The Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Trinity , 2020

         I’m sure you’ve heard it said before that the important thing is what we do and that doctrine just divides people. Or maybe you’ve heard it put this way, “Well, as long as you’re a good person.” Absolutely no doubt you’ve seen the bumper stickers that group together all the different religious symbols to spell, “COEXIST.” All three of these statements fail to recognize the relationship between what we believe and what we do. As does this popular sentiment, “You can believe whatever you want as long as it doesn’t hurt someone.” These ideas hold that evil only resides in deeds, but that there’s nothing morally wrong with believing something theologically wrong. There is a false dichotomy between the safety of a personal spirituality and the danger of what we choose to do with our bodies. This morning, I will argue that there is nothing more hurtful, harmful, dangerous, and toxic, than heresy.

         Heresy is not a fun subject. But our Propers very clearly point us toward adopting the mind of Christ as it concerns doctrine. We ask God in our Collect to “put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which are profitable for us.” The Gospel leads off “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” The morning lessons continue with this emphasis: “Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true.” All the lessons, in their own way, point to this relationship between “that which is hurtful” and heresy.

         There is a fantastic book, very readable, by Christopher Fitzsimmons Allison, an Episcopal bishop, called The Cruelty of Heresy. In it he shows exactly what is at stake in the ancient Christological heresies which are reemerging in our own time. What he says about each one of them is not for our purposes today. I merely want to affirm the connection that he makes between morality and doctrine. He says it is hurtful, even wrong, to believe wrongly. It matters what you believe. If you accept heresy, no matter how naively, it will have an incredibly cruel effect. There is no pain that compares to the long, numbing, confused, anxious suffering that resides in the heretic’s soul.

         Take Pelegius, for instance, an enemy of Augustine who taught that man did not inherit a corrupted nature from Adam. Pelegius taught that we could fulfill the righteous requirement of God without the aid of grace. Keep in mind that we hear this again and again in our day when people say that we are by nature, “Good.” But can you imagine how cruel a life lived under this heresy would be? To think that your salvation was in your hands, within your grasp, and up to you? Or take the heresy which is very common among our popular, so-called, “theologians” that deny the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead. Paul is clear about this, “And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” The very popular denial of the inspiration of Scripture, the idea that Scripture is just another devotional book but not the authoritative Word of God, is not just wrong, but cruel. It leaves us without Truth so that all is relative except what is politically correct at the time. But there is nothing so comforting as Truth and nothing so cruel as a world devoid of Truth. There is nothing more hurtful, to bring it back to our Collect, than heresy.

         I’d like to teach you something about the liturgical calendar that relates to our subject of heresy. Several of you have asked me about the liturgical year, so I’ll include some teaching on it where it is relevant. Right now we are in the 8th week of Trinity season. Trinity is a very long season. We are just nearing the end of the first third of Trinity. This is significant, because Trinity season is divided roughly into thirds. Each third cycles through the vices and virtues, but the focus in each cycle changes, or progresses through the three great stages of spiritual growth. The great spiritual writers explained the stages of spiritual growth as purgation, illumination, and union. First, a soul is purged from sin, then they are filled with God’s light and wisdom, then their heart is knit together with God’s own heart in union. In reality, these things can happen simultaneously, but in Trinitytide we walk through these stages in a more linear fashion. We are nearing the end of the purgation cycle, and the deadly sin before us this week is envy, or covetousness. Now I told you that whole explanation would have something pertinent to the subject for today. The question is, “What does heresy have to do with covetousness? Throughout Scripture and history the root of heresy has always been covetousness. Eve: “desiring to make herself wise” attributed to God the heresy that He was trying to keep her from knowledge. Jeremiah 6:13, “For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” Even in apostolic times, 2 Peter 2:1, ”But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”

But the best passage to establish covetousness as the root of heresy is the Scripture appointed for Morning Prayer today, John 7:12-19. The context is that the people were afraid to accept Jesus for fear of the Jews. Some were calling him “a deceiver of the people” which is an Old Testament reference of a prophet who speaks heresy for his own gain. Jesus says in response, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. He that speaketh of himself seketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him.” He points out that Moses merely passed on what he had received. He certainly wouldn’t have passed on the commandment of circumcision just to be popular! The doctrine of God is from a higher authority. Contrariwise, those that speak their own doctrine do so for their own glory. Covetousness. And so Jesus speaks of them in our Gospel as “ravening wolves.”

Let’s recap and look at an example. Our Collect asks that God would “put away from us all hurtful things,” namely, and we get this from our Gospel and Morning Prayer readings, the hurtful heresy and false doctrines which come from covetous false teachers. I have said that there is nothing more hurtful than false doctrine, and that the spring from which it flows is the spring of covetousness. An example: There is hardly anything so unpopular today than the Church’s biblical stance on sexual ethics. I need not go through the list of recent happenings where Christians have reaped the whirlwind of public scrutiny for voicing God’s doctrine of chastity in both the homosexual and heterosexual spheres. The message is clear: if you covet the approval of the people, if you hope to progress to the upper levels of corporate responsibility, if you want the faith to have any relevance to the secular world, then shy away from the clear sexual ethics found in the Scriptures and taught in the Church for two thousand years. And so large portions of the Church deny the clear teaching of Scripture on these matters, they accept the heresy that we are somehow detached from our bodies, because they covet the popularity that comes to those that are “current” or “up with the times” or “politically correct.” I bring this up, not to be inflammatory, but to illustrate how heresy begins. We don’t want to be out of sync with the times, we covet the approval of the academy and pagans. The root of heresy is covetousness.

We must dig into the Scriptures, which as we will see is really the solution. Coupled with all of these passages appointed for today about the covetous false teachers are several readings concerning our love for Scriptures and the testimony of God. The Psalm for Morning Prayer is 119:33-48. I’ll read you a few verses of this psalm. Verse 36 and 39, “Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness…Take away the rebuke that I am afraid of, for thy judgments are good.” This shows the contrast perfectly. Instead of our heart inclining toward covetousness and the praise of the people, we are to incline our heart unto “thy testimonies” and call his judgments good. Isn’t that so difficult? It is difficult to love the Scriptures, to place ourselves under them, when academia, the State, and vast portions of society call us fools and bigots. But David continues, “So shall I make answer unto my blasphemers, for my trust is in thy word.” And, “I will speak of thy testimonies also, even before kings, and will not be ashamed.” And so the covetous plant of heresy, which produces such cruel fruit, yet receives the praise of the pagans, must be courageously rooted out by a devotion to the Scriptures.

A courageous devotion to the Scriptures; a courageous adherence to the testimonies and judgments of God: our lessons today have a word for it: Wisdom. Our first lesson in Morning Prayer is from Ecclesiasticus 1. A word on that. For some of you, that might be the first time you’ve ever heard anything out of the Apocrypha. For more of you, it is the first time you’ve heard it in church. Let me be clear: Anglicans do not believe that the Apocrypha is Scripture. We do not use them to establish doctrine or dogma. But we do believe they are very valuable for training in virtue and knowledge. So, they occasionally are included in the lessons for Morning Prayer. If you’ve never read the Apocrapha, I encourage you to do so. Really good stuff. A few verses, “The word of God most high is the fountain of wisdom. To whom hath the root of wisdom been revealed? The Lord sitting upon his throne. The fear of the Lord is a crown of wisdom…The fear of the Lord is wisdom and instruction…Distrust not the fear of the Lord when thou are poor…Be not an hypocrite in the sight of men.” The message is clear. Wisdom is in the words of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If we are to have wisdom; if we are to know truth from falsehood, orthodoxy from heresy, then we must fear the Lord and abide by His words. In other words, in place of coveting the world’s favor, we must have wisdom and fear the Lord. Covetousness will breed heresy, while wisdom will bear Truth.

Our Collect does just ask that God would keep from us all things hurtful. It bids us to pray that God would give us those things which are profitable to us. Just as there is nothing more cruel and hurtful that false doctrine, there is nothing more profitable than wisdom. Wisdom binds our hearts and minds to God and to His Word. Wisdom teaches us caution when the Faith is being changed in order to be “progressive” or “modern.” Wisdom helps us to see that it is only to curry the favor of the world, and not of God.

So be careful little flock. These are dangerous times. We cannot afford to be naive. Continue to love one another. Continue to love God’s Word together. Read it together, like the women are doing. Or, if you are keeping the Office and Lectionary. Study it together, labor to understand it. Pray for one another, that God would give all of you wisdom to know Truth and to love Goodness and Beauty. In closing, I bid you to covet. That’s right, I bid you to covet Truth. Covet a vision of God. Covet wisdom. Covet God’s approval instead of the world’s. And covet the life that flows from the Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, who puts away from us all things hurtful and gives us wisdom. Praise be to Him for ever and ever. Amen.