Sermon on 15th Sunday after Trinity - Fr Sam Rossiter

May it begin to me to speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Please do be seated.

People often speak of Christianity as if it is a dualistic religion. By that, they mean a faith which divides body and soul, matter and spirit. One which says that the spiritual stuff matters, and the material, excuse me, doesn't.

That suspicion has, in fact, followed Christianity for centuries. And on the surface, it sometimes seems like that idea comes even from the Bible itself. But in truth, Christianity is not dualistic.

In fact, very importantly, it is not. From the beginning, from the very first centuries, the Church rejected the dualisms of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. Both belief sets which had Christian components to them, both dismissed as heresies.

Gnosticism, the belief that all good things come from the spiritual, and all evil things from the material. Manichaeism, the belief that a good God wars against an evil God. Both rejected by the Church.

The Church has taught from its very earliest days that the faith is not about an escape from the body, or from the world. Christianity is incarnational. It proclaims Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh.

But even the readings that we heard today could easily be misunderstood as dualistic. Jesus said to his disciples, No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

And Paul wrote in his own hand to the Galatians, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Taken out of context, both of these passages sound like a rejection of the world, of the material, of our life, our body, that only the spiritual matters. But if we look more carefully, we will see that they mean something very different.

When St Paul spoke of the cross, he was not speaking of a spiritual symbol. Crucifixion was real, material, brutal. It involved wood, nails, blood, exhaustion, pain.

It was an event which was inflicted on the body in the most public and humiliating way. When the Romans came up with crucifixion, they made it to be a complete destruction of the body. Paul even wrote, from henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul did not believe that Christianity was about some spiritual world floating above the material. He said that his body bore the very marks of Christ, the marks of crucifixion. In fact, the cross itself is a great sign that the material world matters to God.

God didn't save humanity by ignoring the material world, but rather by entering into human suffering in the flesh. As Paul understood, if God only cared about spiritual things, then the crucifixion would in fact have meant and achieved very little. A God who would save us without touching the material world would not involve the body.

But in Christ, God chose to be nailed to a cross. Paul, therefore, doesn't reject the body any more than God does. Instead, he rejects a boast in the flesh, the outward signs like circumcision, which had become a source of pride to some in the church.

He wrote, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. What he was saying was that Christianity is not about escaping the material world, but about redeeming it. In the same way, Jesus' words are not dualistic.

He doesn't despise food or clothing or daily life. Instead, he says, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is the life not more than meat and the body more than raiment? And then draws our attention to the birds of the air, who neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but yet are fed by God the Father.

He points to the lilies of the field, which neither toil nor spin, but are arrayed more gloriously even than Solomon. In so doing, Jesus doesn't dismiss material needs. Instead, he says, your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

Instead, he reorders our world and our needs. He says, his problem is not with the body, but the anxiety which consumes us, the loyalty to mammon which enslaves us. He asks not that we despise the world, but instead that we put it into its proper place.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things shall be added unto you as well. And so this is the real message of Jesus and of Saint Paul. When Paul said that he was crucified to the world, he didn't mean that the world was worthless.

He meant that the world no longer controlled him. Its priorities, its persecutions, its temptations to boast or despair, these no longer held any power. When Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon, he didn't say that you should starve or be naked.

He said, choose whom you will serve. For life itself is a gift, and it is only found when we properly orientate it first towards God. And this is why Christianity has always rejected dualism.

We are not saved from the world, but within it. We are not called to despise the body, but to honour it as a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not asked to leave behind the earth, but to pray and work for its renewal.

And this is good news, because it means that our bodies matter. Our choices matter. Our care for one another matters.

Our stewardship for creation matters. But all of it is orientated towards Christ. The call of our readings is not to abandon the world, but to live in the world in freedom.

The cross frees us from being dominated by our material concerns. Jesus' words free us from the anxious grasping after the things of our body, and calls us to rely on the generosity of God. Together, Paul's words and Jesus' call us to live as a new creature, seeking first the kingdom of God, and then trusting that everything else will be given as well.

Paul's letter ends with a blessing. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.

That blessing is for all people, including us today. It is a blessing not just on the spirit, but upon the whole person. He says, the grace of Jesus be with you, body, mind, and spirit.

Focus your mind first on God, and then trust that all these things will be added to you as well. May we glory in the cross, and in the God who clothed the lilies, and feeds the birds, and who will never fail to clothe or feed us. Amen.