Reflections on the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Eph. 3:16-19 is the prayer of every pastor for those he serves, and the verses speak to the state of our souls.  They should cause us to consider: are we prepared?

Imagine our life in the shape of a cross if you will.  We begin at the bottom with our birth into this world.  And there is a straight and narrow path available to us which leads through this life to the life of the Kingdom of God through the crossbar which will represent death for us and into that top portion of the cross which, for my analogy, extends infinitely, into eternity and fullness of the Kingdom of God.

But for most of us, this straight and narrow path is traversed as if there were a pendulum swinging back and forth across it.  Our life in the Church, our attendance at services, our reception of the Mysteries, our reading of the Holy Scriptures, our prayer life is all along this path, but we tend to swing back and forth out into the world.  We all know it as a realm which is increasingly opposed to the straight and narrow way of Jesus Christ which leads to the Father.  The world is now thoroughly post-Christian.  There are no absolutes, no objective truth (certainly no revealed truth), no God – nothing but what I believe for myself and what I think will make me happy.  And mostly what will divert me and make me forget that there is an end to life, which may come at any time, but for which few seek to be prepared. 

Instead, the worldly person simply pursues his passions – or more understandably for us, his addictions (that’s what the passions are, after all).  He greedily pursues alcohol, drugs, pornography, and sex as recreation.  He craves the latest consumer item he has been tricked into thinking he needs to be happy.  He pursues power or authority over others, or the adulation of the masses.  Or perhaps slightly less debilitating, he overindulges in food, television, sports, movies, his ipad or his smart phone.  Anything to distract him from the reality of life and death; insulating him from the message of the Life, healing and transformation which is in Christ Jesus.

Imagine for a moment you go home today and find out you have won a trip to the Bahamas or Tahiti, or whatever place you wish, but you will be notified at the last moment when you will depart. You might have a week, you might have a month.  What would you do?  Most likely begin preparing – figuring out what you need, packing, making all the appropriate preparations with real diligence.  Remember also that you have the possibility of a journey into the Kingdom of God, even now – not simply at some future time – but that to enter it in its fullness, you are going to have to pass through death, a death whose moment none of us knows.  Should you prepare?  

We have two resurrection accounts before us today; the widow’s son, and in our Gospel and Lazarus at Matins. 

 Death brings us face to face with ultimate questions, which we generally prefer to avoid.   We know that people die, we know it will happen to us, and yet we ever strive to hold it at a distance.  It is the final mystery.  It is the end of that about which we have some say as men and women with free will, to choose between good and evil, and to try to do good in this life.  At death, it is all in God’s hands.

When St. Paulinus had presented the Gospel to St. Edwin, the King of Northumbria, he questioned whether this might be the right path for him and his people.  One of his men answered him “The fire is burning on the hearth in the middle of the hall and inside it is warm, though outside the winter storms of rain and snow are raging. A sparrow flies swiftly through the hall; it enters in at one door and swiftly flies out of the other.  For the few moments when it is inside, the wintry storm cannot tough it, but after that brief moment of calm, it flies from our sight into the wintry storm again.  So the life of man appears only for a moment, and what follows or went before we know nothing about.  If this new teaching brings us more certain information, it seems to me right that we should accept it.”  It is said that the fervent faith and longing for salvation of the Northumbrians was so great that for 36 days Paulinus did nothing else but instruct the crowds who flocked to him from every village in the saving word of Christ and baptized them in the river Glen which was close at hand. (from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People.)

Death often takes us by surprise, even when we know it is coming.  It is true that our Lord has manifested His power over death itself.  His compassion cannot be thwarted even by death, for His love is stronger than death.  The only words He speaks to the woman are “Weep not”.  His words to the son are likewise simple, but are words of life: “Arise”

There is more dialogue in our other Gospel account of death and resurrection at Matins.  And here we find all we really need to know about death. 

Martha had said that if the Lord had been there in Bethany, her brother would not have died, and she had said that she knew her brother Lazarus would rise again on the last day.  But Jesus tells her the only words we need to hear concerning death: 

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. 

I AM, Jesus tells her;  Resurrection and life are not things that I do, but who I AM.   I AM life itself, the sum and total of life, the “all there is” of life; and death is an aberration, a rebellion against me, a temporary wrong to be set right eternally by me.  Death is not even a “thing” with an existence or a power of its own, but only a separation from me, from who I AM.  

For one united to me, there is no death as it has been known before.  This is why, I think, the Scriptures don’t tell us a lot about death.  Because it is a kind of unreal realm of a thing unreal until we reach it.  It is all around us, yet somehow easily ignored.  It always seems to be distant for us, but it could be today.

While death is now different for us, it is still the pathway we all will have to pass through.  In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones stands over Kazim, a member of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, as the boat in which they are fighting nears the propeller of a large ship.   “If you don’t let me go we will both die, Dr. Jones.” “Then we’ll die”, replies Indy. Kazim then says: “My soul is prepared – how’s yours?”  “This is your last chance”, Indy tells him: “No, it’s yours” says Kazim.  Are we prepared?  What is the state of our soul?  Will death be a fearful, horror-filled unknown to us, or through Christ, will it be the Road to Awe?