Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Paul’s Anglican
Church
2nd Sunday after Easter 2021
April 18, 2021
Recently, I was in conversation with a couple of parishioners,
who asked me, “Father, why don’t you preach on more topical subjects? It seems that you always preach on the
lessons for that particular Sunday….” I must confess that caused me to become
quite thoughtful.
I recall a conversation that occurred while in seminary
here in Houston. The then current dean
of Cranmer House was speaking on just that topic and the substance of that talk
has remained with me. He said that a
good sermon should be thoroughly researched for both historical and theological
content. Dr. Crenshaw then said that to
do otherwise would cause the sermon to come from the imagination of the sermon
writer, instead of standing on the shoulders of the great saints and
theological giants of the past. Depending
on the theological orientation of the writer, the sermon could be quite
idiosyncratic or even heretical. Hmmm…most interesting. Again, I will confess that thought occurs to
me often when constructing a sermon.
This then leads to a bigger question: why preach on the Lessons
for the day? Why preach on the Scriptures at all? After all, shouldn’t we as
Christians grapple with the topical questions of today? Shouldn’t we be “relevant” to today’s
culture?
Well, yes and no. Yes, we should consider the things
that concern us and our daily living.
Yes, we should consider the current events around us and how they bear
on our common Christian life. Absolutely.
Yet, we must consider these as illuminated and informed by Scripture.
Why do we say that?
There are two reasons. First,
Holy Scripture to the Christian is the norma non normata for life. To translate, this means that scripture is
the “standard by which all standards are judged.” If this is so, and if we Christians believe
that Holy Scripture is truly the inspired Word of God, we would be sorely
remiss in not using it as the source text for preaching.
Second, using Holy Scripture as the starting point for
theological and polemical discussions, including preaching, is fundamental to
being an Anglican. Recall that
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer ordered that every church obtain and display,
prominently, a Bible. The Scriptures
were meant to be accessible to the layman in every church. Unlike the medieval Church, which made the
dispensing of the Word of God strictly a “clergy affair” , the fathers of the
Reformation wanted the Bible available to everyone. Consider this, the English theologian and
priest John Wycliff, who is considered one of the forerunners of the Protestant
Reformation, was eventually condemned by the Medieval Church as a heretic. The
reason for this condemnation? Quoting History Today”: He (Wycliff) had come to
regard the scriptures as the only reliable guide to the truth about God and
maintained that all Christians should rely on the Bible rather than the
unreliable and frequently self-serving teachings of popes and clerics. He said
that there was no scriptural justification for the papacy’s existence and
attacked the riches and power that popes and the Church as a whole had
acquired. He disapproved of clerical celibacy, pilgrimages, the selling of indulgences
and praying to saints. He thought the monasteries were corrupt and the
immorality with which many clerics often behaved invalidated the sacraments
they conducted. If clerics were accused of crime, they should be tried in the
ordinary lay courts, not in their special ecclesiastical tribunals.” He also
thought the English Church should be ruled “by its monarchs and lay
administration, with no interference from the papacy and the Church.” Here is a
quote from his work “On Civil Dominion” in 1376: “England belongs to no
pope. The pope is but a man, subject to sin, but Christ is the Lord of Lords
and this kingdom is to be held directly and solely of Christ alone.”[i]
Luckily
for Wycliffe, he suffered a stroke at Christmas, 1384, while celebrating Mass,
dying three days later. We say
“fortunate”, because he escaped the common death of heretics, burning at the stake,
had he been apprehended by Church authorities. Wycliffe did influence another
early reformer, the Prague priest Jan Hus, who was executed as a heretic in
1415.
Our
point is this: Holy Scripture is part of the so-called “three-legged stool” of Anglicanism,
which is comprised of: 1) Holy Scripture as primary and central to all that we believe
2) tradition the things the Church has
always done to enhance worship and godliness, and 3) sanctified reason, or the use
of godly reason and thinking to worship God.
All three elements inform the Anglican in his faith, with Holy Scripture
being the cornerstone of our belief. So,
yes, we should seek truth and meaning in our lives. We should talk about it
from the pulpit in our churches. In doing so, we must hold all our discussions
up to the standard God has given us, his Holy Word.
For example, in today’s Epistle selection from St.
Peter, we learn about suffering wrongfully for the truth and how we should
behave. If we do wrong and suffer for
it, there is no glory or commendation for us.
We are justly punished for our misdeeds. Yet, if we do well and suffer
for it, we are to confront it with patience.
We receive glory and acceptance from God, who Himself suffered; the just
for the unjust, and the sinless for the sinful.
Thus, we have a lesson in patience under suffering. What could be more topical than that? Especially in today’s chaotic moral
environment, where we should bear with patience the corruption and un-truth
around us. It is offensive to us, yet
somehow we must bear it. Often, we
Christians are told “just don’t look at it, if it offends you”, while we know
that a bad apple tends to corrupt the entire barrel. The moral stench of our
society sickens us, yet God forbid we should comment on it. How can a Christian survive and keep his
sanity?
Here comes the second lesson from Scripture, in today’s
Gospel from St. John. Jesus said, “I am
the Good Shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” We have a
Divine Shepherd who cares for us and leads us into the paths of
righteousness. We learn that Jesus
knows us, just as a shepherd knows his sheep. He leads us into green pastures: physically,
mentally, and spiritually. When we are discouraged, broken, despondent or
exhausted, He gives us encouragement and rest.
Jesus refreshes our spirits when they are low. Peering through the murky haze of our
difficulties, disappointments, and disillusionments, He is always there, a
beacon of eternal light, welcoming us and returning us to our own, best
welfare.
If you ask me, this is topical. This is right, This is true. AMEN
“For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned
unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” (I Peter 2:25)
[i] History
Today: “John Wycliffe condemned as a Heretic” https://www.historytoday.com/archive/john-wycliffe-condemned-heretic
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