Pages

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Taking home the pay packet

Sermon for the sixth Sunday after Trinity

Pay day should be 
very satisfying.

After all, 
you work so hard
and to find out
that,
perhaps,
all your labours
have reaped their reward
means you can breathe
a sigh of relief.

Bills can be paid.
Provisions can be bought.

And,
for the lucky ones,
some treat can be afforded.

Pay day comes 
with a sense of relief.

And then St Paul reminds us
the wages of sin is death.

Looking forward to pay day now?

[PAUSE]

We are well aware
of the inevitability
of death.

And, as Christians,
we know that sin and death 
are two sides of the same coin.

We die because we sin
and we sin because we know
we're going to die.

Adam and Eve
brought sin and death 
into Creation
creating a fissure,
a deep crack in our relationship
with God
and in our likeness
to God.

That crack has spread
through all humanity
depriving us 
of the ability to hear God
walking with us in the 
Garden of Creation.

Sin and death are
both separations from God:
they are both sides of the same coin.

How, then, can we possibly die to sin
as St Paul tells us?

[PAUSE]

The beauty of death 
is that it stops sin in its tracks.

The dead man can sin no more.

But to die in sin
means that separation from God
becomes permanent.

How can we both be dead to sin
and remain alive?

You know the answer to that.

Our Baptism is into the death 
of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Baptism, we are given the grace
to be born again
but, in order to be born again,
we need to be dead first.

The wages of sin
have to be paid first.

And the death of Our Lord
pays those wages
for the whole world.

Who are the wages paid to?

God?

No. 
God does not want 
the death of a sinner
but rather that he turn
from his sin and live.

To the Devil?

No. 
The Devil wants us to think
he has a right to our souls
but he lies
and the truth of God frees us
from his grasp
by death.

To death?

How can death be paid to death?

With life!

Death is the absence of life.

We can pay a debt
by giving what is owed,
and the debt dies.

We can pay a hole in the earth
with earth,
and the hole disappears.

Pay death with life
and there is no more death.

Pay death with eternal life
and death is destroyed.

The death of Christ
is the means of our life.

In being baptized into His death
our wages of sin are paid
and, 
in paying those wages
both sin and death 
are destroyed.

[PAUSE]

Baptism gives us God's grace,
His active presence
by which we are incorporated
into His death
and into His life.

St John Chrysostom says,

"complete freedom 
from sin is not a reality as yet.

 We are told to live for God 
in Jesus Christ our Lord 
and to lay hold of every virtue, 
having Jesus as our ally in the struggle."

We cannot be free from 
the effects of sin in this life,
but, knowing that we have
Eternal Life in Christ,
we can be sure that 
Death will be the end of Sin
but not of us.

[PAUSE]

Sin and death are two sides
of the same coin.

And,
with that coin,
Christ has paid the wages of sin
for us on His cross.

We, too, must take up our cross
that we receive at our Baptism
and we must venerate that cross
because we are crucified with Christ
and will be raised to Eternal Joy
in Him.

No comments:

Post a Comment