Feasting On Reconciliation

Brad Sullivan

Ash Wednesday, Year C

February 10, 2016

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Feasting On Reconciliation

19^th century Anglican priest and famous preacher, Phillips Brooks, gave a sermon entitled, Nature and Circumstance, in which he preached about Jesus’ teachings on greatness and the two worlds in which we find ourselves:  the world of men, and the world of the kingdom of God.  In this sermon, he wrote about Nicodemus questioning Jesus’ teaching that men must be born again to enter the kingdom of God.  Father Brooks said:

“Nicodemus wanted Christ to meet him in a lower world, a world of moral precepts and Hebrew traditions, where the Pharisee was thoroughly at home.  But Christ said, ‘No, there is a higher world; you must go up there; you must enter into that; you must have a new birth and live in a new life,-in a life where God is loved and known and trusted and communed with.”

-          Phillips Brooks, Sermons:  Nature and Circumstance

Jesus brought to his followers a realization of these two worlds in which we live, and he continually encouraged his followers not to be satisfied with the things of the world of men, but continually to strive for greater things of the kingdom of God.  Jesus taught in our Gospel reading today, “Beware of practicing your piety before others,” and instead “pray in secret so that your heavenly Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  Through the prophet Isaiah, God taught that he does not desire the religious fasts of the kingdom of men, but desires fasts from human strife and discord.  Fast from the ways you harm each other and feast on justice, mercy, reconciliation, and love.  Feast on Jesus and the ways of the kingdom of God.

We see in Jesus’ teachings about fasting and prayer, a collision of worlds.  The people were living in the world of their religion, a good world, in which they were seeking to fulfill their religious duty and to be good men.  Jesus was, however, trying to pull his people up to a higher world, to his kingdom in which they deeply encounter God and therefore deeply love each other.

In the lower world of religious practice, much of what was done made little difference in the world or even in the self.  Much of religious practice in Jesus’ day dealt with ritual purity.  Follow a set of religious rules, and you’ll be righteous before God.  In the higher realm of God’s kingdom, those practices don’t matter.  As Jesus taught concerning ritual hand-washing before eating a meal, ritual cleanliness before God doesn’t really matter in the kingdom of God.  The cleanliness of our heats is what matters in God’s kingdom. 

In our context of Lent, ritual fasting can be a very helpful tool toward opening our hearts to God’s way for our life.  The fasting itself, however, does not make one righteous before God.  In the higher realm of God’s kingdom, Jesus makes us righteous before God.  In the higher realm of God’s kingdom drawing near to God through Jesus is the way of life.  In the higher realm of God’s kingdom, believing in Jesus, his teachings and ways, and faithfully seeking to love others as he loves them is our way of life and the feast he would choose for us.

In the higher realm of God’s kingdom, then, our fasting would be to fast from whatever hinders us from drawing near to God, to fast from whatever hinders us from believing in Jesus, to fast from whatever hinders us from following in Jesus’ ways, and to fast from whatever hinders us from loving others as he loves us.  

Fast from whatever is keeping you from reconciling with another.  Fast from whatever keeps you from prayer.  Fast from whatever keeps you from seeking justice, loving mercy, and respecting the dignity of every human being. 

In the kingdom of men, we get to judge one another and proclaim our righteousness by comparing ourselves to those we see as less righteous around us.  That was the trap of the Pharisees.  In the kingdom of God, however, we are freed from this trap.  As Bishop Doyle writes, “Christians are free to follow their conscience and are free from the burden of judging or changing others.  Christians are prohibited from indicting and sentencing those who are different because of the freedom we have in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus frees us from making ourselves righteous by noticing the speck in someone else’s eye.  Instead, Jesus loves us, even with the log in our eye, makes us righteous through him, and frees us, thereby, not to judge the other but to love and serve the other.  Jesus frees us from the trap of the world of men and allows us to live in the kingdom of God.

I invite you all, therefore into a holy Lent.  I invite you to seek the higher world of Jesus’ kingdom.  I invite you to fast during this season, to fast from anything that keeps you from reconciliation and love.  I invite you to repent of the ways that keep you from living Jesus’ kingdom.  Finally, I invite you to feast on Jesus during this season of Lent.  Feast on his forgiveness and love.  Feast on his reconciliation and healing.  Feast on his ways and his presence.  God bless you.  God loves you.  Amen.