Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Trinity
Homily for Trinity 20, 2021
Fr. Tony Melton @ CTK
“Eyes peeled, mind clear, ears open, and stick together”
In nearly every place we’ve lived, we’ve always driven through an area where there are many people walking aimlessly and precariously along the street. Southeast Dallas where we lived for 5 years had far more than Marietta. I remember a man walking straight into traffic, dancing to the music in his headphones, staggering from whatever was coursing through his system, all by his lonesome at 1 o’clock in the morning. Thankfully I saw him coming, and the few cars coming behind me swerved to miss him, too. I hope he got home safely.
Our text today is from our Epistle—Ephesians 5:15. “Walk circumspectly, for the days are evil.” This man was not walking circumspectly and therefore he did not know the danger that he was in. We are living in evil days, yet there are so many intoxicants of the soul that we don’t often recognize the dangers. So many are like that man. We walk into oncoming traffic because we intoxicate our minds with dopamine through excess pleasure, cortisol and adrenaline through excess stress. And after we get pummeled by temptation, or we fall into a pit sin, or crisis hits us, we are even more disoriented. We become confused, lazy, and sad. But, fellow pilgrims, we have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of us. Our Savior walked this same earth, and he bids us through his Apostle Paul to “Walk circumspectly, for the days are evil.”
This morning, I’ll touch briefly on our Collect for this week and the consistent theme the Church has had on Trinity 20 for nearly 1400 years. Then, we will walk circumspectly through our Epistle reading from Ephesians 5. At the end, I’ll briefly relate what St. Paul says to the Rule of Life that we speak about here at CTK.
In your booklet, please open to page 9. At the top is the Collect for the 20th Sunday after Trinity. In it we ask God to “keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things which thou commandest.” This Collect was composed for the Sarum Missal in 1078, but it is a variation of an earlier collect found in the Gregorian Sacramentary, which was composed in the early 600’s. That Collect reads, “Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to avoid the infections of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God…” In the later version you have “keep us from all things that may hurt us” and in the earlier “keep us from infections of the devil”. The Sarum Collect reads that we would be ready in body and soul to cheerfully accomplish” God’s commands. The Gregorian Collect asks that we would have pure hearts and minds in order to follow God. For 1400 years, the Church has contemplated this theme on this week: the avoidance hurtful things and the readiness of body and soul to do God’s Work cheerfully.
Let us see why. As is often the case, the Collect is trying to take the Epistle and turn it into Prayer. And what do we see in Ephesians 5:15? Please either turn there in your Bibles, or open to page 9 in your booklet. In our Epistle, Paul lays out how to navigate the evil times in which we live, and I see in this passage 4 principles which relate to the man walking down the street at night.
In verses 15-16, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our eyes peeled. Keep our eyes peeled. He says, “See then that ye walk circumspectly.” That word in the English means literally to look (specto) around (circum). Circumspectly. Don’t be naive, or as Paul puts it, “not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Followers of Jesus don’t lie to themselves about the times in which they live. The general approach of the Church, especially in pre or post Christian societies is to live out the counter-culture of the Gospel. We are to assume the presence of danger in the world, infections of the soul as the old Collect says. The days are evil, so we must keep our eyes peeled and walk circumspectly.
In verses 17-18, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our mind clear. So what are they? Eyes…”peeled”. Mind…”clear”. “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” This is a big one. There is so much to cloud our heads right now. Cell phone companies advertise that you can be limitless. But the Cloud of data brings with it a cloudiness of mind. With the great variety of options, we miss the mona, the One, to which our minds must fix. Our foods are chemically engineered to kick our body into a pleasure state, and this too clouds the mind. And we wonder why we do not understand the will of God. The people of God have lost their ascetic. Of course, this is nothing to say of what we call “intoxicants”, to which St. Paul refers to explicitly. If we are to see the oncoming traffic, we must keep our minds clear and our eyes open.
In verse 19, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our ears open. Keep our ears…open. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Some of my students used to think that I was a curmudgeon when it came to music. While it is true that much of modern music is simply awful, many of them were surprised that my concerns were less about the type of music as it was about the constancy of music. In other words, the most significant problem with Spotify is not that it makes the soul spotty through content, it is that constant noise tunes out the melody of the heart to the Lord that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5.
Many of you are still adjusting to chanting in the Liturgy. I know that it is difficult. Not only are we not accustomed to chanting, but the Merbecke setting is admittedly not the most majestic or exuberant. It is more penitential in tone. We began with it because it is relatively easy. What I’ve found encouraging is that even those who have struggled to learn it or enjoy it testify that when it is quiet at their home, or as they go about their day, the tunes of the Liturgy settle into their mind. The Sanctus, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts…” The Gloria, “we praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee…” Some have heard their children humming or singing the Mass while lying in bed. Listen again to what Paul is saying, and think about how this would actually happen in a Christian life. When do we speak to one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs? He is speaking here of the Liturgy. Just as we are sent out, Missum, Mass, carrying in us the Body of Christ, so we are take these melodies and carry them in our hearts. To have our ears open and our hearts singing is exactly what we need if we are to walk circumspectly and in communion with Jesus. How can we do this if we fill our minds with distractions, our bodies with intoxicants, and our ears with noise?
Our friend on the street had his eyes down, his mind clouded, and his ears covered and filled. But he was also all alone. There was no one to help him out of danger. In verses 20-21, St. Paul exhorts us to stick together. Let’s go through them. Eyes…PEELED. Mind…CLEAR. Ears…OPEN. Stick…TOGETHER. “giving thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” As we’ve mentioned before, “giving thanks” is the Greek word for Eucharist, and it almost always has some reference to the central Liturgy of the Church. We give thanks within the Eucharistic community. And it is here that we follow St. Paul’s final command in this Epistle reading: “submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Jesus says that we are like sheep. We easily lose our way and wander into dangerous lands. How much truer is this of us, who are still sheep but live in an age with so many intoxicants of the soul? A mark of a truly wise man or woman is the ability to say, “I might be wrong. I might be disoriented. My mind might be cloudy. Maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe I’m venturing into traffic unknowingly.” The possibility of our own error, or even our own insanity. We will not make it on our own. You can’t walk “circumspectly” on your own. You can only walk semi-circumspectly. You need someone to watch your six, and to catch you when you lose your way.
To condense St. Paul’s words down even further and in order to apply them within the context of this community, I’ll say that to “walk circumspectly…wisely in these evil days” we must have an adequate ascesis and a Eucharistic Community. An adequate ascesis corresponds to keeping our eyes open and mind clear. If we are survive our pilgrimage, we must not be drunk in any sense of the word. Our minds must be clear and that takes discipline, or ascesis. But we also need a Eucharistic community, which we have right here and right now. And this corresponds to keeping our ears open and sticking together. It is here that we open our ears and fill our hearts with the music of the Church. Let the hymnody of God’s people and the sung words of Scripture be your soundtrack. And these people, for a few seconds look around around at the people that God has given you, these are the people that will keep you in the right way. They will watch your back, and keep you from falling into a pit. You are to “submit yourself to one another in the fear of the Lord.”
My brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ has given us so much. He has opened our eyes and has given us his mind through the Spirit of Wisdom. Jesus has given us one another. It is He who leads the singing where together to make melody to God. We speak God’s word to each other. We give thanks together. We submit one to another. And in all of this, Jesus is at the center, constantly giving grace that we may walk in the paths of life, blazed by the fire of his love. A highway through the desert. A pilgrimage taken together. Let us walk circumspectly, making melody in our hearts to the Lord.