, the heavenly Jerusalem), the LORD of Hosts has made a feast for all peoples” (St. Luke 14.13,23; Isaiah 25.6a) — Thus, let us today, dear St. Mark’s, by faith in GOD and His love, unleash our Christian hearts to open both valves – the valve of the fear of GOD, and the valve of love of the brethren. In this way, not only loving our neighbors that are near, but also those that are far off, we will know that we have passed from death to life – that we have become citizens of the true and entered into what is real – even the City of GOD, the Heavenly Jerusalem. And all shall know that we are JESUS’ disciples, by the way we love one another. In the Name of the Trinity, whose revealed character is Love, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen! 

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1 Wright, Christopher J.H., Knowing JESUS through the Old Testament, (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2014), 197.  

2 Book of Common Praise, “In Adam we have all been one,” (Newport Beach: Anglican House Media Ministry Inc., 2017), 615.   

3 Willard, Dallas, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in GOD, (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishing, 1998, 232.  

4 Anglican Divines, The Book of Homilies, (London: The Prayer Book and Homily Society, 1852), 389.  

5 Wright, 200.   

6 1928 BCP, 191.  

7 Goulbourn, D.D., D.C.L., Eward M., Collects of the Day: An Exposition Critical and Devotional of the Collects Appointed at Communion, Volume II, (London, Longmans, Green, and Company, 1901), 17.