Saint Matthew's Day

The feast-day of St. Matthew comes with a double punch because we celebrate him as both Apostle and Evangelist. As an apostle, he was one of the “twelve valiant saints” chosen by Christ to be eye-witnesses of His earthly ministry and particularly of His resurrection and ascension. These twelve (and the number is symbolic) were the patriarchs of the New Israel. Although the “holy Twelve” have long since left this earth, the promise of Jesus written down by Matthew remains secure: “Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world. Amen.” These are the final words of Matthew's Gospel, words which hint that the Apostles will have their successors in the on-going ministry of the Church.

We celebrate Mathew moreover because he was what the Church's liturgy calls an “evangelist.” That term means that he, along with Mark, Luke, and John, was the human author of the book which bears his name, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew.” We must stress human author, since the ultimate Author of these books is God Himself. Just as the Twelve were instruments of Christ in proclaiming His message, so the four Evangelists were instruments of the Holy Spirit in writing down the very Word of God.

St Matthew's Day is a time to reflect on the nature of our Faith as Gospel. Religion, generally speaking, is man's quest for God. The numerous religions of the world are a long sad series of human attempts to seek out and find God, not entirely lacking some small blessings which come through God's universal grace, but consistently winding up in frustration. “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks unto Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools....” (Romans 1:21-22a). All religion, as a quest for God, winds up in failure and despair. It is a dead-end street.

But the Gospel is the true story of God's relentless and victorious quest for man. It began when God went walking in the Garden of Eden in pursuit of Adam and Eve. It continued right on until the day when Jesus came to Matthew, “sitting at the receipt of custom,” and said, “Follow me.” Matthew was not searching for God; he was only going about his daily business of a rather contemptible sort. But God in Jesus Christ was seeking Matthew. Matthew went on to write down the good news that God's quest “to seek and save that which is lost,” even publicans and sinners, is a successful and triumphant enterprise. And as Jesus found Matthew, we rejoice that He has likewise found us. And having found us, He will be with us, “even until the end of the world.”

Holy Cross Day

It is hard to fathom why this holy day was not included in our American Prayer Book. It was retained in the Prayer Book of the Church of England, but only as a “Black Letter” day, i. e., a day noted in the calendar but not provided with a Collect, Epistle and Gospel of its own. We can be grateful for the publication of “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” in 1963, which gives us the Collect, Epistle and Gospel we are using today.

Both for preaching and for devotion, this is an exceedingly valuable feast. We remember and proclaim our dear Lord's death upon the cross in Passiontide and supremely on Good Friday. But that is only two brief weeks just before Easter. The wonderful hymns for Passiontide deserve more use than just a handful of services. Any clergyman who has preached his way through this brief season is bound to be aware that even a million sermons on the cross of Christ would only skim the surface of such a topic.

Most families have a skeleton in the closet, a shameful episode which is never spoken of, particularly before children. Coming from an eminently respectable family, I learned only recently of a close relative, a great-uncle long dead, who was convicted of a crime and served time in the penitentiary. That was simply never discussed, and the fact was vouchsafed to me only when I reached the age of 70, by an aunt who is nearly 90. The nature of the crime itself is still a secret.

It is an almost shocking thing that the earliest Christian disciples went around constantly talking about a thing which other people—non-Christian people—would have treated as a shameful family scandal. Their Rabbi, whom they called Lord and Saviour, whom they proclaimed as Risen and Ascended, had died no ordinary death. He had been crucified! In the eyes of the world, such a death was the ultimate disgrace. Hanging or stoning was shameful enough, but crucifixion was reserved for slaves and the worst of criminals. Why was this not kept as a family secret?

In today's Epistle we have a passage (also read on Palm Sunday) where Paul appears to quote a hymn from the church's liturgy. But one phrase Paul himself inserted into the hymn. After the words “he became obedient unto death,” Paul added, “even the death of the cross.”

The message of the New Testament, the very heart of the Gospel, is that in the crucifixion of Jesus, God provided a way to defeat the devil and to provide for the forgiveness of sins. So it is that (in Paul's words), “God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity

While the readings of the Epistles and Gospels might seem to be just random selection, there is actually an underlying pattern. Beginning on the 4th Sunday after Trinity and running on to the 24th Sunday, we read as the first lesson short selections from Paul's Epistles, beginning with Romans and continuing through Colossians. The 13th,14th, and 15th Sundays after Trinity are allocated to Galatians. That is a challenging Epistle! It deals passionately with a doctrinal controversy which might seem remote to us. When we find Paul using the expression “God forbid,” we know he is excited. But what is he so worked up about?

The Galatian churches had been invaded by heretical teachers who were spreading the notion that Christians, even Gentile Christians, must keep the whole Old Testament Law in order to be fully accepted by God. Specifically, Gentile converts must practice circumcision, keep the Sabbath, eat only kosher food, and conform to a Jewish lifestyle.

While this was an attractive idea to naïve new converts, Paul saw that this doctrine actually undermines the very Gospel itself. (We use the present tense--undermines--because this heresy never seems to go away and haunts us even today in many disguises.)

In Galatians 1:8, Paul wrote, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” That is surely the most vehement statement which Paul ever wrote.

What makes this false teaching concerning keeping the Old Testament Law so deadly? Paul was blessed with the spiritual insight to grasp that it undermines and overthrows (note the presence tense again!) the whole Gospel of salvation “by grace through faith.” Our right-standing with God, and our eternal destiny, depend solely and exclusively on what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Our response to God's act in Christ (His cross and resurrection) can begin only with mere faith. We must never imagine ourselves to be “co-operating” with God as if we were equal partners. We may only surrender, submit and adore.

The whole notion of “co-operating” with God (keeping the Old Testament Law is just one of many forms this heresy takes) is flattering to human vanity. We could then take pride, as the Pharisees did, in what we feel we have done for God. But this would mean that Christ suffered on His cross for no good reason. Paul is absolutely right in saying this is “another gospel, which is no gospel at all.”

The Eleventh Sunday After Trinity

(We conclude today our commentary on the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church.)

The final petition of this very comprehensive supplication brings everything into focus: “that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.” This comes as something of a surprise, reminding us of all the things we have not prayed for in this prayer. We have not prayed for success, safety, health, prosperity, or increase of members. The shallow values of our commercial secular culture often penetrate the life and thinking of Churchmen and Church leaders, but such dubious priorities are conspicuously absent from this prayer. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is His heavenly kingdom. Being with God in His glory, in the fellowship of His angels and His saints, in the reality of our resur-rected Body, set free from the world, the flesh and the devil, with sin and death at last behind us-- that, and that alone, is our goal. It is all that matters. So we will pray in an even more comprehensive prayer, “Thy kingdom come.”

And we conclude with the phrase “our only Mediator and Advocate.” This is no literary flourish but a critical truth of the Gospel. The term mediator refers to a “go-between,” who represents God to us and us to God, effecting peace and reconciliation between two parties previously estranged. He is capable of such an undertaking because He possesses both a Divine and a Human nature. He is our advocate because He has carried our human nature right into the very presence of His Father. The human body which was nailed to the cross and was raised from the tomb (that same body, with all its scars and wounds!) is now in heaven.

This is what the Epistle to the Hebrews means when it calls Him our great high priest.

In this office, He is utterly unique. There is no one else who can reconcile us to God, no one else who can intercede for us, no one else who can plead our cause. No one else could say “All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me.” He and He alone is our Saviour and Redeemer, our only Prophet, Priest, and King.

So if we expect God to hear, receive, or answer this or any other prayer, it can only be through Him and Him alone, in whose prevailing Name and words we pray.

The Tenth Sunday After Trinity

(We continue our commentary on the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church.)

And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants depaerted this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service....

In the final paragraph of this profound and searching prayer, we pray for the departed. But here the Prayer Book goes our of its way to eliminate any ambiguity as to whom we pray for. Not just any and all deceased persons, but for those who have “departed thus life in thy faith and fear,” that is the Christian faith. This particular petition has been attacked from time to time by the anti-Catholic elements within the Anglican tradition, and one early edition of the Prayer Book (the short-lived revision of 1552) eliminated this petition altogether.

This was owing to the unreasonable Protestant prejudice against “praying for the dead.” That prejudice arose in the 16th century as part of a necessary protest against the blatant commercialization of such prayers, with certain clergymen accepting large sums of money for offering Masses for the “repose of the souls” of the departed. That practice, which we would find shocking, was grounded in a poor non-Biblical notion of the Intermediate State as a place of pain and suffering.

The original version of this petition, found in the first Prayer Book of 1549, was a much more vigorous prayer than what we find in our 1928 Prayer Book. If you want to see the original version, look at the prayer at the bottom of page 336, now in our Burial Office. But even in the present “toned-down” form, the version familiar to us is adequate. We rightly and properly pray for th dead because in Christ there are no dead. The faithful departed can experience no suffering oir pain whatever, but they are still growing in Christ and advancing in holiness. Therefore our prayers are beneficial to them.

At the Eucharist when Christ is wondrously present in His very Body and Blood, His whole Church in heaven and earth is invisibly assembled. It is not for nothing that we mention “angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven.” In the Prayer of Consecration itself, we pray that “we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion.” Every time that bread and wine are set forth, in the sight of heaven and earth, as a Memorial unto the Lord, to “shows forth His death until He come,” we are praying for all of Christ's disciples and believers, of centuries past, of our own past, in all times and places.

(To be continued.)

The Ninth Sunday After Trinity

(We continue our commentary on the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church.)

After we pray for “all thy People,” we pray in conclusion for two special classes: those who are in trouble of any sort, and for “all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear.” The first of these petitions requires no commentary, but two points are worth making. In this petition we are not necessarily confined to praying for those within the community of the Church. Here the prayer breaks its original limits and we remember that if all mankind is not already within the circle of God's people, they at least are there potentially. Supplication has moved naturally into intercession. There is a common grace, in which the same rain falls on the just and unjust. Trouble, sorrow, need, sickness are universal; and here we do well to think of our non-Christian, un-Churched, or unbelieving friends.

Also, prayer for those afflicted in any way is an essential ministry of the Church. Our Lord prayed, as the Great High Priest, even when He was the Victim on the Cross for those around Him. “Father, forgive them...” In the Eucharist, as His priestly body on earth, in a certain limited sense, we share in His unique mediatorial work. Therefore we continue His act of intercession and share in His present heavenly priesthood.

The suffering and afflicted are precious and dear to Christ. The Gospels are emphatic, “And He had compassion on the multitude...” Our Prayer Book enables us to amplify this brief petition in three particular places, first, the rubric on page 71 which encourages the insertion of “other authoried prayers and intercessions,” and secondly, the Litany, most commonly used in Lent, in which we pray sweepingly “to have mercy upon all men.”

The third place is the rubric on page 74, authorizing the Priest to “ask the secret intercessions of the Congregation for any who have desired the prayers of the Church.” By that term “secret” the Prayer Book simply means “silent.” The expression “prayers of the Church” reminds us that there is a special significance, even a special power, in our corporate prayer as a community. We sometimes speak of offering the Eucharistic sacrifice “with special intention.” This means that we celebrate the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood as an act of special and specific prayer for an announced purpose. “It is meet and right so to do.”

(To be continued.)

The Eighth Sunday After Trinity

(We continue our commentary on the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church.)

As we reflect on the petition, “To all thy People give thy heavenly grace,” we must not neglect to clarify exactly what is meant by the term “thy People.” There are many who would suppose, in a thoughtless manner, that this simply means people in general. But remember, we are praying for the Church, God's “peculiar people,” the body of those who are chosen and set apart by their Baptism as the people of God, separated by their new birth from the old creation. Baptism draws a clear line between the old creation and the new, between God's people and those who are not His people, between the saved and the unsaved.

The phrase “thy people” has deep roots in the Bible. As God said in Deuteronomy 7:6ff., speaking to His chosen people Israel, “You are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath which He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you....”

This ancient OT promise is applied in the NT to the “blessed company of all faithful people,” the Church. St Peter tells is (1 Peter 2:9), “But you are a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” The Old Testament chosen people Israel has now been enlarged and transformed into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of the New Testament. The promise which echoes from page to page in the OT, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people, and I will dwell with you,” now belongs to the Christian com-munity, the Body of Christ. And for this chosen people, “elect from every nation, yet one in all the earth” as the hymn says, we persistently pray at every Mass, that God will continue to pour our His redeeming, justifying and sanctifying grace.

(To be continued)