Prevent Us & Follow Us

The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

The Church’s one Foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the word:
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy Bride;
With His own blood he bought her,
And for her life He died.

Christians are not trailblazers. We are followers. The question is, who do we follow? For if we think we are blazing a trail, it is merely ot our own destruction. Our passions lead us astray, and they do not lead us anywhere novel, but merely lead us into following the way of death, trampled out before us by satan himself. Yet satan has been trampled, and we who follow after Jesus Christ, the serpent crusher, shall inherit our Lord’s calling also to crush satan under our feet. We blaze no trails on our own. We deceive ourselves into thinking we are blazing a path forward through the underbrush, but undoubtedly, there comes a time when we enter into a small clearing and our hacking away at Scripture and tradition will lead us to one place: the broad road of heresy, schism, and destruction.

Leave aside the romantic notion of trailblazing and admit you need a guide. Dispel the devilish demon that tempts you to take the trailless path and follow the One who blazes the trail before you. Church, cry aloud this week to the Lord, whose “grace may always prevent and follow us.” (Collect of the Day). Our Lord is the one who goes before (prevent in the older use of the word) us, leading the charge towards the heavenly Jerusalem and over the fallen walls of hell. Furthermore, Christ not only leads us in battle, but He is our rearguard, following us and pushing us to keep the battle hot. Never relent, attacking the trail and your enemy, starting with your own sinful passions and the demonic influences in this world.

Yet how shall we quell the rebellion in our hearts? Through faithfully trusting the Trailblazer and Vanguard of our soul, who defends and protects us. Yet what about the demons who snipe, snape, and sinisterly set their eyes upon us? We wage war against these unincarnate ones by pulling every soul from the fire. Or as we pray in today’s collect, we ask our Lord who goes before us and follows us to “make us continually to be given to all good works, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Collect of the Day). Our good works are hideous and hateful to the evil one precisely because they reveal God the Holy Spirit living within us to our neighbors who encounter us. Hence, the evil one distracts and lies that we are better off on our own path, blazing a hellbound trail. Yet the call of the Church is to make saints from within and from without. We do so by setting our eyes upon the Author and Finisher of our faith and while walking with eyes on Jesus, we equip the saints we encounter on the Way, and we serve and drag those who stumble off the broad road of destruction and pull them with us on Christ’s path.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one Faith, one Birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

We see Jesus living out the example of dragging people onto the path of salvation in today’s Gospel. Christ visits “one of the chief Pharisees” – dining with his chief enemies. (Luke 14:1, KJV). Note that Jesus does not avoid or reject the invitation; instead, He accepts because this is an opportunity when God providentially places a lost wanderer onto the path of Life, and Jesus is going to take it. It is the Sabbath day, and a man is at dinner, suffering from dropsy. We know not whether this man suffering from his ailment is a fellow Pharisee or simply a plant, placed by the Pharisees to induce Jesus to act. Nevertheless, Jesus takes the initiative and asks the host and guests the question they were probably planning to ask Him: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 14:3).

There is so much to be learned in our Lord, asking the question first. Namely, Jesus sees the chance to teach lost souls and takes it. How much more should we, when God provides a sinner to stumble in front of us, take up the call and calling to minister to them with the Gospel? Although “the lawyers and Pharisees” stare blankly and say nothing, but merely “held their peace,” this matters not to Jesus. (Luke 14:3-4). This is the time for action, and action Jesus does take. Christ presses them further with a question on the subject, asking, “Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?” (Luke 14:5).

Our Lord is telling you, Church, do not be ask the silent and dumbfounded lawyers and Pharisees who again “could not answer him again to these things.” (Luke 14:6). Christ shames the religious elites by highlighting their hypocrisy. They will save their property, their livestock, on the sabbath, yet they would willingly and joyfully condemn Christ for healing on the Sabbath. Before you think yourself like the man with dropsy in need of healing, look to the mirror and ask yourself, are you really a lawyer or a Pharisee?

Where is Christ putting ailing and ill sinners in front of you? Is it at the grocery store check-out line? A conversation with a co-worker at break? The parent at your child’s basketball game? There are no chance encounters; God is planting these souls in your walk so that you may glorify Him by faithfully serving your neighbor with the Gospel and the good works your neighbor needs. Fear not what they will say. Do not reason away why now is not a good time – for if the Savior says the Sabbath rest is a good day for godly work, then we have no excuse in delaying or deferring sharing the life-giving Good News today.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore opprest,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distrest,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

Shed the false humility that you are “too much a hypocrite” to share the Gospel. Jesus calls and heals the handicapped and hypocrites alike. If Christ can speak through Balaam’s ass, then He will speak through you too. Cease patting yourself on the back for knowing how much of a hypocrite you are and self-justifying yourself into doing nothing. Jesus did not do nothing on the Sabbath; He healed. You go and do likewise by telling people about the Lord God who heals every day, including hypocrites like me and you.

Proper humility is realizing we are not meant for greatness, but for serving Greatness. True humility is working day and night because the Day of the Lord draws near. Humility is St. Paul getting knocked off his ass and then becoming Christ’s apostle for the rest of His life, even when it means imprisonment. St. Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus by not hiding behind a false humility but writing as “the prisoner of the Lord,” and using his solitary time in chains to “beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” (Epistle lesson, Ephesians 4:1, KJV). St. Paul did not let his circumstances prevent him from taking the opportunity to write and encourage the saints at Ephesus.

Beautifully, the subject of today’s Epistle lesson is Paul encouraging the church to walk worthy of the vocation you are called. Regardless of your job, your marriage, your struggles, and your lot in life, you are called by the same Lord and Christ to serve Him where you are at in your vocation. And our calling is not something to triumph over and above others. Our Lord tells us, “when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room;” “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Luke 14:10-11). We do not lift ourselves up, whether we be bishops, priests, vestrymen, staff, or parishioners in the pews. We lift up Christ by laying ourselves into servanthood for the betterment of the Body. Therefore, Paul exhorts us, “with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” we are called to live for one another and to make new saints by saving those who stumble onto Christ’s salvific Way.

‘Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Christianity is bigger than you. It is not an individual plan for saving your soul. It is the good news that God is redeeming the entire world and making all things new, and in the midst of the new creation, the Savior who lived, died, and lives again to destroy your sins and death is gathering together a Church so uniquely and specially united to Him that it is even called His bride.

This Body is not our own, but is His own Body. His Body is growing, and that requires each of us as its members to do the work within our vocation, our calling, and the Spirit’s Divine gift to us. There are people the Spirit is pulling onto our path – but let us never forget, this is not our path, but His. We were pulled by Christ, who precedes us and follows us from the broad road of destruction onto His narrow and perfect Way. When we encounter strangers to the Way, we are meeting future saints to be molded by the Holy Spirit. We only need to tell them about the Way and welcome them into Christ’s redeeming grace.

There are no Christians alone on this Way we traverse. It is a pilgrimage. Pilgrims are ahead of us, alongside us, behind us, and new ones are stumbling even now onto the path. We have not only our Lord before us and behind us, but also all the saints who have finished the race ahead of us and new saints being born again onto Christ’s Way. Regardless of whether we are saints of old, saints being molded, or new saints, we live together as one within the Church. For “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6). As one united to the Eternal One and the saints of yore and saints anew, walk faithfully and speak the healing Gospel this day to the ones who find themselves providentially next to you at dinner.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.