Sermon for Rogation Sunday, 2020

Rogation Sunday, 2020

Theme: God is bringing all things back to shalom.

Key text: “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”

I’d like to start off this morning telling you a story that you know well, in a way that you may not have heard before. It is the story of Shalom. In the beginning, man and woman dwelt in the midst of a Garden Temple. There was fruit as big as your head. Everything was green and lush. The was never a shortage of food or beauty. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day. There was a great unity between Man and God and Creation so that all things constantly blessed the other and were blessed. The ancient Hebrews called this great and perfect unity of all things “shalom”. But then man ate the forbidden fruit, the fruit of the “Knowledge of Good and Evil” and in that moment there came into existence the first true disjunct in the story of Earth. It was, as the name of the fruit implies, a disjunction between knowledge and responsibility. Man, now, has the capacity to know the Good and not do it, or as James puts it, to be a hearer of God’s Word, but not a doer. And the disunity between Man’s and God’s Law broke apart all of the other unities that created shalom. After the Fall, there is disunity between Man and God, so Man must leave the presence of the Lord and is cast out of Eden. There is disunity between Man and Woman; between brother and brother. And there is also a disunity between Man and Creation. No longer will the ground produce the fruits of Eden. The same soil, and the same mist that covered the ground, and the same seed that had once grown tall and lush in Eden, would now produce dust and briars. All fell into a wasteland—the opposite of Shalom—because of the disunity between God’s Word and Man’s Deed.

This disunity between God and His Creation progressed so far that God decided to undo Creation. He took one of His first acts of separating the waters into the waters of the firmament and the waters under the earth and collapsed them. He flooded the Earth, destroying nearly everything that lived. But He says to Noah, “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.” So God makes a covenant with all of Creation, to not destroy it, but to bless it, to redeem it, to return it to shalom.

We hear this commitment of God in our readings today in the Psalms and the Old Testament lesson. “Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous…The folds shall be full of sheep; the valleys also shall stand so thick with scorn, that they shall laugh and sing.” Psalm 65. Ezekiel prophesies, “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness…I will send down showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit…I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land…” And, as we would expect, this new shalom between God and His Creation is accompanied by a reunification between God and Man, and God’s Word and Man’s Deed. Psalm 67, “Let all the people praise thee, O God, yea let all the people’s praise thee. Then shall the earth bring forth her increase.” God’s plan is to bring all things back to Shalom.

This Sunday is called Rogation Sunday. The name “Rogation” comes from the Latin word rogare meaning “to ask”. We call this “Rogation Sunday” or “Asking Sunday” because the Gospel appointed has these words of Jesus: “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” And so on this 5th Sunday after Easter, the Church asks God to send down His blessing on His People and His Creation. It is the day that we ask Him to bring shalom.

Kids, imagine its the weekend, the day after school gets out. Your parents tell you that there is a great day planned. You guys are going to really celebrate and have a great day. You’re gonna get donuts, go to a theme park, watch a movie, and finish the night off with s’mores. Your parents’ desire is to shower blessings on you. Does that sound like a fun day? [ya!] Now imagine that the first thing you do when you wake up is pick on your your sister, refuse to take the trash out, and throw a tantrum at the donut shop. Are your parents going to keep pouring out blessings on you? [No!] At least, not until you do what? [Repent!] That’s right.

This was the dilemma that mankind was in. Ever since our hearts became wicked in the Garden, the blessing of God was revoked. And for hundreds of years, man did not repent and the beautiful earth was made a wasteland, just like your fun day would turn bad. The disunity between God’s Word and Man’s Deed prohibited the shalom of God in His Creation. That is, until Jesus came. In Jesus, there was no disunity between God’s Law and Man’s heart and deeds. He was a hearer and a doer. Jesus had full knowledge of Good and Evil, and He completely chose the Good and turned away from the Evil. And because of this, God has started to bring shalom back to His Creation. Don’t you see why John includes the story about Mary Magdalene thinking that Jesus is a Gardener? Don’t you see why those who were dead burst out of their tombs like lilies from the ground? The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the beginning of our return to shalom. In the Kingdom of the Resurrected Christ, all things are being knit back together in their original unity. Man with Creation, Creation with God, and God with Man.

This is why all of these passages about corn, and showers of blessing, are placed next to James’ command to “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” It is because the disunity between man’s knowledge of the Word and his doing of the Word was what originally stopped the corn from growing, and the showers from falling. And it is the obedience to God’s Word in the heart of Jesus that unleashes the blessing of God on the world.

You might recall the story of Sisyphus, the cruel and deceitful king of Corinth. After a series of direct confrontations with some very powerful gods, Zeus banished him to the Underworld and cursed him with an impossible task. He was to push a massive boulder up a hill, but upon reaching the top of the hill his feet would slip, and the boulder would come barreling down to the bottom of the hill. This would be his bondage for all eternity. And this is why we call seemingly impossible or unending tasks “Sisyphean”, like keeping the house clean while your kids are home in quarantine, or keeping the weeds out of your yard.

After the Fall, being a true doer of the Word was a Sisyphean task. God’s people heard the Word of God, and many tried to obey it, but they were unable because sooner or later, their heart would falter, their foot would slip. Because of this, St. Paul speaks of the Law as a cause for death: “I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.” And yet James speaks of the “perfect Law of Liberty”. Well, is the Law Sisyphean or is it our path to Shalom? "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Meaning, because of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we now have the Spirit which will enable us to keep God’s Law, to make us true doers of the Word! The commands of God, which before were a Sisyphean bondage, are now the path to Liberty and Shalom. So James says with the confidence of the New Covenant: “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”

And this should give us great hope. God’s plan is to bring all things back to shalom. He tells us to ask Him for this. Listen to our Collect to hear what I’m talking about. Today the Church asks God, “Grant that we may think (or hear) those things that are Good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform (or do) the same.”

We have been given a clear command. We must act on what we know. We must repent of what God shows us. We must do what we hear Him say in His Word. We should strive to fulfill this command with all our heart, mind, and strength. But we have also been given the promise of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ is working in us to fulfill all righteousness. And so I leave you with a blessing, May God make clear to you His Law, and whisper in your ear what expects from you, and may He work mightily in your heart and cause you to walk in His ways, that His kingdom and Shalom might flourish in you, and in your homes, and in this blessed Earth, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.