Trinity 18 – The Second Is Like It

1 Corinthians 1:4-8       St Matthew 22:34-46

And the second is like it…

As we make our way through Trinity season, God’s Word, the two readings we are given every Sunday, are calling us higher and higher in our spiritual life.  We have had put before us the stages of our sanctification in Jesus Christ: purgation of the passions, followed by illumination in the Spirit, and leading us to union with God.  And that union with God necessarily leads to a deeper union with our neighbour, as Jean-Luc spoke about last Sunday.

Beginning last Sunday and to end of this season we focus on this third stage, union with God.  Another way of saying this is that the image and likeness of God, marred through the Fall, through our sin, is being more fully restored in us.

Jesus Christ shows us what this highest stage, union with God looks like.

“He is the image of the invisible God.” [Col 1:15]

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…” [Heb 1:3]

Imagine what it is to be perfectly God’s image and likeness.  Jesus went around the Holy Land and in every encounter, responded to the people before him perfectly.  In his human nature, Jesus thought the thoughts of God, He spoke the words of God, He acted just as God would act, not my will, but thy will be done.  Jesus knew when to speak and when to be silent, He knew how to respond to the needs of each person he encountered: sometimes he encouraged a person, sometimes he pointed out their sin.  Sometimes he was gentle, sometimes he was angry.  In his healing miracles, sometimes Jesus healed a person in public, sometimes he took the person apart from the crowd; sometimes he just said the words, sometimes he touched them with his hand.  This is what union with God looks like in human nature.  Jesus was wisdom and love incarnate.

Jesus is the ultimate example for us of spiritual maturity in all ways.  It is wonderful that we know of one person who is perfect in every way.  Jesus shows us what it means to be a fully mature human being, in perfect union with God.

------------

St Paul speaks to us today about these three stages of our spiritual growth in our Epistle reading this morning, from Purgation to Illumination to Union with God.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,

This phrase is in the past tense, was given.  Through faith and baptism, we were filled with the grace of forgiveness and other graces have helped, and are helping, in the reforming of our disordered passions, in purgation. 

that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift,

Again this is past tense, were enriched.  It is the grace of illumination of our souls with spiritual insight and particular spiritual gifts given to each one of us. 

as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

This is present tense, as you wait.  The union of our souls with God, by which the image and likeness of God, is, over time, being revealed even now.  This is not about a mystical vision of Jesus out there, but that he is revealed in our midst, as we unveil His image in us!  As Jesus revealed perfectly the image of God in his own life from the beginning, so will we become more and more like Him, God is revealed in us.

who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the future tense, will sustain you, and, in the day when Christ returns.  We are justified by faith in Jesus – and so are guiltless, accounted righteous in God’s eyes even from out baptism, but then, over time we are also being sanctified, made righteous by God, being brought to a state of holiness where we become less guilty as we form habits of holiness, acting more and more in accord with God’s ways even without thinking about it.  He’s also speaking about an ongoing forgiveness in this process – sustaining us guiltless.

I’ll speak more about this “waiting” that St Paul speaks about here – what it means for us.

------------

In our Gospel today [St Matthew 22:34-46], Jesus is asked by the Pharisees, what is the greatest commandment in the Law of Moses?  He responds with the two great commandments – love God with all that you are and love your neighbour as yourself.  These are the heights to which we are moving.  You could say, this is what happens in and through us when we are fully mature, when we are united with God.

But Jesus is not saying something new to the Pharisees, he is identifying what is there written in the Law of Moses – something they knew.  He is summing it up in two short commands: on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.  This is what the whole teaching of the Old Testament is about – and he’s not come to change that.

But Jesus does add something by saying that the first commandment to love God is like the second commandment to love our neighbour.

Why is the commandment to love God like the commandment to love our neighbour?

We are to love that which is worthy – God is of ultimate worth – He is worthy of our worship.  The second commandment is like it, because humanity is made in the image and likeness of God.  One of the Church Fathers said:

Whoever loves man is as the one who loves God; for man is God’s image, wherein God is loved, as a King is honoured in his statue.  For this cause the [second] commandment is said to be like the first.  [Pseudo-Chrysostom, in the Catena Aurea, Aquinas]

But it can be difficult to see God’s image in another person, especially as that image and likeness is deformed by sin – it would not be right to love that which is violent or greedy or lustful or selfish or arrogant in another.  But Jesus has come to make it easier for us to discern what we should love in another person.

And we are to love that which is Christlike in everyone we see – and there is no person on earth who does not continue to bear something of that image, however tarnished.  Our task as lovers of our neighbour is to help in the revealing of that image and likeness of God by giving worth to, by loving and affirming, that which is Christlike in them while at the same time forbearing and forgiving the rest and calling them to account when they sin.  This is what St Paul did in laying out his love for the Corinthians at the start of his letter, as we heard today.  And then Paul challenges them in the rest of that letter in very particular ways to live up to their high calling.  Of course we are very aware that for us to do so, can only be in a spirit of humility, because we have seen our own failures and need of God’s mercy.

But love compels us not be silent on the issues of our day – abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, transgenderism, climate catastrophism – where people are profoundly hurting themselves and others.  To be silent would be a failure in love.  But how to do this, in love, requires great wisdom and courage.

------------

I said I would speak more about the “waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In this latter stage of our maturing in Christ, in the stage of union, we increasingly realize that it is all God’s work of grace to continue to bring about a change in us.

In the last part of the Gospel story, Jesus challenges the Pharisees, with a question about who the Messiah is – and he interprets David’s Psalm to reveal that the Messiah is not just a human descendant of King David, but also the Divine Son of God who was before David.

We can think of this as a call to move from our contemplation of Jesus as the perfect man to the Divine Son – a call that I hope we heed more and more in our spiritual life.

But it also is a wonderful passage to commend to us the way in which we “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ” sustaining us guiltless until Jesus returns.

It is in and through the Sacramental life that we are united to Jesus Christ.  And through our being united with Jesus by His Word and Sacrament, that the Father, puts all our enemies under our feet.  A sign of our maturity is to have Jesus in our mind more and more, to be conscious of our walking in the presence of God, and seeking to will His will in all that we do.  That is a state of maturity that St Paul speaks about elsewhere as “praying at all times.” [Eph 6:18]

This morning we don’t presume to be at such a height of sanctity, but we do take the opportunity that Jesus opens up for us by His Word and Sacrament to come forward, humbly and through repentance, to trust in Jesus’ self-sacrifice and to participate, in the Holy Communion of His Body and Blood given for us.  This is the way that we might have Jesus revealed in our midst and be “sustained” and found “guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Amen +