A CERTAIN MAN, Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Trinity, 9 June 2024 Anno Domini, the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide -
by Bishop Jerry Ogles
16 A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: 17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. 18 And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. 19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. 20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. 21 So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. 23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
24 For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.
The Collect
2nd Sunday after Trinity
O LORD, who never failest to help and govern those whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love; Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The all-pervasive theme of this past Sunday, as well as today’s lectionary text, deals with the love factor both of God and of His people. As our Epistle of 1st Sunday after Trinity proclaims, “BELOVED, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” 1 John 4:7 Love is the one element that binds all else together in Christ. Without love, we remain dead souls.
The Collect for today emphasizes that love which is tempered by a fear, not of mortal care, but of disgracing the Holy Name which we bear as Christians in our lives and works. Loving the Name of God means loving all that name represents – fellow believers as well as those who are lost by the wayside of life. Love of God not only bears us up in Holy devotion, but also is our teacher to compel us to know more of the love of God and to share that love abroad. Not only is love our teacher, but also the lesson that it teaches in God’s school of love. We first fear that we will fail to obey Him in love, and once we learn that truth, we do apply that love to our lives, and that love drives out fear.
Our Epistle reading informs of the necessity of love in the service of God. But our love of God exposes us to the hatred and persecution of the world. The modern hatred of anything dealing with the Name of Jesus Christ stands as monument to that truth. Hatred is the very opposite of love. Hatred seeks to kill and destroy with the same motive of the Serpent of Eden; but love is the one treasure that survives death and which we carry to the Father as emblems of our faith. (see Romans 8:32-39 which clearly points us to that immortality of love). “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” 1 John 3:14 The position of that Godly love makes us alive in Christ.
We also learn from the Epistle that the token of love is sacrifice of our lives. We die daily to self and live for Christ. Christ laid down His life for us, and many. Can we do no less for our brothers and sisters in Christ? Love unites us in Christ.
A second token of love is the sacrifice of our possessions. How can we maintain many coats in our closet while our neighbor’s child freezes for lack of apparel? Love, like the Good Samaritan, sacrifices for others.
A third token of love illustrated in the Epistle is its rewards of confidence toward God and His Presence with us. Loving our brothers and sisters with a burning and inextinguishable love supply magnifies in our hearts the abundant reservoir of love the Father has for us – even in giving His only Begotten son for our Redemption.
The purpose of the Collect is to gather our hearts upon the same summit for the lessons of the day. Therefore, the Epistle bears out the salient qualities of love while the Gospel provides human and practical examples of the Father’s love for us in preparing all things needful for our well-being in Him. Both of these Sundays after Trinity provide us with examples of the love of God framed in human terms that we who have ears to hear can comprehend.
A CERTAIN man made a great supper. That CERTAIN man is God the Father, but we cannot grasp the enormity of His love without feeling it in human terms. This CERTAIN man issues an invitation to not a few, but many, to come to His supper. This feast of joy is for as many as will come that are invited. The Church represents those whom the Lord invites, but the entirety of thew Church will not respond to His invitation at such time as He separates the sheep from the goats. The invitation of God assures us of present happiness and future glory. It is a serious invitation whose messenger is the Holy Ghost.
The invitation issued by this CERTAIN man goes unheeded by those initially invited. They refuse with a multitude of excuses. There are diverse excuses given for refusing to come, but only ONE reason – lack of love for the One who has invited them. This May reflect the Old Testament Church to which Christ came first, but, more and more, it has come represent our modern day churches many of whom have openly embraced perversions and willful sins as acceptable lifestyles.
How would we feel if we went to a very great expense in preparing a great supper, yet none invited came? God went to an infinite expense to purchase our place at the Table – His only Begotten Son. How dare any who are called refuse such an exalted invitation! But just as in this case, the Lord tells us: “Many are called, but few chosen.”
In rejecting those first guest invited, the love for others is not dampened in the heart of the man who issues the invitation. “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” Luke 5:31 Instead of the wealthy and self-satisfied persons who have refused His invitation, He now invites those for whom the world has little regard – “the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.” Luke 5:31 Those having been invited, there is always adequate space for others in the Kingdom of God. So, The call is extended the a general category of those whom the Holy Spirit will draw to the Mercy Seat. Those who formerly were not considered the sons and daughters of Abraham by the flesh are now accounted so by the promise made to Abraham in which they have come to believe. This includes, in the family of God, both Jew and Gentile (who believe) are accounted the Children of Abraham according to faith. These commoners now invited are well-acquainted with hunger and need. They come according that hunger for the love of God represented by His invitation. We must have a hunger for the supper before we can have a taste for it.
The above promises are well summarized in Ephesians 2: “12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” Ephesians 2:12-20
You see in these lessons the grand truth that the love of God makes us One in Christ, and in Him is no Death.
