Sermon for Septuagesima Sunday, 2021

Homily for Septuagesima

Fr. Tony Melton

January 31, 2021

In World War II, President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill went round and round on the merits of a full-invasion of the continent of Europe. After increased pressure from Joseph Stalin to establish a 2nd, western front, they decided to move ahead with Operation Overlord, popularly known as D-Day. 156,000 Allied soldiers attacked 5 beaches in northern France in what would be the largest amphibian attack in history. One year later, the Allied forces had defeated Nazi Germany. D-Day is still credited as being the decisive strategic move that gave victory to the Allies.

War is a terrible thing, but most would agree that it is sometimes necessary. War presses a nation to be tougher, more strategic, and committed to their countrymen and values than they’ve ever been in peacetime. In the Christian year, we enter into battle at least yearly. The Great Fast of the Church called Lent is a battle for our soul, the Church, and the World. No doubt a war is always raging, and we are always called to fight in it. But, thankfully the fatal blow to the Enemy has already been dealt. Jesus Christ has already accomplished His D-Day. He has empowered His Church with His Holy Spirit to finish out the invasion. We don’t focus on this all year. That would be overkill. Most of the year is spent celebrating in the glorious kingdom of God. The Church, in her Wisdom, apportions 40 days in the year to lean into the reality of a spiritual war with the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

Just like with Operation Overlord, great attack plans don’t develop overnight. They take time, deep thought, expert opinion, guts, and the ability to accept pain and cost for the sake of victory. Since Lent is a battle, it requires a battle plan, and battle plans require a time of planning. For this reason, the Church gives us the season of “pre-Lent”, the three “gesima” Sundays. Today is Septuagesima, Septua means “seventy” and gesima means “days”: approximately 70 days till Easter. Three weeks of pre-Lent to develop a plan of attack for strategic victories against the Flesh, the World, and the Devil.

I’m not pulling this theme of warfare out of thin air. All of our propers offer some vision for how we can fulfill our baptismal promise to “fight manfully under Christ’s banner.” Most clearly is our Old Testament passage, Joshua 1:1-9, which is the primary text for this homily. Serendipidously, Joshua 1:9 is also our Bible Memory Verse for our children this week.

Our theme today is “a spiritual plan of attack” and it is so needed in our time. Everyone loves to celebrate, few are willing to fight. Many come to Christmas and Easter. Few come to Advent and Lent. Everyone loves to feast, few are willing to fast, and those few typically do not approach it with the strategy and focus needed for winning a battle; they don’t fight to win. They punch at the air like St. Paul talks about in our Epistle this morning, and never land an actual punch.

Joshua 1:1-9 is God’s declaration of a war between His people and the Canaanites.  God says to Joshua, “Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.” In the next few verses, God outlines an enormous area of land, the boundaries of which are only barely realized at the height of the Solomonic Kingdom. “No one will be able to stand against you. I will be with you. Be strong and of a good courage. Be strong and of a good courage. Be strong and of a good courage.” God says it three times in this passage. Joshua is instructed to observe God’s commands, and to keep God’s Word on his lips and on his mind always.

Many of the Church Fathers saw the Book of Acts as a parallel fulfillment of the Book of Joshua. Not only is there a matching preamble with a commission to go and take a land, but there are many episodes which overlap. For example, the story of Achan keeping some of the spoils from the destruction of Ai parallels the story of Ananias and Sapphira keeping back a portion of their offering to the Lord. This parallel should not surprise us. The Old Testament Scriptures are a type, a pattern for understanding the mystery of Christ. We can look at the book of Joshua and learn about the Church. And what do we learn through a typological reading?

First, just as Joshua was to up and go into a land given by God to His people, we are to up and go into the whole world given by God to the Church. The Church doesn’t have different promises than Israel. God expanded the promises made to Israel. He gave the whole area of Canaan to the Israelites; God give the whole world to the Church. This is why He tells us to go to the ends of the earth!

Second, just as God promised to be with Joshua, He has promised to be with us. “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” Sound familiar?

Third, just as God told Joshua to be careful not to stray from the way of God’s commands, so we must proceed walking in the steps given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul calls this the “law of Christ.” It should never leave our lips or our minds.

And fourth, just as God told Joshua 3 times to be strong and of good courage, so must we if we are to fulfill the task set before us.

We can learn more if we utilize an allegorical reading. The first town that Joshua went to was Jericho. The town was destroyed with ease because God broke down that stronghold. This points to the truth that when we trust in God and enter into battle following His commands, He will often break down strongholds for us. At other times, like with the defeat at Ai due to Achan’s treachery, we might fight and lose miserably because of some unrepentant sin. We could go on and on.

We won’t… It is enough that we have seen in the lesson that we, too, are in a war. Spiritually taken, our marching orders are the same. Up and go, with courage, carefully and constantly walking in the law of God to exterminate all evil and establish a kingdom of righteousness. But in the act of reading Scripture sacramentally and typologically, drawing similarities and carryovers from the Old Testament to the New, it is very important for us to understand the differences.

You might remember the character Admiral Boom and Mr. Binnacle from the movie, Mary Poppins. A navy man who lives on Cherry St, he kept his house in “ship-shape” and stood on the roof with his cannon, watching the nannies and children pass by each day, logging the weather and searching out potential threats. He blessed the quiet neighborhood with cannon fire each day at 8am and 6pm. We don’t want to be an Admiral Boom. He was no doubt still an Admiral, and still had some role in society of protection and care, but the nature and scope of his task had changed and the weapons that once accomplished their purpose were now obsolete and inappropriate.

So, lest we be an Admiral Boom, before we talk about strategy in this Lenten battle we will enter, let us spend a few minutes defining the nature and scope of the task and the appropriate weaponry.

The Israelites marching orders were very direct, they were to follow the Law and exterminate the Canaanites. Where? In Canaan. How? With the sword. Our marching orders are much more complex. First, the nature of the war is spiritual. The Kingdom of God is spiritual. Jesus affirms this when talking with Pontius Pilate. This is not to say that the kingdom of God doesn’t have an affect on politics, or that kingdoms can’t be Christian, it is just to say that our task is not to set up earthly powers by earthy means. Our task is to build the Kingdom of God, which is to say, the Church. The Church is not a-political. It is supra-political, above it all. The currency of this kingdom is righteousness. Its founding documents are the Bible and the Creeds. Its governors are the bishops. Its citizens are the baptized on earth and those at rest in Christ. Its enemies are the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Its defenses are the Holy Spirit, the virtues of its members, the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty that radiates from King Jesus in His people, the unity of the people, and the tenacity of our Faith. Its arsenal is the Word of God, Prayer, Fasting or ascesis, and Almsgiving or acts of mercy. The nature of the war is spiritual.

And what about its scope? The Church’s war is not confined geographically to the land of Canaan. God has given us the whole Earth. So the kingdom of God is to spread out till all nations praise the Name of the Lord. But, the kingdom of God also spreads inwardly in each and every one of us until every fiber of our being gives praise to God in holiness. Each person is like a microcosm of the whole world. We are to be a new Creation. So, the nature of the war is now spiritual, and the scope of the war now extends to the farthest corners of the earth and the darkest corners of our hearts.

This Lent, you will be called to fight several battles. First, there is the battle to be waged in your own heart. What areas of my life still need to be conquered by Jesus Christ? What strongholds of sin need to be toppled? Second, there is the battle to be waged by your parish in our local community. We as a mission have some specific battle to fight and a role to play in Northwest Atlanta. God through His Spirit guides us in what our mission is, and we work together as a church to accomplish it. Third, there is global battle to be waged. Each of these battles are more and more removed from our sphere of direct responsibility and so it is natural that our energy and involvement is highest in fighting the battle for our own soul, but all three are there.

Now that we have defined the nature and scope of the war that we are in, we can finally talk about strategy, and for the sake of time I will focus primarily on the interior battle to be fought.

First, in the interior battle each of us will have a different target. Close your eyes. Imagine that within you is a wide world. You are standing on a high hill and can see for miles and miles. Spread throughout the landscape are pockets of civilization. To the left is a gleaming city, a cross emerging as the highest structure, it pulses with the life of God. You look down and see a village, small but beautiful. To the right is a town. Its streets are filled with trash. The buildings look shady. Stray animals roam the streets. You look up and notice in the distance massive walls of stone, ugly and terrible, within the walls is the glow of a forge belching thick black smoke into the skyline. You scan the horizon and notice dozens of spots, some gleaming cities, some beautiful villages, some dirty towns, some ominous strongholds. Open your eyes.

These are the virtues and vices, the Kingdom of God is mixed together with our Flesh, just like it is mixed together with the world outside of us. Every one of us has the responsibility to go and possess our inner landscape, to eradicate evil and to establish righteousness, to replace falsehood, wickedness, and ugliness with Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. You are like Joshua standing atop the mountain. Where will you attack first? What is your Jericho? How will you attack it? Will it be in your own strength? If so, you will fail. Only God can break down your strongholds. Will it be half-heartedly? If so, you will fail. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. He should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” James 1:7-8. Will it be strategic? This is where so many fail.

I love the game of Risk. For those who are unfamiliar, the board is a map of all the countries of the world. The goal is for your army to conquer the whole globe. Each player is apportioned their equal fraction of countries. Then they place a certain number of army units in amounts that they choose. Beginners always spread out their armies equally, two on this country, two on that country. These people always lose. Those who win put all their armies in one area and take over a continent entirely, fortify it, and then spread out. This is how we should proceed in our Lenten battles. Choose one of the spots on your landscape. Is it a virtue that needs to be developed? This is the small, beautiful village. Spend your time and energy fortifying this. In the book, Imitation of Christ, Thomas aKempis says, “If we were to uproot only one vice each year, we should soon become perfect.” Is there a stronghold of sin ready to unleash its armies within on your whole world? Call on every resource to wage war in the name of Christ and don’t stop till God has given you the victory!

Each of you need to be developing a plan. Like Roosevelt and Churchill, you need to think hard about how to best proceed. What if this Lent was your personal D-Day? Their plan took guts. It was costly. It was targeted. It was coordinated. They didn’t make the plan alone. They called in expert opinion. Utilize your clergy. CTK is blessed with four of them. Give them the layout of your inner landscape. That’s called Confession. We can help you form an attack plan.

The Bible has dozens of metaphors for us to understand who we are in Christ. Last Sunday, we were the Bride. The Communion is the wedding banquet. I hope you spent the week meditating on that. On Septuagesima, we are soldiers. The Communion is the field ration, our fortification against fatigue. We go forth in the power and Spirit of God, with every resource. The gates of hell can not stand against King Jesus. So now “therefore arise, go over this Jordan, unto the land which I do give to you. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you. I will be with you: I will not fail you, nor forsake you. Be strong and of a good courage, that you may observe all the law of Christ, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.” Amen.