Second Sunday after Trinity

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Fr. Todd Bragg

St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church,

Indianapolis, Indiana

Readings:  I St. John 3 and St. Luke 14

"Let us not live in word, neither in tongue: but in deed, and in truth" (I St. John 3:13)

If we look through the three Epistles of St. John, you will not find the name "John" mentioned anywhere in these three epistles as the name of the specific author.  While tradition has listed St. John as the author due to the similarity and resemblance of the Gospel of St. John, the actual name "John" is never listed in any of these epistles attributed to him.  The closest thing we get to a name or an "autograph" in these epistles is when the author refers to himself as "the Elder."

As is usually the case, we have to look at the overview of these books to see what is the underlying message that was the reason for writing the epistle originally.  In other words, what was the purpose or the intent for writing these epistles originally?  In this case, I think if we dig deep enough, we will soon find that the intent or purpose of St. John was to show that Our Blessed Lord lived in the flesh in order to deal with humanity and as a matter or course, we are to deal with people in a similar fashion.

Now, you must be asking yourselves:  Fr. Todd, how else are humans to deal with other humans other than in a human fashion.  This is certainly a valid question and I would answer it this way:  We can sit around and talk about God; we can sit around and talk about God; we can sit around and talk about how we are supposed to treat others around us; in other words, we can be very objective about the whole thing and talk and talk and talk, but if our deeds do not match up with our words, our words will ultimately mean nothing.  Again, St. John writes:  "Let us not live in word, neither in tongue: but in deed and in truth."  In other words, don't just talk about God and how you love God, but let your actions match up with what you speak, let your deeds match up with what you believe.  

Now if we look elsewhere in Scripture, we won't have to look very far until we find similar ideas.  In St. James Epistle, we hear the following:  "Even so faith, if it hath not works is dead, being alone.  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith and I have works:  show me thy faith without works, and I will shew thee my faith by works."  (St. James 2:17-18)  Now St. James gets a bum-rap by Martin Luther, among others, because they accuse him of stating that we can somehow work our way into Heaven through our works and what we do.  If you would ask me, St. James, along with what we heard St. John state today, are basically both saying the same thing:  what you believe should match up with what you do in life.  Let your deeds match your beliefs.

St. John states elsewhere in the 21st verse of chapter 3:  "Who loves God must love his brother also."  Love as we talked about last week is what God shows to us and what He expects us to show to others around us.  And the point that St. John is making that the love that we have for others will be demonstrated in what we do; how we act; how we treat others; how we respect others; etc.  Like we talked about earlier:  it's one thing for us to talk objectively about "love," and it's quite a different think altogether to put "love" into practice.  As I learned a long time ago from Bishop Deyman, God rest him:  God has called us to love one another but He did not promise that we would like one another all the time.  There are some people that will get under our skin, and quite honestly, we will get under the skin of others around us.  We are instructed to love one another and not to like one another.  

Again, going back to St. James, we hear the following:  "Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (St. James 1:27).  St. James once again is reminding us that our love for God will show itself in how we treat others, especially the less fortunate in our society.  God uses each one of us as His instruments in the world.  Each one of has a choice.  Each one of us had a choice to be here this morning.  Whether we came from a very short distance or a long distance, the point is the same that each one of us made a choice to be here.  The same thing is true when it comes to God, in general.  God offers us salvation and we have to make a choice to accept that salvation.  God offers and we accept. 

Finally, read with me again the final part of today's epistle:  "And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment."   (I St. John 3:23)  Let us show our love for God through the way in which we love those around us.  Let us love not just in words, but rather, let our deeds, as St. John reminds us, show how much we love and how much love we have.