Bishop Ogles’ and
Rev Jack Arnold’s Sermons – First Sunday after Trinity
Today Bishop Jerry and
Rev Jack are traveling back today from their trip to Serbia, Macedonia and
France visiting AOC parishes in
each of the countries. They were
teaching, preaching, visiting and in the case of Bishop Jerry even confirming,
ordaining and consecrating!
They likely have preached some
fine some sermons during their trip, but they have not filtered back here. As this is written they are close to
landing in Atlanta, where they each change planes for their respective home airports arriving at evening meal time in their time zones. Pray for their safe return to their
homes in peace.
Sermon – Reverend Hap Arnold - Time and
Action
Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California
Today’s sermon brought
the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the
forewords above.
Consider these words from the
Collect:
… the strength
of all those who put their trust in thee; … through the weakness of our mortal
nature, we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace,
that in keeping thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed…
This is a little longer Collect
than usual, but in it we acknowledge that God is the source of our strength, as
we are weak and cannot do any true good without His Help; thus we ask His help
or grace to do His Will in both in our thoughts and actions.
And, what is the first action we are to take? To love one another. Saint John pointed out if we do not
love our fellow creatures here on earth whom we have seen and touched, how then
can we claim to have love for God, whom not one of us have seen? We then cannot love God if we cannot
love our fellow humans, no matter how far they have strayed from His path, we
are still to love them and offer them help and help others. Jesus came to
serve, as the ultimate Servant, so must we be also.
We must to truly love individuals. For many of us, the first step is to
stop hating them, for if love is the epitome of good, hate is the nadir of
evil. Hate is a truly bad thing
for us, it is all consuming and all destroying. First stop hating, hate no person. No one is evil enough to justify your hating them. There are many people whose removal
from this world would be a benefit to the world, that does not mean you should
hate them. You can feel sad for
them, depending on circumstances you may be justified in sending them out of
this world. Do not hate. Do not condemn to Hell. That is God’s job, not yours.
Loving does not mean approval of acts which are sinful and
harmful to one’s health, spiritual or physical. We cannot condone smoking or
homosexual acts or abortion. Though we may know individuals who do these
things, we must despise the sin, but realize these people, no matter how truly
fallen they may be (remember, some are worse than others, but none are better.
As St. Paul says, all fall short.), are people created in the express image of
God by God. It is our duty to attempt to shine the light of Christ for them,
that they might see their inner darkness and return to Him.
However, if they are not receptive, then we must not force
it upon them, as do not cast your pearls before swine, but merely shake your
feet off and walk way. You never know what seeds you plant in your interactions
with unbelievers or lapsed Christians which in the end may serve to guide them
on or back to the path leading upward and inward to God’s country.
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love.”
God loved us so much He sent His only Son to die for our
sins. That is true love. Not that we love Him, but that first He
loved us! So, if God first loved
us, ought we also not love each other?
No one has seen God at any time.
Yet, He loves us and we say we love Him. If we do love one another, then God is in us, the Holy
Ghost, and we are in Him. Be bold,
the world will end some time, for each of us it ends when we leave here. Fear not, trust in God and dread
naught.
Do not be afraid to love one another, regardless of what
any man says. Do not fear man, only fear God, the great Judge, and Jesus the
Advocate, and the Spirit, the Purifier, Guiding Light. Man can do nothing worse
to us than what God can do. And yet, God still loves us despite all our faults
and having been condemned to death since the beginning of creation with the fall
of Adam and Eve in the Garden. God
and His love will keep fear and the damage it does at bay. Love each other and act on that love.
To love one another and act
on that love. To consider the ways
we might help others and then actually
help them. It is not a question of
giving, but helping. The rich man
could have helped Lazarus, but it never entered his head. The rich man, like
many of us sadly, only thought of himself. Jesus illustrates perfectly in this
parable what happens when we only think of ourselves and do not help others or
think of others even. The rich man could have thought of poor Lazarus and given
him a place to stay and food to eat and paid for it, like the Good Samaritan.
Instead, he just let him die, figuring that that was the end of him. It turns
out he was wrong and soon the tables would be reversed. Lazarus was a rather disgusting feature
of his world and when he died, the rich man was pleased not to have to pass by
him. Yet, it never entered into
his head to help.
How is that possible?
Simple, his eye was not on the donut, but on the
hole. The rich man cared about all
the things that don’t count and never considered those that do. Which is, as
said earlier, a problem at all of us face at one time or another due to our
very nature of being sinful beings. We tend to get caught up in school, work or pleasure and
everything in between and forget to tend to our spiritual health and as you
neglect a plant by not watering it and nurturing it, if you so neglect your soul,
you will have a horrible death. However, if you nurture and water your soul by
the Scriptures and allow yourself to be guided by the Holy Ghost, you will have
an absolutely wonderful life from now to eternity, after all if you have
eternal life it starts NOW, not tomorrow.
For indeed, tomorrow never comes.
It must be understood between heaven and hell there is a
great gulf fixed. It is equally
important to grasp the gulf is not of God’s making but ours. It is us who keeps us from the heaven
He offers freely, yet at a great price.
Put your trust in God and dread naught. Love those around you and act on that love. It does not matter if they are the same
religion as you, but you still must love and act towards them all the
same. That does not mean baring
your throat to the Koran following Muslims; but it does mean treating them with
kindness and charity until you must act to defend you and your way of life from
them. They deserve pity, for as
they follow Allah, that is the Devil, as Christ said “They know not what they
do.” Think how you can help, not how you can “enjoy” life. Helping does not mean simply giving
money to those who don’t have it, no strings attached, although it might at
times. It never means supporting
those who do not feel like supporting themselves. For dependency breeds slothfulness and contempt. Dependency destroys the soul. What is does mean is facilitating a way
for those who do not have to earn what they need; to bring them the means of
acquiring those things which they need.
Those things are spiritual as well as physical. A hand up; not a hand out. You will find out the more you help,
the more you enjoy real life.
Whether it is helping somebody at the office, around the neighborhood or
a friend, there is immense pleasure from the result of helping people, so much
more than feathering your own nest, so to speak. It is not only more blessed to give than to receive, but it
brings a lot more happiness into your life.
This is hard to do. We want to concentrate on what makes us feel good about
ourselves right here and right now.
We have to be coerced into staying on the narrow path upward and
inward. But that is where our home
is.
Heaven is at the end of an
uphill trail. The easy downhill
trail does not lead to the summit.
The time is now, not tomorrow. The time has come, indeed. How will you ACT?
It is by our actions we are known.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
