“TRINITY 4 2024”
Saint Luke 6: 36-42
4th Sunday after Trinity: June 23 Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
It all sound like Law because it is. “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is merciful.” But you are not. You hold grudges, you ‘mark’ enemies, you remain bitter. “Judge not...condemn not…forgive…”
Fail! You constantly point the accusatory finger of your self-righteous indignation and you set conditions for your “oh-so-great” and magnanimous forgiveness…the proper apologies and scraping being proffered first.
Now this stone fist, that smacks you on the head and slays you as dead as David’s stone killed Goliath, is the second table of The Commandments: “love you neighbor as yourself.” And while as Christians this is your wish and desire, and thus you do daily strive so to walk, the sinful old nature which inheres in your dying body rebels, back-slides, and hypocritically justifies your daily trespasses.
And thus, The Lord’s parable is not just for Pharisees and Sadducees, but for all sinners—Christian sinners. You are blind from day to day—not all the time—just too much of the time. If one is blind and does not know it, i.e., if one is sinning and does not recognize it—and the need to repent and believe—then one will always see the mote (the speck) in the other person’s eye. It is not just fault finding ands chronic criticizing (though that is sinful), but it is faithless condemning your neighbor as not being a fellow man or woman, also made in God’s image and likeness.
Only the Word of God can burn off your cataracts and sin-sealed eyelids. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path speaks the Psalmist. To you! “The light of the body is the eye” says Jesus. “If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” [Mt. 6.22]. That light is Christ—The Light of the world, “Light of Light” as you confessed.
For you, God was merciful. For you Jesus was merciful, so merciful that in love to His Father, and you, He bestowed His mercy on you and all other sinners; not just His disciples and friends and family, but also on His enemies and adversaries.
For you Jesus was judged, first by the Sanhedrin and then by Pilate. And though innocent of crimes against Moses, or Rome, or anything else, Jesus was condemned that you might never be found guilty.
Jesus had all the specks and motes from your so-called “little transgressions” shoved into His innocent eyes—along with blood from His head, spit from the mouths of His mockers, and from His own salty sweat and tears of pain. Jesus had the beam of the inflexible and rigid Law not only smack Him down, but He was nailed upon it and raised high in what the enemies of God thought was mocking comeuppance. But, which in truth was His true exaltation. And while not tossed into a ditch, which all unbelievers will be at the end of time—a burning and eternally black ditch—He was placed into a cleft in a rock. Because of His suffering and death, and yes Resurrection, you are placed into the cleft of His heart. You are + Baptized!
On Calvary He became the hypocrite, the thief, the adulterer, the gossip, the idolater, the murderer…all that your sinful self is, that you might be Sons and Daughters of The Father.
And though you cannot stand with John and The Blessed Virgin at the foot of that cross, you do stand in His throne room today. You do kneel/recline at His royal feast.
And at this rail, this altar, mercy is given to you—placed on your tongues and poured down your throats—“good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”
In Christ “every one [you] is perfect” and “shall be as [your] Master.”
In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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