Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

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Today, I’ve been inspired to deliver my very first hellfire-and-brimstone homily. Yet, having never delivered such a homily to a congregation, I am not sure this will be what you would expect of a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon. Yet fear not; I will not be yelling or over-articulating with my hands. Solomon says in Proverbs 10:8, “The wise in heart will receive commandments: but a prating fool shall fall.” And Saint James in his epistle, chapter three, verse seventeen says, “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” — Thus, let me begin by saying that I trust you are wise in heart, and thus I will not prattle like a fool about some topic that is of no importance to you (though I hope this one is or will become important to you). Even though we might label it a homily about hellfire and brimstone, if the wisdom of it is from above, it will be pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to entreat or engage, proving to be merciful, bearing good fruit, and without partiality or hypocrisy. — In a word, from GOD. — I will leave you to be the judge of that.  

My first inspiration for this hellfire and brimstone sermon comes from the words of Saint Antonii, a 4th-century Church Father, who some credit with being the father of monasticism. Saint Antonii was one of the first, if not the first, abbots of a monastery in Egypt.  Abbot Antoii writes: “Brethren, the Prophet Isaiah says: But to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is poor and little and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my words” (Isaiah 62:2)? And in the Gospel the Lord says the same: Learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart; and you shall find rest to your souls (Saint Matthew 11:29). He, therefore, who has gained humility, has already become a dwelling place of the Most High GOD; and has attained to sublimity of soul, to the love of innocence, to peace and to charity. Come then, dispose your heart towards humility, and do not walk in the company of devils in pride of heart. For GOD and His angels and saints turn away from the proud in heart. Whosoever therefore walks in the pride of his own heart, is an associate of demons.”¹  

Saint Antonii draws a deep line in the sand by saying that whosoever is not pursuing intimacy with GOD through humility, he is instead seeking peace with the devil through pride. — JESUS makes it plain that rest in GOD for our souls comes by mimicking Him; not mimicking the devil. JESUS says, be meek like me and humble your heart like me. Of course, if we believe upon that which the LORD claimed, that He is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who took upon Him the fullness of human likeness, the idea of our GOD making Himself meek and humble should startle our attention awake. It should get us asking, ‘why?’  

The Bible teaches that while on earth, the LORD JESUS did not even think His essence as GOD was something to be held in possession after His Incarnation; that is, after His taking on manhood. “Without ceasing to be GOD, JESUS was willing to lay aside any part of His glory in the Godhead. This is stunning, and a stark contrast from Adam in what we know from Genesis 3, where Adam yielded to the temptation to proudly and wrongfully seize upon that which he thought would make him like ‘GOD’.² The second Adam, JESUS, compared to the first Adam of the Garden, did not see equality with GOD as something to be grasped but became meek for our sakes. So meek, Saint Paul tells us, that JESUS was even willing through meekness of heart, “to humble Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross” (Philippians 2:8). And He did this for you and for me – for our salvation, which in no way was He obliged to do. — Then, certainly with the highest and most undoubtable moral authority, JESUS says, ‘Learn of me.’ Learn of Me My attitude of demeanor and my character. If you do so, you will attain sublimity of soul and you will become the dwelling place of the Most High GOD.  

To do otherwise and to be like Adam in the Garden is to ally yourself with the demons and associate yourself with the pride of Satan. “And because of the pride of heart,” says Saint Antonii, “the heavens were bowed down, the foundations of the earth were shaken, the deeps of the sea were troubled, and angels were cast down from glory and became demons, because of their pride of heart. Because of this, the ALMIGHTY was angered and caused fire to come forth from the abyss; waves arising as a sea of fire (Numbers 16). Because of the pride of heart, GOD made Gehenna, the Lake of Fire and its torments. Because of the pride of heart, bonds were made and scourges deployed, in which the devil, and those like him, are tormented because of the pride of their hearts.”³ The truth is, friends, we are called to seize upon one heart condition and reject another (to be like JESUS and not like Satan). The oil on canvas painting by Mr. Joel Rea is the second inspiration I had to deliver this hell-fire-and-brimstone homily today.  

Mr. Rea, an Australian surrealist painter, “shows us a businessman, preoccupied, with papers scattered everywhere, while he is standing, humbly in front of the powers of nature – the powers of GOD. A striking image juxtaposing sea and man; man, and nature; a man, exalted in his dress and demeanor, staring at a power that will humble him.”⁴ This image really casts it plainly before us, doesn’t it? Man must understand of his limitations. No matter how well educated, cultured, respected, feared, endowed, or strong, man’s pride before GOD is as powerless as man’s ability to avoid the crushing energy of a tidal wave. — It is in human nature to approach life as though we control all – as if we can be mastered by none — as if wearing an expensive suit will hide all our human haughtiness and protect us from being swept out to the merciless deep of the torrents of the tsunami of our pride. Like a man come for an interview, ignoring the strewn papers, the evidence of shipwreck, of proud men who came to the edge of the sea of obtuseness before and were humbled by the crushing speed and power of GOD’s abasing spiritual surf. Today, we pray to the LORD that His grace might always prevent or go before us, as well as follow behind us, that we may be kept continually from the downfall of pride. The wisdom of the ages calls out: “A man’s pride will bring him low, but the humble in spirit will retain honor” (Proverbs 29:23). — Joel Rea’s painting is a screaming warning to us, not to glibly scoff before GOD with pride. For the Bible warns: “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Saint Luke 14:11). — JESUS makes this plain in today’s Gospel Lesson; the third and final inspiration for my hell-fire-and-brimstone sermon today.  

The Pharisees had come to a tipping point. Their ire towards the LORD was climaxing such that JESUS had told them they were workers of iniquity and that they should not come and sit down in the Kingdom of GOD. (cf. Lk. 13:27-29). In fact, JESUS had told them that GOD would shortly abandon them, leaving their house (the Temple) desolate. — Upon entering the house of one of these Pharisees to participate in a meal, JESUS mounts up like a giant wave to crash upon these high-minded religious leaders in their fancy robes and tassels to abase them. — Already very unimpressed with JESUS, they looked upon Him to test Him and to validate their scorn for Him for His scorn of their religious tests. A man with dropsy or edema had made his way into the home, uninvited, and JESUS acknowledges him, that He might heal the man. JESUS asks the Pharisees, who, because of their status, would have thought themselves superior to the sick man; obviously sick, they believed, because of some egregious unspoken sin. JESUS’ engagement with the man would have helped to raise the Pharisees’ disdain for Him to an even higher pitch. Yet being the LORD of the Sabbath and having declared in another place that the Sabbath was for mankind, and not mankind for the Sabbath, JESUS heals the man swollen with excess fluids under his skin.  

“The miracle aroused the anger of the suspicious and hostile religious community in Jerusalem because it was performed on the Sabbath. Yet JESUS claimed that His action was no different in principle from rescuing an animal, which each of the Pharisees would do if it had fallen into a pit.”⁵ So JESUS takes the opportunity to humble these men with an illustration taken from the context of a wedding feast. In such a feast in ancient Israel, guests to the banquet would have been seated closer or further from the master of the banquet based upon their rank and importance in relation to him. And in JESUS’ parable, a man enters the banquet and seats himself in a high position in the pecking order of seats. Having come early while the more esteemed guests would have arrived later, as was the custom, the man played his hand much more highly than he should have; his pair of aces was about to be trumped by a royal flush.  

Not only did the man take a seat that was not his to take – that it he took, pridefully, a position that the Master of the Banquet did not afford to him. The Master, JESUS describes, went to the man and told him to take a lower seat. This he did when all of the guests had arrived, meaning that he had taken the highest place of honor, though it was not his to fancy. — The interpretation is clear. The Pharisees had taken seats much higher in the Kingdom of GOD on earth than they deserved. They deserved not their positions, for they, like Adam, had yielded to the temptation to proudly and wrongfully seize upon that which they thought would make them like ‘GOD’: hubris – position – acclaim – laud and honor. — JESUS was telling the Pharisees and those in their party that the man with edema, with dropsy, was worthier of a higher seat than they in the Kingdom of GOD, and would receive it, because he trusted JESUS to be the LORD of the Sabbath, where the Pharisees deemed JESUS a profaner of the Sabbath. — The clearest point, my friends, is what Abbot Antonii says: “The pride of heart of men is unclean before GOD: but hearts that are humble and contrite the LORD will not despise.”⁶  

I hope you see my point – the Bible’s point – JESUS’ point – GOD’s point (and this is the zing of this hellfire and brimstone sermon): pride is a deadly issue in the human condition and experience; it cannot be brushed aside – it is an issue of Heaven or Hell. –“Pride [superbia] is so called because a man thereby aims higher than he is; wherefore Saint Isidore of Seville in the 6th century said (Etym. x): ‘A man is said to be proud, because he wishes to appear above (super) what he really is’; for he who wishes to overstep beyond what he is, is proud. Now, right reason requires that every man’s will should tend to that which is proportionate to him. — Pride denotes something opposed to right reason, and this shows it to have the character of sin, because according to Greek philosophy (Dionysius – Div. Nom. iv, 4), ‘the soul’s evil is to be opposed to reason.'”⁷ And if the soul is evil, the soul is mad against GOD and one’s neighbor. — An unreasonable, mad soul is proud, and “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” so says Solomon in Proverbs 16:14. — And he would know.  

Thus, besides praying that GOD will prevent and follow after us, so that we might, joyfully and humbly, be given to all good works, we must learn to reject that which caused bonds and scourges to be made so that they might torment the devil, and those like him, because of their unreasonably mad pride of heart. Because of pride of heart, the abyss of hell was made, as were the worms that do not die or sleep (Mk. ix. 45) … Because of pride of heart all things are troubled and thrown into disorder; because of pride of heart, men war against each other, and against their GOD and Creator.”⁸  

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes that pride is rebellion against GOD, and if we are proud in this sense, we need to lay down our arms and surrender. Lewis writes that: “Laying down your arms and surrendering is saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over on the ground floor – that is the only way out of the ‘hole of pride of heart’ … This is what Christians call repentance, and repentance is no fun at all…for the proud man or woman. It is much harder than eating ‘humble pie.’ It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into our entire lives. It means killing part of yourself and undergoing a kind of death.”⁹ It is a spiritual death on the cross you are called to bear, wherein you ‘die, before you die,’ as one theologian has said. (c.f. German theologian, Richard Rohr) And if you are willing and wanting to mount your cross and die before you die, you are even closer to gaining humility, becoming a dwelling place of the Most High GOD, and attaining to the sublimity of soul, where GOD’s peace passes all understanding, as Saint Antonii said.  

How do you know if you have pride in your heart? — Pride in someone else’s heart irritates you. — C.S. Lewis says that the easiest way to know if you have pride in your heart is to ask yourself: “‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or take any notice of me, or shove their oar in where mine is supposed to row, or patronize me, or show off in front of me?’ The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed that someone else was the big noise.”¹⁰  

This is what pride is, what its results are, and how you can identify it yourself. Yet now, if we are willing to kill pride in us, how do we become cured of it? — Truly, only JESUS can cure one of one’s pride. – We must first take on Him; for He said: ‘Learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart; and you shall find rest to your souls.’ — Brothers and sisters of Saint Mark’s, let us then learn of JESUS – let us follow Him – let us walk in His ways, so that like Him, we will not see equality with GOD as something to be grasped. By rejecting pride, for His sake, we will not walk with devils, but instead, we will accept “GOD’s hidden action in the weakness, ordinariness and unsatisfactoriness of our own everyday lives. For His sake, we will accept our own incompleteness, that He may make us complete in His own way … And for His sake, we will, for humility’s sake, we will completely renounce all the worry and agitation with which we strive to hide our limitations from ourselves, disguising our faults from the world as virtues … because we are too proud to do otherwise.  

If you take the highest seat at the banquet, that is, if you consider yourself to be the most important person – the most exalted man or woman in the room – if this is your perspective, be wary of the big surf, for the enormous wave of truth is about to smash into you at 500 miles per hour, despite your beautiful and expensive Italian suit. — ‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ … LORD, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always prevent and follow us…Amen.  

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1-3 LectionaryCentral.com. Trinity Seventeen: “On Humility and Deceit by Saint Antonii, Abbot and Egyptian Church Father.” Accessed 23 September 2026. www.LectionaryCentral.com/trinity17/Antony.html.  

4 ChristianArtDaily.com. “The Man who humbles himself”. Accessed 24 September 2026. https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/luke-14-17-14-2019.  

5 Carson, D.A., R.T. France, J.A. Motyer, and G.J. Wenham, editors, The New Bible Commentary, (Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 1994), 1004.  

6 LectionaryCentral.com. “On Humility and Deceit by Saint Antonii, Abbot and Egyptian Church Father.” 

7 drbo.org. “Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas.” Accessed 25 September 2026. https://www.drbo.org/summa/question/39501.htm.  

8 LectionaryCentral.com. “On Humility and Deceit by Saint Antonii, Abbot and Egyptian Church Father.”  

9-10 Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1960), 45.