Sermon Preached at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, September 1, 2024, at 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
Pentecost 16, Proper 17
The Author and Giver of All Good Things
“…the author and giver of all good things.” (Collect, Proper 17)
“In all life thou livest the true life of all.” (Hymnal “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.”)
“All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above; then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all his love.” (Hymnal “We Plow the Fields and Scatter.”)
“And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land…arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” (Song of Solmon 2ff)
“My heart bursts its band, spilling beauty and goodness.” (Psalm 45:1)
“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” (James 1:17-27)
I am so happy to be back with you good people and especially this morning, when we celebrate in Solomon’s song, like lovers, life itself and all that it brings and offers us. Joy is the theme of scripture, an appreciation for all of it, and to compare life to a gazelle, a young stag, who entices us to come away with it. Yes, the time of singing has come, and that time is now. The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. We who have ears to hear, let us hear!
But I wish to pause and share with you our parish sorrow over the death of our dear friend Gillian Newell. Gillian had been absent from church for some time as her health declined, but many of you didn’t forget her but kept in close touch. I think of Angela Saurman, whose devotion was unstinting. Angela was even at her bedside in her final moments. God bless the friendships that parish life provides. Gillian was a fixture in this parish for decades. I remember her in so many settings here. There was a mid-week Communion that some of us attended. We sat up there in the chancel and had wonderful discussions. There were just six or eight of us. I thank God for Gillian and her example of godly devotion and service. May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.
And of the beautiful readings this morning, in addition to the joy that pervades the Old Testament and Psalm, a joy that should come through in all we read and in all we practice, there is the challenge to match our words with our deeds. Be doers of the word and not just hearers. Or even more starkly, be doers of the word and not just sayers.
Now hearing and saying are relatively passive activities, and we can be pretty good with them, can’t we? I can read a good poem or even occasionally hear a good sermon and say, “Yes!” I may even repeat a wise thing I’ve heard and act as if I have absorbed it into my life. But then I can turn around and forget it as quickly as I heard it. Easy come and just as easily go.
I have just returned from several days in Bermuda, a lovely spot, free of clouds and certainly free of worry. The hurricane had passed, and there was no excuse to do anything but to enjoy and love the beauty and those around me. The owner of the Airbnb that I stayed in was most helpful and went out of her way to help me solve several issues we had during our visit. The electric car we rented had a charger cable that just didn’t work at her charge station, and she spent a good deal of time trying to fix the issue for us. But I, far from taking a page from her copybook, found myself grumbling and cranky. I don’t know why. I was certainly not being as kind to others as I was being treated. I hated this in myself. My partner kept saying, “Stop your bitching!” but I didn’t know how to. My friend said, “Why complain? Complaining only complicates the issue and makes everything unpleasant.” I had never thought about it that way. It’s so true: complaining complicates things. Remove the complaint and things become much easier to handle. And in looking back on my time on that beautiful island, I can see that I was lacking gratitude. Being grateful and complaining are hard to hold simultaneously. Think about it the next time you are drawn to complain about something that is going on with you. I’ll try and think about it too. A grateful life is the Christian way of life. Our Collect this morning reminds us of the God who is “the author and giver of all good things.”
So, it can be easy to hear and even to say or repeat lovely things, things that sit well with us and make us feel good. But turning around and acting on those things is quite another thing. Is there anyone among us who can claim they are free from all hypocrisy? A hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another, whose pretty face doesn’t match the face he or she acts out in the world. It’s not for nothing that every world religion puts as its number-one moral injunction: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” “Do unto others as you are doing unto yourself.” We find this all over the world, in every religious culture. Why? Because it gets to the nub of things. This is it. Treat others as we wish to be treated. And part of the problem, of course, is that we don’t feel so darned good about ourselves and project onto others the ugly face we all too often feel about ourselves.
Good intentions do go awry. As the English proverb has it, “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.” We are constantly saying one thing and doing sometimes quite the opposite. And we can beat ourselves up mercilessly over not being true to our word. In reflecting on the life and loving of the man Jesus the Christ, it is hard to see any discrepancy between his words and his deeds. His inner and outer life were one thing. And that beautiful life is the mirror of what ours is, or at least could be. We do not have to live a life out of sync with what we know to be a better way. We can, with God’s grace and an attitude of gratitude, move beyond all our hypocrisies. And a footnote: have you noticed how the simplest word of kindness can turn around a person’s day and turn around our day as well? So, I ask myself: What in the world should stop us from such a dance of love?
And another thing. The gospel this morning talks about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In fact, the word, “pharisaical” has come to mean religiously hypocritical. You know people like that, don’t you? But I’d better go easy with this. For who am I to judge anyone else’s piety or religious belief or devotion? I had best look after my own religious life, which is riddled with inconsistencies and hypocrisy. My only judgment is that I’m not competent to judge anyone, much less that I have any right to judge anyone. Perhaps the only sin worse than my own hypocrisy is my judgmentalism of those whom I deem to be hypocritical. It’s more fun to point a finger at you. It takes the attention away from myself!
I do believe that gratitude overcomes hypocrisy and judgmentalism. I love the hymns we sing this morning. So I’ll close with the lyrics of another hymn, the Beethoven Ode to Joy!
Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, praising thee, their sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
fill us with the light of day.
Amen.